Just had to point this out…
Lydia Taylor November 30th, 2007
Isn’t this just the most amazing picture of Hong Kong? Wow.
Archive for November, 2007
5 Stupid Home Listing Tricks
Lydia Taylor November 20th, 2007
For the real estate professional, one of the biggest tasks in taking on a home listing is marketing the home. Some agents are more savvy than others, some agents invest more in marketing materials, and some agents (many actually) don’t do anything but list the home in the local MLS and stick a sign in the yard. Or maybe they just do the sign.
The primary way most agents can market your home is to publish your home listing in an MLS or Multiple Listing System. This a system used by Realtors to collate and share data with each other on the real estate market. Not just homes appear there- most MLS systems also have information on commercial real estate, and land & lots for sale.
For home sellers, the primary thing that your listing agent should do is list your home in the appropriate MLS system. For most of the service area of this website, that system is the GAAR-MLS, or Greater Augusta Area Realtors - Multiple Listing System. There is a local exception- nearby Aiken SC has a standalone MLS system. However, the Aiken area is also covered by the GAAR-MLS. This leads to an overlap where a home for sale in that area could be found in one or both Listing Systems. That leads to the first error in my list of stupid Realtor tricks:
Stupid Trick #1: List a home in the wrong MLS
I’ve run across homes listed in MLS systems that were physically located well outside of the actual intended coverage area of the MLS. The listing agent does bear responsibility to list the home with the proper Listing System, but it still occurs sometimes. Usually the cause is that someone has decided to use an out-of-area agent to market their home. That listing agent may not be a member of the local MLS, and therefore unable to list homes on the local board. Instead they just use the only MLS they have access to, which may be geographically far away from the listing. They could ask another agent in the locality to co-list, so the other agent can enter the home in the local MLS, but then they would have to split the commission. Why do that?
This condition causes those homes to get much less exposure to local buyers agents, as those Realtors in the area often don’t realize the home is even on the market. Situations like that can be very unfortunate for the property owner.
As I mentioned earlier, the Augusta area has two MLS boards that overlap. If you have a home that is located inside of Aiken or near the outskirts of Aiken, make sure you ask your Realtor which system they are using to market your home. It is possible they can market your home in either system, or both.
Stupid Trick #2: Don’t list a home on a MLS at all
Unfortunately many homes can be found where the listing agents don’t even bother to list the home in the MLS at all. They save money that way- the fees for accessing a MLS system to list houses typically are very expensive. Part-time agents, small brokerages, and just plain cheap-skates often fall in this category. Of course, if you are listing a home with someone in this group, you are rarely aware of that. If you haven’t prepared for extended holding costs due to dramatically lower exposure of the home to potential buyers, you may be in for a shock. I like think of it as the FSBO effect (For Sale by Owner homes are rarely marketed through a MLS).
Stupid Trick #3: Is your home actually marketed through a MLS?
Don’t take the listing agents word about the home being shown in a MLS either. I ran across one home seller who thought their home was marketed in the Augusta MLS. They found out otherwise after they fired their first listing agent and entered a listing agreement with another agent. All of a sudden they saw their home everywhere online! Trust, but verify: Ask your listing agent to send you a printout of the MLS entry. Verify the listing details and that it is indeed published in a MLS System backed by a Board of Realtors. Make sure what they give you is a legitimate MLS listing sheet located in the proper area (not just Zillow.com or some such).
There are two more tricks I’d like to share with you. One may affect you as a home seller, the other is just shady black-hat stuff that some real estate agents have been known to try.
Stupid Trick #4: Isolate your listing data in a black hole.
When a Realtor enters a listing in a MLS system, they can choose to ‘push’ the listing to extra-party ‘feeds’; OR they can hold the listing in such a way that it can only be seen through the main site- the one used by Realtors only. What does that mean? If they put a hold on the listing, it means that websites like mine and others that offer their visitors home search will NOT have any data on that home.
My site ‘pulls’ all current listings from the GAAR-MLS every night. Other sites, such as my brokerage’s website MeybohmRealtors.com, or the newspaper’s website at AugustaRealEstate.com, do the same thing. If a home is restricted from the feed, it won’t show up on those websites or any other second-party website. It will only show up on the official MLS board’s website.
Why would a listing agent do that? I dunno! I figure the more the merrier, so if those other sites want to help show off my listing, that’s great!
Other agents and brokers may not agree- they want to market the listing exclusively. It’s quite common to find homes listed only on the official MLS board that won’t be seen anywhere else.
Stupid Trick #5: Continually relist the home to hide the past.
Whats that ‘black hat’ trick? Well, that one is old as the hills, and happens throughout the United States. Lets say you list your home with a high initial asking price. After a month of no showings, you are starting to get frustrated. Thats when your listing agent suggests lowering the price, so naturally you go along with their advice. They could just change the price on the listing, but they don’t. What they actually do is pull the home off of whatever MLS they may be using, then create a new listing for the home at the lower price. Then the agent ‘relists’ the home. This starts the clock all over, and it appears that the home is newly listed due to the last listing date.
An agent doing this could claim a lower time-on-the-market before sell, or that they had x # of home listings in the last year, etc. There are other agents that play a variant on this game where they change the wording on the description or fix a miss-spelled word, doing whatever it takes for an excuse to re-list. Some agents will do this 4-5 times per home listing. MLS boards are starting to crack down on this, but it still happens, and in some cases state or local legislation has been proposed to deal with the problem.
One of the funniest instances of this that I personally encountered is where an agent sent a mailing of glossy postcards to all the addresses in my neighborhood. On it, they claimed that they had sold a nearby home less than 12 days after receiving the listing! The real story was that they had relisted the home multiple times- in fact the home had been on the market for many weeks. Every homeowner in the neighborhood knew that. But, the home had indeed sold only 12 days after the last re-list.
