The other day I stopped in to KFC for lunch when Tim & I were out looking at some properties to put offers on. I don’t know about you, but when I go to a fast food restaurant (which isn’t very often anymore) I usually tend to order the same thing, so I don’t need to look at the menu. But this day was different…Tim was outside on the cell phone, and I stood for about 10 minutes staring at the menu board…it wasn’t because I was trying to decide what I wanted, it was because I was enthralled by the fancy new LCD TV screen menu boards. Yep! They were actual big-screen TV’s up on the wall that were changing images and scrolling through the different menu items. I was in a trance, and I didn’t even know why!

Then it hit me…the bucket of chicken on the TV actually had hot, tasty steam coming off it! The graphics were amazing, and there was actually a little puff of moving steam on the chicken! I wanted to order the bucket because it LOOKED so amazing, even though there were only 2 of us! It was almost like subliminal advertising…I wasn’t even in the market for a bucket, but I was actually craving it because they made it look so yummy!

Are your buyers experiencing the same thing when they look at your houses and listings?
Does the house look SOOOOOO Yummy that they want to buy it even if they weren’t in the market to buy a house? If not, maybe that’s why it’s not selling. Let’s look at some little things to see if you’re “yummy” enough…

Curb Appeal: When they pull up to your house (or look at pictures) does their mouth start to water and they WANT IT! If you don’t see anything wrong with the curb appeal, invite a disinterested 3rd party over to give you a review. When I was a “regular” buyer, I remember not even getting out of the car with our Realtor if I didn’t like the looks of it from the outside.

Tickle all of their senses: at KFC, I was already hungry, then I smelled the fried chicken, then they visually showed me the food in an appealing manner. Are YOU prepping your houses to hit all of your buyer’s senses? Plush carpet that they sink into, vanilla-scented air fresheners in several parts of the house (avoid florals, some people are allergic), a beach ball floating in the pool, nice music playing, a romantic fireplace, an (empty) bottle of wine and 2 glasses on the counter…are you getting the picture?

Make it easy to do business with you: Isn’t it easy to just order a #5? Make it that easy to buy your house too. Some ways you can do that are:
Have the house pre-inspected- this assures them that what they’re buying will not cause them problems in the future
Refer them to a GOOD mortgage broker if they don’t already have one
Offer owner financing to make their lives easier (in their eyes)
Make it easy to track you down if they need further info
Have the house ready to move into (is your whole punch-list finished?)

And here’s the thing to remember…you DON’T need to be the lowest price in the market to sell, you need to be the BEST for the money that you’re asking.

Happy Selling!

I’ve been saying it for months…the market is NOT that bad AND it’s a great time to be buying property, both as investment AND to live in, and now it seems the market may be agreeing with me! 

The thing that was really starting to worry me was that our agents and mortgage professionals had begun to lose faith in our market, and that attitude comes through when they’re talking to clients.  That’s why I have spent so much time on this topic, to get you to change YOUR mindset so your clients can change theirs, so the market can get out of this panic mode and back to where it needs to be!

Well, this month we’ve gotten some good news, and I not only want to share it with you, but I would also like you to share it with YOUR clients, agents, co-workers, neighbors, friends, family, in fact, everyone you come within 5 feet of!  That will get the positive vibe out there and Real Estate will once again become the financial powerhouse that we all know it should be!

First, the Orlando Area MLS stats were just released, and there’s some good news there! Here’s a few things I noticed that I liked:

1. Our inventory has stayed pretty much constant since May of last year, only fluctuating a little bit.  As long as it’s not growing at astronimical rates like it was!

2. Interest rates are almost a whole 1% lower than they were in August of last year.  The lower the rate, the more affordable the homes will be for buyers.

3. Total contracts and New contracts jumped back up to levels we haven’t seen since last summer! (and summer is the hot buying season!) If you actually look at the bar graphs, December was the lowest point, and January and February are trending upwards quite nicely!  Keep it up!  By the way, these contracts translate into CLOSED sales in March and April.  Yayy!

4. Closed sales are back up a notch too!

Second, Tim was talking to an appraiser earlier this week and asked him what he’s seeing out there right now as far as appraisals and values.  His answer was that for the last few weeks, he’s seen the values going up on almost every appraisal that he’s worked on.  Double Yayyy!!!

Third, and I mentioned this one a few weeks back already… 14 Florida cities made the Miliken Institue’s 2007 List of Top Performing Cities.  Florida also boasted 7 cities in the top 30 nationwide, 3 in the top 10, and the #1 city on the list was Ocala!  This rates cities mainly on job, wage and salary, and tech growth.  Where there is job growth, there are housing needs.  We are in the housing business. 
BINGO!

