1. Big Discount - Home buyers want a big discount from list price. If the market value of a home is $400,000 and you price it at $375,000 to sell it quickly, buyers still want a large discount from list price.

2. Sellers Pain - If the home seller does not appear to be in pain many buyers won’t feel like they are getting a good enough deal. Even, if they are getting a heck of a price for the home.

3. Foreclosures - Buyers tend to think that all foreclosures are a sweet deal. That is not always the case. 

4. Short Sales - Many banks still stink at getting a short sale approved quickly. A friend of mine recently had a short sale close and said the bank had 17 different people touch the file. No wonder the banks are in trouble.

5. Bad News - Sellers are quick to ignore the bad real estate news but very quick to latch on to the good news.

6. Good News - Buyers are quick to ignore the good real estate news but very quick to latch on to the bad news.

7. Time to spare - Many home buyers feel like they have all of the time in the world.

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If you go back to your high school or college economics class you may remember that the price of anything is determined by supply and demand. The law of demand states that when a market demands a high quantity of a good or service, the price of the good or service will be high. When the market demands a low quantity the prices will be low.

This model holds true in the real estate market as well. So to set a bottom in the market we need more demand or lower supplies. Realtors do their best to increase demand but one thing that we can do for sure is to get rid of our overpriced listings.

Get rid of your overpriced listings.

We won’t see the real estate market bottom out until the number of properties currently for sale is reduced. The biggest thing that we can do as Realtors is to not renew our overpriced listings and don’t take any more.

One of the biggest challenges when working with a buyer is not only finding them a property they like but finding one that they like with a realistic seller. After all of the horrible news about the real estate market and the recession there are still so many overpriced properties out there.

I haven’t done any formal analysis but I would bet that in any particular neighborhood you will find 25% to 50% of the homes for sale have no chance of selling because of their asking price. If we could get rid of a good portion of these overpriced listings we will be that much closer to finding a bottom.

Why do Realtors take overpriced listings? Continue reading this post

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions - at least not in the traditional sense that many of us think of. Instead, I find it more productive to set goals. Some are general, some specific. For example, it wouldn’t be wise to set a resolution to get more closings in 2009. That’s not going to actually help me achieve more closings that I actually seek.

Instead, I look back to see what I might have done wrong in the past and resolve to improve. For me, this would be that I don’t think that I seized on many of the opportunities to turn leads into clients and clients into closings. Considering the real estate climate last year and the likelihood that it will continue well in to 2009 or longer, I consider making the most out of each and every opportunity the highest priority for 2009.

In other words, conversion.

For many, 2008 was a transitional year while others laid the foundation for a successful career for years to come. Wherever you may be in your career, it’s time to put 2008 behind us and be prepared to seize all opportunities that present themselves to us in the upcoming year. To do this successfully, we need to be prepared.

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Yesterday I was perusing online through my cell phone bill. I took note that my two teenagers ages 15 and 17 had sent and received over 10,000 text messages – in December.

The two adults in the home sent and received approximately 400 text messages this month -– mostly between the aforementioned teenaged children. Sometimes it seems like I text them more often than I talk to them.

This got me to wondering about the future of communicating in the real estate industry.

As I write this, I’m looking at an email inbox containing 5,586 messages. Lousy email management skills aside, this is an indication of how often I send and receive emails. As I look into my sent mail folder, I see that I have sent an average of 11.33 emails each day this month. These are emails sent from Continue reading this post

We are proud to introduce our next guest blogger, Russell Shaw.

Mr. Shaw, who hails from Phoenix,  generally needs no introduction as he has been recognized by the Wall Street Journal as one of the top 200 Real Estate Agents in the United States for numbers of units sold. (Mr. Shawn clocked in at number 25.)

Russell has a love for imparting his wisdom to fellow agents and is a contributor to the Agent Genius Blog.

We are delighted to welcome Russell to the list of HomeGain Guest Bloggers and look forward to his contributions here.

Stay tuned for Russell’s first post early in the new year.

Louis Cammarosano

I’d like to start out by saying that I’m honored to be here.  This is the first of what I hope will be many contributions to this great community. 

Apologies for beginning my stint here with a D.C.-centric theme but with January 20th rapidly approaching, we do feel like we’re the center of the universe.

I have a family friend, a young lawyer, who is now six months pregnant with her second child, who recently lost her job in New York City when her law firm folded.  She had very little warning and no severance pay.  Her husband works for Goldman Sachs.  I imagine that there are sleepless nights in that family.

Another friend worked for Lehman Brothers.  Before you picture her out on the street, it turns out that her entire division at Lehman was acquired by Barclays, so she is still gainfully employed.  But many of her closest friends lost their jobs and she reports that New York City has changed dramatically over the past few months.

Perhaps New York’s loss will be a gain for Washington D.C. and for the health of the D.C. real estate market.  According to The Washington Posts’ Steven Pearlstein, “The region should leverage the enthusiasm of the new generation of bright, young, ambitious people who will seek to come here. Continue reading this post