We just upgraded our website to handle up to 30 photos for each of our listed properties. Everyone else is at 25 or less. We strongly feel that if a home warrants extra photos the ability to display a large number of them can only help the buying process.
By increasing the number of photos, we continue the long established pattern of providing MORE for LESS commission. The marketing advantages Homeowners Concept offers also include our own full color magazine with the widest distribution in Southeast Wisconsin and our website which contains the most listings in this area. Couple the superior marketing with one of our highly skilled Realtors and the savings in commissions is your bonus!
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
For Sale By Owners (FSBO) sales have become non-existent.
Has anyone seen a For Sale By Owner (FSBO) sell in the last few months? We sure would like to know because we have been tracking a number of them over the last 12 months with none of them selling as a FSBO. The last national survey showed less than 10% of FSBOs were successful in 2008. It appears that the figure is much lower today and particularly so in Metro-Milwaukee.
Even in the best of times, during the real estate bubble years of 2002-2005 the best the FSBOs could do were to sell at a rate of about 4 out 10. Since then that rate has gone to oblivion. The number one reason for such monumental failure is the fact that FSBOs provide no help whatsoever to the buyer. If a buyer is interested in buying a property the buyer would most likely have to get an attorney, usually pay a retainer fee of at least $500, take off work (as most attorneys are 8-5) then go through the whole process of negotiating by themselves. Should the Offer not get accepted the buyer is out the money and time. Any issues that arise after the acceptance additional costs are involved. On the other hand, when a buyer buys a property listed by an agent the costs and time constraints are not there.
With such an overwhelming supply of homes to choose from (3 times the inventory of homes that was a few years back) one can see why the buyers shy away from the hassle of buying FSBO. Unless a property is a compelling bargain (much less than Fair Market Value) buyers refuse to venture into a transaction with a For Sale By Owner. You can't blame them.
By the way, Homeowners Concept started and continues to be the missing link for sellers that want to save money yet elevate their chances of selling to same or better than listed with a 6% Realtor. In the last 25 years in business we have assisted thousands of ex For Sale By Owners accomplish the goal of selling their home without paying a hefty commission.
Even in the best of times, during the real estate bubble years of 2002-2005 the best the FSBOs could do were to sell at a rate of about 4 out 10. Since then that rate has gone to oblivion. The number one reason for such monumental failure is the fact that FSBOs provide no help whatsoever to the buyer. If a buyer is interested in buying a property the buyer would most likely have to get an attorney, usually pay a retainer fee of at least $500, take off work (as most attorneys are 8-5) then go through the whole process of negotiating by themselves. Should the Offer not get accepted the buyer is out the money and time. Any issues that arise after the acceptance additional costs are involved. On the other hand, when a buyer buys a property listed by an agent the costs and time constraints are not there.
With such an overwhelming supply of homes to choose from (3 times the inventory of homes that was a few years back) one can see why the buyers shy away from the hassle of buying FSBO. Unless a property is a compelling bargain (much less than Fair Market Value) buyers refuse to venture into a transaction with a For Sale By Owner. You can't blame them.
By the way, Homeowners Concept started and continues to be the missing link for sellers that want to save money yet elevate their chances of selling to same or better than listed with a 6% Realtor. In the last 25 years in business we have assisted thousands of ex For Sale By Owners accomplish the goal of selling their home without paying a hefty commission.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Paying 6% AND getting less, sometimes much less.
We analyzed the listing history of a number of former clients. Over the course of the past three years, 34 former clients have signed with a high-commission company after their listing expired with us. These 34 clients are a case study in how a high-commission company does nothing to improve the chances of selling and is in fact, a huge rip-off.
On average, the high-commission company gets the seller to reduce their asking price -7.8% from our last list price. Once they finally sell (which less than 70% actually sold) they took another 188 days of marketing and they sold for -12.2% less than our last list price. So not only are these high-commission companies simply aggressively reducing the asking price, they are charging on average, almost $12,000 plus hundreds of dollars in administrative fees at closing.
Never in the over 25 years that we have been in business has a client stopped their listing with us, listed with a high-commission company and had the house sell for the same price we had it listed. Never. The first thing the new high commission broker does is reduce the asking price. And reduce it some more. And some more. You would think that if a broker was charging so much money they would have some fool-proof, miracle method of selling homes. They don't. They don't have any more effective means of selling a home than we do. In fact many don't have near the kind of innovative marketing that we provide and to add insult to injury, on average, the seller has to deal with a much less experienced agent that ours.
Some sellers are under this gross misperception that paying much more commission you somehow get more when the data shows that the opposite is true.
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