Southwest Ohio Real Estate

  Cincinnati has the dubious honor of being ranked number 8 by Forbes magazine. Normally to be ranked so high by a magazine as prestigious as Forbes is a great thing. Unfortunately the articles title is "Riskiest U.S. Housing Markets". I am sure that people that live in Cincinnati love to know that Forbes believes that we are currently "precariously teetering and are not well equipped to handle further downturn. "

To read the entire article please click on the link and it will open in a new window.

http://www.forbes.com/2007/07/17/risk-housing-homes-forbeslife-cx_mw_0717realestate.html

   What has respect got to do with Real Estate? In my opinion a lot. Let me tell you a little story.

   I was holding a home open in June. A young couple came into the home and viewed it. On my open house house registration form they said that they were not working with another agent. They also let me know that they were pre-approved for a loan. I asked them who they were going through to get financed and they told me the name of the mortgage broker.  

  This broker works with referrals and does not do any walk in business so I knew that another agent had sent them there. I explored with them what they were looking for in a home and the price range that they were interested in. I tried to find out who the other agent that they had met was but they told me they could not remember. I knew that the agent worked with my broker but as we only have 1600 REALTORS® with the information I had I could not determine who it was.

  Last night we successfully negotiated a contract on a new home for them. This is a very nice 3 bedroom ranch that is cute as a button. At that point they shared with me that they remembered the agent that they had talked to. In fact they always knew who the agent was. They also told me that they would not share with me the name of the agent.

 What was the biggest factor in them searching for a new agent and finding me. The other agent told them "When you are serious about buying a house call me". They just took that the way it sounds. That the other agent did not have time to work with them unless they were ready to buy today.

 I took the time to explain the process and we looked at about a dozen homes together. At this last home on the second viewing I could not park in the driveway as we had the whole family there.  One of the fathers sat in as we were writing the contract. The whole time I treated everyone with the respect that a human deserves. As we were leaving and I was getting ready to deliver the contract to the listing agent the father thanked me for helping his daughter and walking her through the process. She has been talking highly of me to her family and there were a lot of them!  

 The strange thing to me is how the whole family thought that I treated my young clients wonderfully. I only treated them as I would want my own son to be treated and he is about their age.  

  I tried to schedule a showing on a property for Thursday evening. The home is listed by a listing service. In Ohio with proper disclosure signed and documented a brokerage can list a home on the MLS and offer absolutely no service to their "client".

  The showing instructions said to call the seller directly at a given phone number. The number was picked up by an answering machine that had reached its limit so no message could be given. I called the brokerage and let them know my dilemma. They in turn called the seller and in return gave me the message that the seller was out of town. The seller also did not rent a lock-box from the brokerage so they have to go unlock the home. The brokerage also told me that the seller will be back in town on Saturday and we can arrange showings for that evening!

 So here we are some people that would love to sell their home but may not have been coached on the best way to market the property. 

 It's hard to believe that the home can not be shown for almost a week because the key is out of town! 

    I do not pay for lead generation and never will. I feel that my marketing money is better spent promoting myself and my services rather than promoting a third party and allowing them to pass on to me whatever they can generate in my area.

  That said I received an interesting email from a lead generation company that promises costs that occur at closing.

"If I had a way to drive motivated customers to you with costs that occurred when you actually closed a transaction, would that interest you?"

  So far the program sounds interesting so they have a good hook to my attention. Now for the cost factor.

"We charge you a referral fee of 19% when an ******* consumer buys or sells a home through you.  Out of that 19% that we charge you, we will be providing 80% of it back to the consumer for having done business with you!  That is how ******** drives motivated consumers to use you as their agent."

  Now we are getting to the cost 19% at close does not sound bad. They are even offering a great program for the client. The buyer or seller gets a refund of 80% of the fee. This sounds like a good way to drive buyers and sellers to investigate the service.

 But it gets better!

 Now we get to the real cost of the service. This fee is in the small print at the bottom of the offer.

"Standard Listing:  1of 10 Agents per Zip, $19.95, Unlimited Zips, $69 Setup Fee (waived)- Monthly

Exclusive Premier:  1 of 3 Agents per Zip,  $79.95, 4 Zip Codes,  $19.95 Per Additional Zip Code,  $99 Setup Fee (waived)- Monthly

Exclusive Ownership:  100% Ownership, $129.95 a Zip $150 Setup Fee (waived), Sole Representative- Monthly"

  So they are offering me a program that has fees that I pay at closing and a monthly service fee. The Township that I live in is serviced by 5 Zip-codes so to be their exclusive agent in my Township it would only cost me 650.00 per month and 19% of any closed transaction.

