Okay, that's a little melodramatic and I don't have time to talk about everything I would change. And, frankly, I have no interest in ruling any world.
So, let me rephrase that. If I ruled my real estate company...
I'd pass this law: Any agent who works for me will have to prove to me, their queen, that the sellers they allow to hire them have either a strong NEED or a strong DESIRE to sell. No market-testers allowed.
My company's listings would be 100% marketable. My company's listings would sell. Buyer agents would flock to show my listings first because they are priced right, easy to show and smell good. Or if they aren't easy to show and/or smell awful, they are priced accordingly.
We'd take 60 day listing agreements and not a day longer. That's plenty of time to sell a home and frankly, I don't want my real estate sign sitting in front of a house any longer than that.
Sellers would have to sell themselves to my agents. My agents would have to sell their sellers to me.
If an agent didn't like my law, they could leave. But I think they'd love it once they understood it.
Copyright Jennifer Allan 2007
I don't think you have ever been accused of being shy! Great post and lots of fun! Keep it up.
It has been said : You Clain What You Proclaim...keep those positive affirmations and your business will change !
Great Post
Grace Safrin
Jennifer that is a great rule!! In fact it's been the rule in my office for years. Every listing has to be approved by me. Of course, being as how I am the only one in my office it makes things easier:)
I just made it to chapter 3.
There was a lyric from a band I liked in college that went something like this:
If IFs and BUTs were Candies and Nuts,
It'd be Christmas every Day
:)
I'm with you on everything but the 60 day listing period. We have 2.5 years worth of inventory right now and the average time on the market for a properly priced listing is around 9 months! The only ones that are moving fast are the ones that are priced BELOW everyone else.
Queen Jennifer Her Royal Highness,
Great post, and a great philosophy. What concerns me are all of the "ifs" and the "woulds". You DO rule your company, and they WILL do what you train them to do. So go and do it! What are you waiting for? :-)
Oh! I've always wanted to be queen too! :-)
And I agree with your laws 100%. We need to be careful picking our buyers too. The "oh maybe I'll buy a house if it's the perfect price, color, shape and on the perfect street with the perfect neighbor, but I really don't have to move out of my place until I die because I'm paying awesome rent" client should be weeded out before agents waste their unpaid time catering to their needs.
Oh, if I was queen, I'd be so happy!
So I'm not the only one up at 3am...
Ashley - let me know how your seller responds!
Well ... I'll be the Devil's Advocate and tell you of story from 1982. I was new to the business back then. One of the older, veteran agents in my office had just sold a home that she had listed for over a year. She said something to the effect of "If you can just hang on long enough, you can get the job done."
As we re-enter a slow market, and yes it is slowing here in Los Angeles, the unfortunate truth is that even with spot-on pricing, staging, and aggressive marketing, some properties are just not going to sell quickly.
We all may need to adjust to the concept of "hanging in for the long haul". :-/ !!
Linda - the stress is NOT worth it! Every time I've taken an overpriced listing, usually out of ego, I regret it. Nobody wins and nobody has fun.
Cheryl, I agree, when I sold real estate full time, most of my listings did sell eventually. Even the dogs. It's a whole new world out there and we'll just have to see how it all shakes out. Maybe a year to sell a house will be reasonable... but it's hard to imagine that with an abundance of inventory, a 365 DOM home will sell at a price acceptable to a seller. In the old days, sellers could eventually accept a low-ball offer because they had the equity. But now with the 100% mortgages & re-fi's out there... that may no longer be the case!
Jeniffer -- let me be the first to say, you allready are the Queen of your own company. If you are like the vast majority of Realtors, you are an independent contractor, which means you do set your own rules.
You can start the paradigm shift by starting with yourself. Set your own standards and follow them. If it works, others around you may begin to emulate you, (flock to the queens' banner?) and the shift will happen over time.
Good luck to you, your majesty.
I love your rules! The queen rules...yeah!
What a great message.
Sign me up too Jennifer,
Like you said - "too bad the real estate masses won't follow these perfect guidelines".
But, if they did, would all the houses sell?? and what if there aren't some "skanky", overpriced ones around for buyers to compare with our good ones.
I love it when I have a listing that's accessible, clean, staged and priced right in the same neighborhood with a listing that is not accessible and overpriced or "skanky". It helps my listing sell for more and faster!
Queen Jennifer,
I love it!!!! I recently 'offered' to cancel a listing if the seller wanted to try to sell it themselves because it was sooooo overpriced and I couldn't get them to come down.
Their complaint was that if someone would make an offer they would figure out a way to make it work.......my comeback.......'well, first we have to get them through the door and when there is a model match down the street for $20K less........where do you think they're going to go first?'
I learned the hard way and I couldn't agree with you more.
P.S. I love the picture!!!!!
What a great concept. I suppose the only way that would ever work though is if sellers agreed to pay a substantial non-refundable retainer, say $2000.00 to cover marketing costs and their agents time. Getting them a little more invested in the process would certainly motivate sellers to clean their houses up and price them right as well as keep the market testers away.
Awesome photo "Queen Jennifer"...."You go girl!"
Ashley - I know what you mean! Here's a thought... apparently they didn't hear you. So, in retrospect, how could you have shared this information differently so that they would hear you? This situation will come up again, so use it as a learning experience to do better next time. For example, if my home were on the market and my agent sent me a chart or graph every day showing me how my home compared to the competition, I probably wouldn't look at it because I don't like graphs. They don't speak to me. I'd be just like your sellers perplexed that my agent didn't warn me.
So, I wonder how many different delivery systems there are for communicating market data? Oral (out loud conversation), written (an explanatory, non-data email), CMA with photos & data emailed (that's what works for me), CMA with photos snail-mailed or delivered, tour of the competition, graphs and charts (Loreena does these exceptionally well)... what else?
Maybe we need to evaluate how our sellers best "hear" and work accordingly.