July 2011

How to Position Your Buyer Clients Favorably in REO Transactions

Someone once likened selling REO properties to rooting for the House at Blackjack.

There are many opportunities for selling agents, though. The volume of properties that banks have acquired has forced them to look at home values with clear eyes. In many ways, representing clients in the purchase of a foreclosed home is no different than helping them with the purchase of a home from a traditional seller.

Unfamiliarity with the differences, however, can lead to frustration, delays, unnecessary expenses and missed opportunities.

Low offers – few sellers—traditional or institutional—look forward to reviewing offers significantly below asking price. While a traditional seller may react emotionally to a low offer, a bank will not. In fact, they probably won’t react at all. In instances where a property has just been listed, your client may not even get a counter-offer.

Institutional sellers do their best to set a price at which their properties will sell within 90 days. An offer that is less than 90% of the asking price will rarely be considered during that period. In fact, REO homes are priced so competitively, it’s common to see multiple offers in the first two weeks of a listing.

Paperwork – Institutional sellers are big businesses that love procedures. Considering the huge volume of homes banks are disposing and that a typical asset manager handles 400 properties, it makes sense.  Most REO agents will include a checklist with every agreement they send to an agent for buyer signature. Please take the time to review it. Failure to follow it exactly almost always will cause delays and extra work. And “minor” changes to a seller addendum requested by your client or their attorney? Not going to happen.

Five Tips to Make Sure Your Seller Doesn’t Switch Agents

In the current real estate market, with home sales slumping like an injured athlete, many sellers are pulling out all the stops to get their homes to sell. One of the most common tactics is to change REALTORS® when the one they’re using isn’t getting the job done. However, one expert believes that there is another way.

“Switching REALTORS® every few months is not necessarily a strategy for success,” says Pat Hiban, a billion-dollar selling real estate agent and author of 6 Steps to 7 Figures, a self-help guide for realty agents. “In this market, it’s not uncommon for a home to stay on the market for many months. The problem with switching agents frequently is that sellers eat up a lot of time with the learning curve with each agency change. Every time a seller finds an agent, they lose their institutional memory with regard to their house and their situation.”

Hiban advises real estate agents to adhere to the following five steps to ensure their sellers don’t look to hire a different agent:

Be Proactive – Successful people are productive every morning. In sales, that means you need to make prospecting calls, do open houses, call contacts, write notes to people, make new contacts, and get in people’s faces. Instead of waiting around for the phone to ring, work every avenue you can.

Plan The Week – Set your agenda for the week, and make sure you are doing something every day to promote your property. Some REALTORS® tend not to pay attention to properties that aren’t generating a lot of excitement, and instead they focus on the properties that might be easier to move. Stay focused with an agenda every week, and you’ll increase your chances of being successful.

Get Busy – Activity breeds activity. It’s a universal truth that the more you push your flow out to potential buyers, the more inward flow of contacts you’ll generate. One thing really does lead to another, so even when the response is slow, keep plugging away. You never know when you’ll catch a break, but if you aren’t in the game and getting out in the community, you’ll never have a chance to find one.

Accept All Invitations – Networking can many times win the day, and real estate agents typically receive every invitation available to local networking and community events. When you attend these functions, everyone in the room could be a potential client or a potential buyer.

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Green Living: Low-Impact Summer

It gets so busy during the summertime. Sometimes it feels as though time has literally sped up. Softball games, family reunions, and camps mean running from point A to point B in a hurry. It’s easy to lose sight of the small things.

Little changes are how we make a big difference with the environment. From taking shorter showers to upgrading our appliances, there are ways each day we can help Mother Earth enjoy the summer as much as we do!

How can you have a low-impact summer? Our experts give us the following tips.

First, support your local growers. Get produce at your area’s Farmers’ Market. Buy fruits and veggies in the “grown local” section of your favorite grocery. This may not seem like a big deal, but it supports local commerce and reduces the amount of fuels needed to transport your produce.

The next step also pertains to our food. Grow it yourself! Growing a simple vegetable garden is easier than you think. Most of the work goes into good prepping. Periodic weeding and harvesting are simple manual tasks that deliver real fruits of your “labor.” Save money on your electric bill and contribute to a “new” way of living that is spreading across the country.

If you grow your own garden, consider being as natural or organic as possible. There are a plethora of wonderful products on the market that help keep bugs at bay.

Natural bug repellants are available for humans, too! Geraniums secrete a scent that drives mosquitos away. Mix a few drops of essential oils (citronella, orange, and rose geranium) into a spray bottle of water. Use this to spray down your legs and arms before any trip outside or to the garden. Not only will you smell good, you’ll be a “no bug zone.”

Are you looking for ways to save on energy and fuel costs? Start with your travel habits. Cars, even the most energy efficient models, consume mass amounts of gasoline, which has been refined from oil. The amount of energy and pollution that is involved in refining these products would astound you! Be organized and plan trips to the store. Also consider carpooling or using public transit! Your city may have HOV lanes, or high occupancy vehicle lanes. This means if there is more than one person in your car, you get a free pass around the rush hour traffic! If you have a walkable city, use your legs to walk or bike.

On the inside of your home you can save energy by upgrading your appliances. Newer Energy Star appliances use a fraction of the energy that their older counterparts did. You’ll be surprised how much your electric bill drops in the first month!

Keep your home and yard cool for years to come by planting shade trees. Trees give our environment so much. They deliver loads of oxygen, all while consuming our nasty carbon dioxide. They help to reduce global warming with this effect! And of course, the give us shade to enjoy those evening glasses of iced tea.

Little habits add up to big change. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Every day is a new day. Pick one thing to change today. Pick another next week and start a new habit.