Long term planning of selling your home?

[EddieWalker]

If I was thinking of selling, and it could be this year, next year, or five years from now, I would start asking my personal friends who they used and if they where happy with them. Then I would look up those realtors to get an idea of how busy they are. The goal would be to find out who is selling a lot of homes in your area. This would all be done in your free time, and without any rush to call anybody. You just want to start building a list of names.

Pretty soon, you'll see who the big sellers are. They will have a team, they will be advertising, and they will have the better websites with the best pictures and videos.

Figure out who the best five are, or more, and give them each a call. Tell them that you want to sell your house, that you don't have a realtor, but that you are looking to hire one when you are ready to list it, and you wanted to know if they had time to come by and look at your house to give you and idea of what you need to do to make it sell faster and for the most money.

Realtors do this almost every day. If not, they REALLY WANT to do this every day. This is how they get people to sign contractors with them to sell their homes. Be honest with them about wanting to talk to other realtors before you commit. Their might be some pressure to get you to commit right away, but that's where you decide if that person is too pushy, or desperate. Just remember to talk to as many as possible, and NEVER sign anything.

You can tell them that you have a five year plan, but I wouldn't. I would say that you are wanting to sell as soon as you have everything ready to get the best price for your current house, and when you have found the perfect house to move buy. In all honesty, it could be less then five years, or it could be more.

I would be shocked if you called a realtor and they didn't drop everything and run to your house to meet with you.

In my experience, it's the same when buying an HVAC system. Call multiple companies, schedule a meeting with them, and listen to what they have to offer. Thank them for their time, and tell them that you will think about what they said. Then have another meeting with another company to see what they say. In my experience, one of them will stand out as the best choice.

 

[ultrarunner]

Pitfalls and traps exist lying in wait.

Several times I have had to go to city and/or county archives to head off situations.

One property I was selling had an accessory building and a converted attached garage on a 1940 home.

The original owner was a photographer and the accessory building was to develop film and the garage was his studio.

We were in contract and the buyers pulled out and paid a lawyer to write a demand letter for costs/damages for non disclosure about the conversion and out building.

City records did not show either listed online or in person at the counter. The city seemed like I was bothering them.

I went to the Assessors office at the county seat and found a very helpful individual who pulled the paper documents and found the garage with permit as well as outbuilding with permit listed… yet no where to be found digitally.

I went back to the city a little miffed but with permit numbers they cross referenced and determined valid.

The explanation is the conversion happened during WWII and documents during this period are problematic.

So the buyer that threatened legal action now knew all was proper and wanted to go ahead… not going to happen on my watch.

I relisted at a slightly higher price adding the documentation and sold for the higher price…

The original buyers demanded 8k to walk away on a 90k listing.

I sold at 94k and my buyers still live there and very happy.

 

[plowhog]

Pretty soon, you'll see who the big sellers are. They will have a team, they will be advertising, and they will have the better websites with the best pictures and videos.

Real Estate is such an interesting business. Like many businesses, the appeal of volume and success is desirable.

Just be aware there is a downside to hooking up with the "most successful team" in the area. And what might be "appealing" to a lone seller or buyer might not be useful at all in selling your home.

For example, having a flashy website, in my opinion, has no impact on success of selling a home. Zero. It is appealing to a lone buyer or seller who is browsing the internet, but not to a RE professional.

RE professionals use and rely on MLS access, which will include everything (or most everything) on the flashy website plus includes non-public comments and documents that only the paying members can see. Since everything is available through MLS, in virtually every case the RE agent will never even see the other agents website. And a good RE agent will be examining many properties which would preclude chasing down and looking at them one at a time on individual websites. It happens, of course, but it is not the primary channel a RE professional uses.

In my neighborhood in Northern California, a team led by M*** R**** is predominant. Signs everywhere, massive marketing in local print publications, local news website, and more. Lots of references to "closed X million in sales last year!" This person closes an incredible amount of deals and makes an incredible amount of money. But there is also a string of disappointed buyers and sellers who ran into problems during the purchase or escrow, and who never once spoke to or met M*** R****. The figurehead person at the top interacts only with the most high profile clients-- kicking the rest of the leads to other "team members." (I know one of those highly disappointed sellers personally.)

