Listing During the Holidays – 3 Reasons Why It Works

Listing During the Holidays – 3 Reasons Why It Works

RECBL - Real Estate News

Before the internet, buying a home involved long hours of flipping through MLS books and driving prospects around neighborhoods; something many agents just didn't have time to do during the busy holiday season. Now that buyers are able to search, filter, and scan through potential listings without leaving their couch; home buying during the holidays has never been easier. Here are three reasons why your clients should list during the holiday season.

1. Capitalize on less competition.

During the holiday season, sellers can feel like they don't have enough time to maintain their home for showings or negotiate potential offers.

Because of this, they wait and re-list their homes at the beginning of the coming year. While this may make sense for some, it can also mean major missed opportunities.

The smaller number of listed properties can work out in your seller's favor since more potential buyers can potentially see your client's home. Make sure you take advantage of this opportunity by telling your clients to keep their homes show-ready at all times and recommending the best listing price possible. If your client's home has been on the market for a while, this may be an opportune time to consider a price adjustment.

2. Enhance the emotional experience.

Buying a home is an emotional experience for both the buyer and the seller. Often, the buyer's emotional connection to the home is what really solidifies the sale. The holidays are an especially sentimental time for many, as they bring back warm memories and allow buyers to imagine future celebrations.

Selling a home over the holiday season enhances the emotional connection that a potential buyer can make with your client's home. Foster this opportunity by reminding sellers to stage their home accordingly. Since different types of potential buyers will be coming to visit, avoid including overly religious decor. Instead, opt for simple and classic, such as a wreath on the door, a simple tree devoid of children's popsicle-stick decorations in the main room, and subtle garland in the kitchen. Also, consider burning a pine or cranberry-scented candle for those buyers who come over for a tour.

3. Work with motivated buyers.

If someone ventures out to look for a home during the holiday season, it's clear that they're a motivated buyer. Take advantage of this opportunity by making sure the property is marketed in the best way possible. This could be a great time to update listing pictures, check in with your clients on their listing price, or re-post the listing on your social pages or blog. In addition to this, remind sellers that they should be flexible around this time, in case a potential buyer wants to schedule a last-minute showing. This is also a reason why the listing should be in peak-showing condition.

Follow these tips and hopefully your clients will be out with the old and in with the new by New Year's Day!

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Facebook Shops Around for Its Next Business Endeavor: Rental Listings

Facebook Shops Around for Its Next Business Endeavor: Rental Listings

RECBL - Real Estate News

Once touted as the most popular and innovative internet community of its time, Facebook is now pushing to compete with trendy social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat. As part of its rebranding efforts to become an all-in-one service, Facebook recently added payment capabilities to its messaging service, along with various filters to its camera settings to mimic Instagram’s photo editing settings.

It is now making a move into the real estate industry by adding apartment and home rental listings onto its existing Marketplace storefront, which so far only included household items, job postings and car listings.

Adding a social media twist to a popular Craigslist service, Facebook is transforming apartment searching into an interactive experience by providing 360-degree photo capabilities and using social media profile information to reduce the chances of scams and unsafe transactions. And while consumers will be able to search for properties based on location, price, size, bedroom number and animal restrictions-information that is provided by landlords and leasing companies-a real estate agent is nowhere in sight. So, how is this going to be impact the industry?

For many real estate agents, being fully entrenched in the rental business is a great way to transition into buying and selling. This is especially true for greener agents that don’t yet have the real estate experience, and need to build business by working primarily with renters. After all, it’s safe to assume that many of those renters will become buyers someday. Not only is it a great way for agents to familiarize themselves with the industry, but it’s vital to building a contact database that they can grow.

Not only is Facebook looking to list its consumer’s properties using Marketplace, but it is also pulling property information from partnered sources-Apartment List and Zumper-which will integrate hundreds of thousands of listings. Although only in the early stages of adoption, the industry could see this as a direct challenge to Zillow and other popular home search sites. Unless Facebook decides to go the lead marketing and agent branding route with brokerages, as Zillow does, the real estate industry may see this as an unwelcome addition. So far, it doesn’t sound great for the industry overall. But here’s why it won’t be an overnight success:

Consumers Want Simple
The more capabilities are added onto an app, the more complex it will be come. Yes, consumers expect a one-stop shop for services that make sense together, such as ordering food and getting it delivered; however, Facebook is primarily a social media site, and thats what it will always be known for. While some community aspects like groups and neighborhood tag sales are successful, trying to condense an entire rental industry into an apps subcategory may be a stretch.