Does this sound like a GREAT DEAL to you? 

 I received a comment from a Mortgage broker on one of my blogs. He was concerned about the privacy of marketing a home and showing multiple photos on the Internet. Here is his comment.

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I have some concerns with showing interiors of homes on the Internet.  Does anyone have any comments on this?

Greg Z

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  I felt the need to answer this with a blog post.

     Dear Greg,

   The people that I am partnering with to sell a home have decided that they want to sell not just "put the home on the market". They realise that you do not live in a home the same way you sell a home. As for interior photos, most people are using the Internet to select the homes that they want to see. 

  This is the information age that we live in. The buyers are not choosing the homes that they want to buy based on pictures. They are choosing properties to eliminate from their search. On a property that has no interior photos most people assume the worst and eliminate the property without ever going in.

 The sellers that I partner with have final approval of all photos that are posted on the Internet. They understand that the photos will be tasteful and discrete. The photos will show their home in the best light possible. The photos will try not to show any items that would encourage theft of items in their home.

  Greg when someone is looking on the Internet for the homes that they want view and they want to see what the kitchen looks like I sure don't want them to see this.

Thanks a lot,  Jim Gordon.

www.Find1Home.com 

  I just agreed to help a new client to sell their home. This client came to me as referral from a past satisfied friend that successfully sold their property with me. The property has been listed before and could be called an expired listing.  I prefer to think of this wonderful opportunity as a "never been tried to sell it" property.

  The property is a great 1700 square foot contemporary bi-level condo in an upscale community in our area. The condo community has all the bells and whistles.

  As I was asking the seller what was done before to market your home the response that I received was " I  don't know." The seller told me (I already knew it from my research) that their home had been listed with a flat rate broker. They enter your property in the MLS for a fee and forget about it. They have already made their money up front on the transaction and selling the property means extra work for them.

  The seller and I sat at the kitchen table going through the listing contract and when we came to the part about commission he did not bat an eye. He understood that I was going to do more than just enter the home in the MLS system. I am working with him to get the home sold. The advertising, my time, and my expertise all come at a price. The result may not be a sale but I am going to do whatever it takes to get this home sold.

 As for negotiating away my marking fee, because of the past experience of this new friend the subject of a reduction never came up. 

Sometimes people have to experience the bottom level of service to truly apprciate what can really be done with someone that cares.

    Has anyone else had the pleasure of talking to a new friend after they have went with a "list it and forget it" broker?

  I received a frantic call from a tenant that is living in the Golden House. He thought that the home was ready to blow up!

  He said the basement had a heavy natural gas smell in the basement and that he was afraid the home was going to explode!  I went over to his apartment and noticed no gas oder on the first floor. I proceeded with some trepidation to enter the basement. I had already turned on my flashlight as I did not want to turn on the lights if it was a gas leak.

  I noticed an odor but it did not smell like natural gas!

  It seems the male did a wonderful treat for his girlfriend and mopped the floors in the kitchen so she would not have to. He did everything but empty the mop bucket. The bucket full of dirty water he stuck in a corner of the basement. Given a couple of days to ferment the bucket of dirty mop water was beginning to smell like, well, bad!

  I emptied the mop water and rinsed out the bucket curing the problem. The cause of the smell will be between the two of us but another problem solved and a reminder to complete the job or you may end up with something that smells like sh*t!

   www.Find1Home.com

   I received an offer on one of my listings and was driving the counter offer back to the buyers agents office and lo and behold the office is closed! It seems that on July 1 their lease was up and they decided not to renew it. Something to do with it was costing them more to maintain the office than the income they were generating!

  Well I had called the buyers agent around 9 am and left a voice mail. The offer was set to expire at 12:00 noon so I called the Brokers main office. They told me to drop the counter off at their main office as this agent was working there now. It was only a 20 mile trip but something that I expected when I saw the office was closed.

 As I was getting off the expressway near the new office I received a call from the buyers agent. She is now working at another of the brokers offices so now I drive 25 miles north and a lot closer to where the listing was and a lot closer to where the old office was.

 I know that this is a time of transition for them but at least they could have a list of where the agents that were relocated are working.

 It just makes good sense.  

  Today July, 20, 2007 is my first anniversary on .

  Here are my first day details---

In the mean time I have had 2 Featured posts that I hope have helped to improve Active Rain and have had an impact on the way people conduct their business.

                               http://activerain.com/blogsview/45659/Discrimination

                               http://activerain.com/blogsview/122934/Ask-a-real-estate

  During this past year I have become acquainted with people from all over the country and it has been a real learning experience.

  Thanks a lot to Active Rain for the opportunity to meet all the wonderful people here and I am looking forward to where this adventure may go.