Eddie, you made a very good point of interviewing multiple RE agents and getting to know them before making a decision. That is advice I agree with 100%. It is just personal opinion, but I believe working with a strong "lone wolf" agent on their own, carefully selected, will deliver better service. They could be employed by a local broker-- no problem with that-- but I've seen as the "team" grows larger the service to each client typically declines.

 

[EddieWalker]

I agree that it's easy to get lost in the crowd when hiring a big firm, but I believe there is a reason they sell more houses then the small guy, and it's not because the small guy doesn't want to make a lot of money.

If you take out the word "flashy" from your description of their website, and consider that it's an effective tool if used correctly, it becomes a good tool in selling a home.

Most people are looking online for a place before talking to a listing agent. If there are a lot of good quality pictures of a property, it's more likely that a buyer will contact the agent.

The issue that I have with the "lone wolf" agent is if they only sell a few houses a year. The vast majority of agents are not very good at what they do, and rarely do they make the big money because they never figure it out.

I would be very very nervous about hiring somebody that doesn't sell a lot of houses every year. If they just sell one a month, or less, then it's either a part time job for that person, or they are not very good at it. If I'm selling, I want the most aggressive person that I can find who will push for the top dollar, and use every marketing technique out there to get it done.

 

[Sigarms]

None. Maintain what you have. When the time gets closer to putting it on the market, say one year, see what's popular.

I consider my wife pretty smart.

She's not a big "popular fan" LOL

We could spend up to 80k on a kitchen, but what we want may not be what someone else wants.

We did the main baths upstairs to which we consider nice and neutral, but still a major update.

The issue is looking at the kitchen (and floors and ceiling tiles), it can become more of a personal opinion on what you or they buyer likes.

 

[Sigarms]

Real Estate is such an interesting business. Like many businesses, the appeal of volume and success is desirable.

Just be aware there is a downside to hooking up with the "most successful team" in the area. And what might be "appealing" to a lone seller or buyer might not be useful at all in selling your home.

For example, having a flashy website, in my opinion, has no impact on success of selling a home. Zero. It is appealing to a lone buyer or seller who is browsing the internet, but not to a RE professional.

RE professionals use and rely on MLS access, which will include everything (or most everything) on the flashy website plus includes non-public comments and documents that only the paying members can see. Since everything is available through MLS, in virtually every case the RE agent will never even see the other agents website. And a good RE agent will be examining many properties which would preclude chasing down and looking at them one at a time on individual websites. It happens, of course, but it is not the primary channel a RE professional uses.

In my neighborhood in Northern California, a team led by M*** R**** is predominant. Signs everywhere, massive marketing in local print publications, local news website, and more. Lots of references to "closed X million in sales last year!" This person closes an incredible amount of deals and makes an incredible amount of money. But there is also a string of disappointed buyers and sellers who ran into problems during the purchase or escrow, and who never once spoke to or met M*** R****. The figurehead person at the top interacts only with the most high profile clients-- kicking the rest of the leads to other "team members." (I know one of those highly disappointed sellers personally.)

Eddie, you made a very good point of interviewing multiple RE agents and getting to know them before making a decision. That is advice I agree with 100%. It is just personal opinion, but I believe working with a strong "lone wolf" agent on their own, carefully selected, will deliver better service. They could be employed by a local broker-- no problem with that-- but I've seen as the "team" grows larger the service to each client typically declines.

Honestly, that's exactly why I like the guy who sold us the place.

He did a great job, and the reality is although he made money, it wasn't his "bread and butter" vs commercial.

There is one woman who I see who works with certain houses in our area that seems to have a good success rate. I may call her just to ask her opinion and see where that leads.

Yes, we can wait, but if I haven't mentioned it, I can be **** retentive LMAO.