Final Thoughts:
All these stories are examples of Caveat venditor - which is Latin for ‘Let the seller beware’. When you are listing your home for sale, please, please, PLEASE interview your agent.
I have a few suggested questions for that interview: Are you listing my home in the local MLS system? Are there multiple MLS systems covering the area where my home is located? Will you use more than one to gain maximum exposure for my home? Will my listing be available online through extra-party websites? Will you practice honesty when handling my listing data, and will you use that data in self-promotional material later?
Don’t get Discouraged!
I don’t want to leave you with an impression that every listing agent is out to con you. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The majority are hard working and ethical. However it always helps to arm yourself with knowledge in every endeavor.
Lastly I wish you good luck selling your home! If you happen have a house in the Augusta area and need advice, have questions, or need a listing agent, feel free to give me a call. I’d love to list your home!
Wow, is blogging tough sometimes!
Lydia Taylor November 17th, 2007
For the last few weeks I’ve been so busy selling homes and promoting listings, it seems I have very little free time. Then there’s all the chores around the house, walking the dogs- it goes on and on. Oh, and did I mention I’m going to school in the evenings to get my Masters in Business degree? It has gotten to the point that when I get down time, I just want to veg out in front of the TV!!
One of the casualties of all this has been my blogging. I love to blog- it gives me a way to communicate to my clients and colleagues, it promotes the website, and it’s a free megaphone to the world on any topic I want to talk about. It’s cathartic.
I still read a ton of blogs, and try to comment on the interesting articles (after all, all bloggers love comments, it lets us know someone is reading the articles!) So, I was thinking I should point out all the blogs that I like to read. You would be surprised at all the great real estate blogs out there.
- Eric Bramletts Blog - In addition to being a Realtor, he is a do-it-yourself-er who has been posting about his efforts remodeling his house.
- Ryan Ward is one of my friends in Atlanta who has a great blogs here, and here, and here. Is he prolific or what? The guy is a one-man blogging army, and he’s on the RAMPAGE! I can’t believe how dedicated he is.
- Now we get to Joe and Colleen Lane. This high-powered duo practically own the Washington State market in their area, with their Kennewick Washington Blog, and their Tri-Cities Blog. Both of them are great writers, and they also have top-rated blog on REW. I’d love to be able to write great content like these two.
- Now, for super-high powered real estate bloggers, you can’t beat the Phoenix Real Estate Guy. His real name is Jay Thompson. I’ve linked to him before, and for good reason: he is one of the best out there.
- Then there is Dave Smith: He’s also out in Arizona, working on the Real Estate Blog Lab. He’s not actually in the ‘biz, so to speak, but his wife is. He certainly is a great blogger.
- The other ‘big dog’ in Arizona is the Bloodhound Blog. There must be something in the water out there in that state, because the online presence is amazing.
- Sellsius is a for-profit blog that rewards readers with great content. A persistent thorn in the side of Zillow.com, they definitely don’t hold any punches!
- This list just would not be complete without mentioning Stacey Macioszek’s Bluffton Real Estate Blog. If I ever get wealthy enough to retire and live on classic beachfront property, I’m calling Stacey. She is a super Realtor, a dedicated blogger, and that area is one of the hidden gems of South Carolina. She’ll be on Sellsius’ Top Women Bloggers list next year -or should be- in my mind.
I hope my readers take the time to visit some of these websites, because they offer some really good stuff. The really savvy real estate professionals are getting online, and showing their stuff. It sure beats the old days of word-of-mouth advertising and sales flyers. This way home buyers and sellers can get to know a Realtor online, in a casual way.
You know, now that I’ve seen all this competition, and read up on a little Real Estate Weblogging 101, I think I’m ready to get back to it. I hope you enjoyed my reading list. There is no question that there are many more quality blogs that I’m missing- so if you have a really good blog that you want me to take a look at, send me a line. I’d love to see what you’ve got!
A quick note about comments
Lydia Taylor November 13th, 2007
A note to my visitors leaving comments: Please use your real name or a nickname for comments. Any comments using promotional slogans, business names, etc. for your name will be deleted.
I value your insights, but please use comments for just that. Thank you!
Home for sale in Ivy Falls Plantation
Lydia Taylor November 1st, 2007
Sorry…seller removed this home from the market.
I had the privilege of listing a great house this Monday in Grovetown. It’s an all-brick ranch-style home, on a landscaped lot, in a cul-de-sac.
The property features a fireplace, a vaulted great room, a master’s suite with a tray ceiling, a large kitchen, a laundry room, two additional bedrooms, and 2 baths. The house measures out at approximately 1,414 square feet.
The neighborhood is Ivy Falls Plantation, which is a nice community. They have a community bike trail and of course a neighborhood swimming pool. It’s easy to find Ivy Falls as it’s just down Columbia Road from Roper’s Crossroads. This makes commuting to Fort Gordon, Evans, Martinez, or downtown Augusta pretty convenient.
What I’m doing to promote this home…
I really want to do a wonderful job for this client as it’s a great house at a great price. Of course I’ve already featured it on my elegant home listings page, which gives a lot more information on the house, as well as a map to get there. And on top of that, I’ve listed the home on Google’s Zillow, as a featured listing on Real Estate Webmasters, and of course…Craigslist!
I’m also sending a round of several hundred emails to all of my interested home buyers. Then a second round of emails to all the agents in my brokerage (200 agents). I’m pretty sure that will generate quite a lot of publicity for this home!!!
In addition to all that, I will be hosting an Open House this Sunday, November 4th from 2-4pm, so I hope you’ll come out and visit and say hello. Maybe buy a wonderful home while you’re there?