It’s Free, but at a Cost
While Facebook maintains that the service is free of charge, putting a rental listing on the market is well worth the commission paid. When using a real estate agent, the rental commission goes toward listing services, such as photography and staging, as well as marketing, consulting and vetting renter prospects. While working with a real estate agent may be more expensive, the money paid goes further in providing clients with piece of mind and ensuring a quick and smooth transaction. And while the partnered companies say they are relying on brokers, agents and other property managers to fill out the housing section, Facebook has not yet clarified how it plans to involve industry professionals in the process.

Transactions Won’t Be So Easy
The problem with marketing a rental outside a multiple listing service is visibility. A brokerage will be able to promote the listing, making it visible to its own set of renters, as well as the clients of other brokerages. By using the Marketplace platform, landlords will have to settle with renters who are primarily on Facebook, which may lengthen the renting process. There is also no vetting by an experienced agent involved. Landlords will have to deal with all credit types, and will have to request and go through references and rental histories on their own. Unless landlords find renter candidates from their own friends list, they will still be interacting with strangers, regardless of being members of the same social media site.

It will be interested to see how Facebook fares in its latest endeavor. But the industry will have to keep a watchful eye for signs of this social media enterprise involving itself in buying and selling real estate.

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5 Ways Your Listing Can Go Cold in a Hot Market

5 Ways Your Listing Can Go Cold in a Hot Market

RECBL - Real Estate News

Sometimes a great listing hits the market and just doesn’t sell. The reasons may be easy to pinpoint, but other times it takes some work to determine what the problem is. Here are some of the biggest reasons your listing may be stagnating on the market.

Clutter
First impressions are everything; if a potential buyer walks into a listing that has clutter everywhere, they can’t truly visualize and see the home for what it truly is. Buyers can’t fall in love with a house that has clutter everywhere. Make sure your listing isn’t buried under furniture, knick-knacks, papers and laundry. Also make sure everything from the floor, ceiling, and walls is spick and span.

Staging
If clutter is not the issue but your listing is still not selling, you may want to consider staging. Staging has been found to not only decrease the amount of time a listing spends on the market, but also increase the selling price. Find staging tips here.

Price
The initial listing price of a home is instrumental in how quickly it sells. Many sellers assume setting the price high and coming down later or being willing to accept a reasonable counter-offer if they don’t get much traction is a safe way to ensure they get the highest price for their home. In reality, starting with a high listing price just ensures that the buyers who are most compatible with the listing either don’t see it or move on because its outside what they’re comfortable paying. The buyers who are looking at homes for the price you set will see that there are other houses at the same price with more expensive upgrades.

Details
If the price is right and your listing is squeaky clean and clutter-free, you may want to check your listing details. For example, an extra zero can turn your $450,000 listing into a $4,500,000 listing, where it’s probably not going to get much traction. Double-check to make sure your information is accurate, make sure the description is interesting and informative, and your photos are professional and numerous. View a list of powerful words you can use in your listing description.

Disrepair
If everything else seems in order and your listing still isn’t selling, the problem may be the house itself. According to the 2016 NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, only 19 percent of buyers were willing to compromise on the condition of the home. Major repairs, such as a new roof or updated water heater, may be necessary to attract a buyer.

Know of other reasons your listing isn’t moving? We would love to hear from you in the comments below.

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The Power of Listings

The Power of Listings

Cash Buyers Lists The Power of Listings
#realestate #cashbuyerslists #listings #luxurylistings #property #house#home #fsbo #forsalebyowner #mls
One thing you’ll learn to do as a team is track everything. By developing great tracking systems, we learn to duplicate the right actions and activities that will generate the business needed to be successful. Your job as the leader, or CEO, of your team is to focus on business development and people development. By tracking the activities which generate business, we learn most team leaders find the greatest success when they focus on listings.
Read More> http://bit.ly/RECBL-March1


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