Your Job My Job Our Job

8 Reasons a Home Sells

• The Seller Sets the Price
• The Agent Brings the Market
• The Market Sets the Range
• The Buyer Sets the Value

I often think of my job as a 50/50 partnership with clients who are selling real estate in Bethesda, but in reality the job distribution is heavily weighted towards the seller’s responsibilities!   When all of their job is done mine can get done to the best of my ability.  But when even one of the factors in that red box gets short shrift I’m generally already swimming upstream.  Let’s look at each one:

Items the Seller Controls

• Choice of real estate agent – I’ll put this one first because it’s the most important choice a consumer can make.  We are not all alike and all homes and sales are not equal either.  Those of us who are good at our jobs understand that we’ll need to know the market and its trends intimately in order to help clients make good decisions.  The fit has to be right for the two sides to work well together because a lot of confidential information is shared and mutual trust established.
• Condition of the property – you always hear location, location, location but do you know that in a market glut of inventory condition is king?   The property needs to be on the very top of the buyer’s list in order to get it sold.  Clean, decluttered, neutral since it’s a product for sale now.
• Access to the property – put it on lockbox!  Appointment only, must call 24 hrs before showing, no showings at certain times will simply kill your sale.  Agents are too busy with buyers seeing many more properties than before so if it’s too hard to get in you get bypassed.
• Price of the property – I am here to advise clients.  It’s not my asset but I am here to help and advise and guide them into the appropriate price to get them to their goals.  By educating my clients fully on the market trends, lending climate and buyer psyche they are better able to understand how their property fits into what else is on the market.  Field trips to see everything that is going to be a competitive home are critical to this education.  If the price is not right the market speaks loud and clear and rejects the property outright!
• Terms of the contract –  when can a client settle on the property?  any seller offered closing credits?  flexibility in contingencies?  The more ability the client has to frame the terms of the contract as opportunities to get to their goals the better the outcome will be.  There is natural tension in the process but being able to stay focused on the larger goals allows the process to move along better.

Items the Agent Controls

• Maximizing exposure to the property – this is where your choice in real estate agent in Bethesda is critical.  We are not all clones and don’t plan for advertising the same way.  Some feel a sign and the MLS is enough and wonder how you spell this newfangled thing called the Internet.
  • Will open houses be beneficial?
  • What kind of pictures and where will they be placed?
  • Agents bring the majority of buyers so how will we market to the agents who have many of those buyers looking for homes?
  • 80% are looking on line so I make sure my client’s home is right there where they can find it.
  • How will they finance and what is currently available as an incentive my clients might offer to the buyers?
  • What is special about this house that caused them to buy it?  The next buyer might love it for the very same reasons.
  • My job as a listing agent is to bring the masses to my client’s home.  Where is that buyer?  We don’t know for sure so it’s a multipronged approach to get the home in front of as many eyeballs as we can!
• Skilled contract negotiations – sellers are too emotionally attached to their property to be effective at this themselves.  As an agent, I’m not.  Negotiation is not a hard skill but a softer understanding of what it will take to make the parties continue to focus on the greater goal.  Your mama was right when she said you’d get more with honey!  Listening and thinking outside the box are critical skills to be effective at the negotiating process.

Items no one Controls

• Location – it is what it is.  We do the best we can with challenges or play up the benefits of a great location.  When it’s a challenge price needs to be adjusted per the market understanding.

When all of these items come together perfectly there is generally a SOLD sign attached to the sign post in the front yard!  But none of the steps can be left out and neither the client nor I can be lax in our jobs.  They are counting on me to do my job.  I am counting on them to do their job.  Together our job is to get their home SOLD!