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 read an article today that Realtor.org put out talking about the 6 best practices of online leads. The author is a great guy and knows his stuff. However, he misses the boat on this one.

He spends a good amount of time discussing how important it is not to call your leads. This is completely wrong. As most of you know my Internet program through either 100MPH Marketing or my eHomes Realty Network, the reality is if you are not calling your leads which supply a phone number, you are letting buyers and sellers slip through your fingers.

The worst thing you can do is not make use of the information you are given to help your customers buy their home.

Of the over 20,000 people we have in our database, I can probably count on one hand the amount of times a person who supplied their phone number to us that was upset when we called.

In fact this is what we normally hear: “You are the first Realtor to actually follow up with us.” They are very excited and happy to talk about their real estate needs!

When I first started figuring out Internet leads back in 2002, I didn’t make phone calls. I only corresponded with people that contacted me. My first year of Internet Marketing I sold over 50 homes, but more importantly I lost more than 50 sales by not making phone calls. Continue reading this post

Yesterday I published 10 styles of negotiation.

Here are some additional tips, many of which I learned as an arbitrator and settling lawsuits.

The Do Not Do’s of Negotiation

1. Never “tip your hand” on anything

Don’t say that you have to move, got a new job or hit the lottery. Never say you love the place. Play it cool. It’s the same when you like a girl. You don’t tell her. Same with buying a house. Keep your mouth shut.

2. Don’t bring your relatives to see the house after you’ve seen it.

That is a sure tip off to the home seller that you like the house and want to show it off to the family. Continue reading this post

We have just completed a survey that we sent to 14,000 of our AgentEvaluator home buyers and sellers. We sent the survey to two customer groups: those who bought or sold a home using a HomeGain real estate agent, and those who failed to select one of our agents.

Our goal was to get consumer feedback that our AgentEvaluator agents could use to attract more potential clients by tailoring their proposals to meet the consumers’ expectations.

We are still digging through the data, but the preliminary results are very important so we wanted to pass them along now rather than wait until we’re done.

Survey Results:

• Nearly 9 out of every 10 customers who bought or sold a home using a HomeGain agent said that receiving a personalized proposal was either very or extremely important in their decision to select their agent. Only 4% said this was not a factor at all in their decision.
• 4 out of 10 expected to receive their first proposal within 4 hours of their profile.
• 1 out of every 4 consumers selected their agent within 24 hours, while 8 out of 10 selected their agent within 1 week.

The results are clear— Continue reading this post

Turning over a new leaf at the New Year may be a very good thing this year for some as far as the real estate market is concerned.

Something like “Great in ‘08” seems to have a nice ring to it about now, doesn’t it?

Many of us are indeed ready for a fresh start and will welcome the New Year with open arms.

Personally I think that the bad news is about all out on the table and may be overstated by some real estate pundits, at least in some markets.

I did some checking yesterday, and a number of HomeGain member agents had great success stories in 2007 with just their HomeGain business. In fact, we have agents in CA, NV, PA, TX and VA that increased their HomeGain business, based on the number of closings, from 25% to well over 100% in some cases.

Imagine that!

Those same agents increased their business, based on commissions earned, by from 20% to over 100% again. And that’s just a portion of their overall business.

While real estate news reports during the year centered on the sub-prime meltdown, increased foreclosures across the nation, falling home prices and sales, and mortgage company bankruptcies, Continue reading this post

Part 2 – HomeGain’s Fall 2007 Home Sale Maximizer™ Survey

In part 1, I disclosed six of the top 10 most recommended home improvements (by real estate agents). Now here are the top four!

1. Clean and de-clutter
2. Lighten and brighten
3. Stage home for sale
4. Landscape front/back yards

In each of the four regions, West, East, South and Mid-West, all real estate agents agreed that cleaning and de-cluttering was the most valuable action in getting a home into “home selling condition.”

At a minimal cost of a couple hundred dollars, ROI of cleaning and de-cluttering your home may skyrocket into a high average of 578%. This is added home value in the range of $1,500-$2,000. The highest return on investment was in the West (837%).

Professional home staging came in second place in the South and Mid-West. On a national level, agents reported that home staging costs between $400 and $600 on average, potentially resulting in a $1,900 to $2,500 increase to the home’s selling price, and making the return on investment over 340%. Continue reading this post