Maryland Real Estate

Lie To Your Realtor So She Won’t Lie To You!!!

over 500k is a disaster. I’m not sure what areas encompass the “Baltimore Metro Area” though.

How in the world did Atlanta Bread off of McGraw Road in East Columbia close down already? And how in the world did Quizno’s in Maple Lawn close? Don’t the freakin franchisers of these places tell you what rent is acceptable to be able to profit? How do you go into business like that without enough reserve to even last one year? That is weird if you ask me.

A seller just stormed out of our office!!!!!!

Slam went the door….

VROOM went the exhaust of the car as it sped away.

Today a seller stormed out of the office, not mad at me or my partner Mike Sloan, but mad at the market. [Well........maybe they did shoot the messenger.......but it's an occupational hazard these days.] Mike told them ” I don’t control the market, I just interpret it.” Unfortunately they didn’t buy that line. This potential seller wanted to know why we couldn’t get $70K more than all of their neighbors. Mike told them, “For the same reason you can’t get $5,000 a share for your google stock…………you sell at what the market will pay, not at what you want.” They didn’t appreciate that line either.

Last week , Mike and I went a met a builder that has 8 subdivisions that do sales for themselves but have a small subdivision (5 homes left) that they wanted us to sell for them. The only thing was….they wanted to raise the prices 10% to cover our commissions and they wanted us to staff the model home 7 days a week. Price is everything folks, and if they can’t sell them at the prices they are at today, how are we going to sell them for 10% higher? I could move into that darn model home and spend my days walking around it with a sandwich board and a hundred balloons but if it’s not priced right, they aren’t going to sell. We gave them the ole…” I would rather turn you down now then let you down later” line. Hey, it’s the truth. All we would do is dissapoint them, unfortunately. Same with the seller that stormed out. We would dissapoint them if we took the listing at $70K more than market and it wouldn’t be their fault or the market’s fault at the end of the day…it would be our fault!!!! It’s always our fault if the sucker doesn’t sell.

Our new T.V. ad seems to be doing well. I’m running 50% of them with NO SOUND and 50% of them with an Elvis rip-off elevator tune of “A little less talk, a little more action”. Have you seen it? People are signing up for the TRUTH AUDIT now and it seems to be working. Our ratio of listings to pendings is higher than it’s been in over a year. More and more people can handle the truth it seems…and the one’s that can’t…well they slam the door and speed off.

BRAC, BRAC,BRAC,BRAC,BRAC!!!!

I just returned from the Brac presentation at Anne Arundel Community College. Here’s two things I know and one thing I think.

I know:

1. The Maryland Base Realignment and Closure is going to be a slow process that will take until 2015 to completley feel economically.
2. The impact will be a local impact affecting some very specific areas and not affecting others at all.

I think:

• All of the statistics used at this presentation (which I have the power point for and will share them with you a few at a time) do not include the rates at which the state is losing households and do not include the 20,000 job decrease in jobs to the state when comparing 2006 to 2008.

Because these negative statistics are a moving target no one really knows if BRAC will save us from the real estate recession that we are currently living in.

Look at this first graph showing the amount of new jobs……..this is good, absolutely good. I am very happy that my kids will have so many great jobs available to them locally. I have friends whose children have gone to other States for the type of job they wanted and here we have some great quality opportunities right in our backyard that didn’t exist before.

This graph shows that 42% of the new jobs will go to Ft. Meade and 56% to Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Harford County.

Howard County Housing Statistics March 2008

Here’s the scoop………….1,452 active single family homes in Howard County and 219 under contract. That’s 15% which is decent compared with 7% last month. Inventory skyrocketed though because 505 new sellers raised there hands last month and said “OOOH OOH OOH PICK ME, PICK ME!!!” The upper end is getting slammed, the county can only claim 10 pending listings currently over 800k. That’s it- 10. Right now there are 252 homes to look at over 800k so that’s 17% of the market and only 4% of the sales. The supply over 800k continues to increase and the demand continues to decrease. If you took ECON 101 in college than I don’t need to say more.

I’m going to a speech next Wednesday at Anne Arundel Community College given by the top top top top guy in charge of BRAC. He’s Mr. Brac. Anyway I’ll blog about what he says. The speech is called “Is BRAC for real?”. Should be good.

I also have posted the Howard County Housing Statistics for condos which are not included in the above numbers. Look at the condo numbers over 500k………..wow………might as well mail the bank back your key!!!!! All the 55 plus condos are getting outright ruined by this market if they are over half a million. Glad I didn’t buy one for my Mom.

Go see the new http://hiban.com/ website

Let me know what you think.

Your truthful blogger,

Pat

Confessions of a Top Listing Agent – Why I overprice homes…

I overprice homes for 3 reasons:

1. BUYER SIDE COMMISSIONS - I get buyer calls off the signs that I can flip to other properties and make a 2.5-3% commission off another listing. Rule of thumb is I can make 2 buyer sales from one listing. So even if I never sell the listing I made 2 commissions from it. I have done this over and over again. The longer the sign is there the more buyers I get.

2. BRANDING - Last year we listed 112 homes that were solely tracked to one source…….. Signs. People always say to me “I see your signs everywhere”. In perspective we listed 49 homes from T.V. commercials and that cost me $96,431. I got over twice as many listings for free compared to close to 100k. The more signs the better for me.

3. COMPETITION - Let’s face it , no one likes to lose. I can honestly say that if you tell me I am the only realtor you are talking to I will give you a lower price than if you say you are talking to several. Why? Not because you get more money by talking to more than one…….it’s because I fear that I will lose you as a customer (and this is a valid and proven fear from 21 years experience against the same competitors) . I know my competitor will seduce you with a high price in a very confident manner and then call you and tell you the market has changed or they made a mistake and it’s time to lower it ………………again and again and again…..until it sells. Although it took 9 months and required more work on the realtor’s part…….at the end of the day……..he got paid and I didn’t. So I lie to compete. I overprice it to win. I play the same game he does. For my past clients and friends……I tell them the truth from the beginning and it sells in the time it’s supposed to.

These next two are NOT my confessions. These could possibly be the confessions of other agents in my market. So that the blog flows better, I have put them in the first person, but in NO WAY are they my reality or my teams reality.

4. STUPIDITY - I overprice homes because I don’t know any better. I am a salesperson not an analyst. I can sell Ice to an Eskimo but when it comes to math, I stink, when it comes to analysis, I stink, so I overprice your home by mistake because I don’t know how to read an appraisal or how to do a proper and up-to-date market analysis of your home’s true value.

5. HASTE - I overprice homes because I don’t take the time necessary to properly price it. In haste, I don’t pay attention to the details in the home or the details of a thorough market analysis.