 

[Sigarms]

In my experience, it's the same when buying an HVAC system. Call multiple companies, schedule a meeting with them, and listen to what they have to offer. Thank them for their time, and tell them that you will think about what they said. Then have another meeting with another company to see what they say. In my experience, one of them will stand out as the best choice.

If you are serious about changing out your HVAC system, I can tell you for a fact that you can look at 5 different quotes, and generally the more detailed one will cost you more money LOL

That's not a bad thing, but some GOOD contractors just don't know how to communicate, particularly on a written proposal.

I don't normally deal with homeowners, but the very few times I do, I get the job because I offer the best advice IMO, even though my quote isn't the lowest.

Going off the appraisers "rule of thumb", we will greatly recoup our money on what we paid for the place, the question becomes how much more and how much more should we invest, if anything.

But yes, even if it's 5 years from now, it would make sense for the opportunity to see a potential customer is worth a couple hours of your "free time" (not really free, question becomes how busy you are doing real work to get to the "free advice" IMO).

One reason why my wife gets upset at me for answering my phone between 0500 and 21:00 (I'm in bed by that time and generally asleep 15 mintues later LOL). That said, the pro is I set my own schedule and and don't work in a office 9-5)

 

[plowhog]

Most people are looking online for a place before talking to a listing agent. If there are a lot of good quality pictures of a property, it's more likely that a buyer will contact the agent.

I would be very very nervous about hiring somebody that doesn't sell a lot of houses every year. If they just sell one a month, or less, then it's either a part time job for that person, or they are not very good at it.

I believe where we differ is whether a team's quantity of home sales can be closely tied to quality of representation. The team approach excels at building quantity of deals-- no disagreement on that.

To handle a growing quantity of deals, more agents get added. But they are not the best agents. The best either are independently successful, or already have their own team. With pressure to get "anyone" that is licensed to handle increasing volumes of deals, that can lead to hiring sub-par agents. A "shining star" agent can typically make much more money on their own-- instead of joining someone else's team and splitting their commission even further. What happens when a team develops weak links?

When I purchased my residence property here in Nevada, it was owned by multiple siblings who inherited it. The property was in a trust. The siblings did not agree about value or even selling. A difficult set of circumstances. Their real estate agent, G**** K***, had 25-30 years experience in RE and had chosen to wind down to only do certain deals, such as past relationships, repeat clients, etc. I would guess she did 6-10 deals per year in the twilight of a successful career.

She was the toughest, most knowledgeable "opponent" I have ever had on the other side of a transaction. Outside of a client's view, some or many RE agents blab confidential information-- even though they should not plus it is an ethics violation. But, getting any tidbits or inside information from her was impossible. Very professional. I now recommend her to others wanting to do deals.

Below is a very good cross-section of buyer habits as published by the National Association of Realtors. Of note is that almost 90% of buyers used a RE agent, but just 7% found that agent after seeing a property online and making an inquiry.

There is no right or wrong here-- plenty of good teams or poor teams, also good individual agents versus poor ones. So making a wise selection is recommended no matter which route you take.

Highlights From the Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers

For most home buyers, the purchase of real estate is one of the largest financial transactions they will make.

www.nar.realtor

 

[Sigarms]

To handle a growing quantity of deals, more agents get added. But they are not the best agents. The best either are independently successful, or already have their own team. With pressure to get "anyone" that is licensed to handle increasing volumes of deals, that can lead to hiring sub-par agents. A "shining star" agent can typically make much more money on their own-- instead of joining someone else's team and splitting their commission even further. What happens when a team develops weak links?

I have to laugh, for the last 20 years, I've been explaining to people that the company I work for is no different than McDonalds.

"You know what you're going to get, you just aren't exactly sure how you're going to get it"

The issue is with any business... you have a successful owner who starts the business, but when you grow that business, you have to hire more people. The issue is hiring the same type of people who are likeminded as the owner.

An expression I have always used along with the 20 year Mickie D analogy is "people buy from people, they don't buy from companies".

The hard part is finding the right people when you're buying