Fourth, real estate is on SALE!  I don’t know about you, but I am a sale shopper.  I love buying the exact same thing as my neighbor but paying less for it.  Don’t you?  Right now, you and your clients can buy property at ridiculous low prices that WILL NOT be around much longer!  Not only that, but in many cases you can buy property right now as investment that actually will cash flow! (I know, do you believe it? We haven’t seen that in Florida for a long, long time!)

I could go on and on about why real estate is an awesome investment vehicle, industry, business, addiction, and much more, but why don’t you just go see for yourself.  Show some faith in your industry…go buy a house today!

See ‘ya next week!

Andy

What effect does “slacking off” at the end of the year have on your business? Well, if you’re not careful, it could be devastating!

I’ve mentioned this to some of you before, but I felt it was important enough to dedicate a whole “weekly tip” column to it…

Many entrepreneurs approach the last 60 or so days of the year with an attitude of “nobody will buy my product/service because of the holidays (obviously I am NOT talking to you if you are in retail!). And to that I say “Phooey!” Here’s why you should NOT slack off at the end of the year…

1. You’ll lose momentum! In your marketing, sales, networking, whatever it is you do in your business, you will lose your forward momentum if you let off…then come January you will realize you have to start ALL OVER AGAIN from scratch and it will be very depressing for you.

2. YES, people buy houses (and other stuff) in December…in fact, December has always been a pretty good month for me! Investors often want to either buy more by the end of the year or get rid of stuff by the end of the year, and they will be looking to you for help! If you slack off, your competition will get those deals and you will be left out in the cold. I know a Realtor that was doing floor time on Christmas Eve a few years back and someone walked into the office and said they needed a house before the end of the year. They were a cash buyer and this agent got the deal because they didn’t give up, even on December 24th.

3. Is your business set on auto-pilot so checks are coming in even if you’re not working? If so, then don’t shut down that machine…it’s a money maker! Does Bill Gates “close” Microsoft in November and December? NO! Because he has a machine to make money even if he’s not there.
IF YOUR BUSINESS IS NOT AT THIS AUTO-PILOT LEVEL: Then maybe these last few weeks of the year could be spent focusing on getting your systems down and implemented so that next year will be even better.

4. You’ll get depressed and down because you won’t feel like you’re accomplishing anything. If you INSIST on taking December off, why don’t you look into volunteering for a local charity for a few weeks…they could really use a hand and it will keep you busy and feeling productive.

5. Last One: A friend of mine, Chris Hurn, just made the Inc. 500 list and he said “There’s no way I could have gotten my company on Inc.’s list if I decided to slack off in the 4th quarter of each year…” so take a lesson from a very smart and successful young man and…
Get to Work!

See you next week!

Fan’s of College Football have really had a shake-up this season…would you believe that ELEVEN top 5 ranked teams have fallen to UNRANKED teams so far!  That is crazy-unheard of!
Sunday morning Tim had on the sports highlights on TV and something caught my ear as I was walking by…

They were talking about the game Saturday where #3 Oklahoma fell to unranked Texas Tech 34 to 27.  Yes, it was another upset victory, but what I really loved was what their Quarterback said in an on the field post-game interview.

Graham Harrell (#6) was asked by a reporter:  “Oklahoma’s defense has done such a good job holding you guys from scoring - what was different about this game?”
His answer was a simple one, but it cuts really deep:

“we came out and executed…we executed…we moved the ball & got a win”

Wow!  You mean if we just DO what we know we need to do, we’ll be successful!  Amazing!

How are you executing YOUR game plan in your business?  At one of my trainings where I had somewhere around 100 real estate professionals and mortgage brokers in the room, I asked “how many of you are working 8 hours a day in your business right now”  no hands.  “how about 6 hours?”  a few hands.  “how about 4?”  a few more hands.   “TWO?!?!?”  I finally got some hands in the air!

Imagine that!  Everyone’s whining about the market and how bad it is and there’s no buyers and no sellers and no loan clients, and yet they’re only actually “executing” their business 25% of the day! (2 out of 8 hours)

How would Texas Tech have done if they had sat on the bench for the first 3 quarters and THEN decided to get on the field for the last quarter?  Would they have won? NO WAY!
(actually, let’s give a closer example to our industry, what if they came on the field for the first quarter, then decided it was time to go to lunch, and then decided the game was already 1/2 over anyways, so there was no sense getting back on the field today…I’ll just start again tomorrow!   For some of you this may sound familiar…I know some of my loan officers thought this way when I used to run my mortgage company!)

So here’s my “Coach Andy’s Game Plan for Real Estate Professionals”

Go out on that real estate field and EXECUTE the plan you already have!

See you next time!

P.S.  An article about college football and not a single comment about my beloved Gators!?!?!  Oh wait, there it is!  Had to slip it in!

In today’s wacky market, many listings are asking for very specific things to be included with an offer to purchase a property. This may be things such as a certain contract form, or a set amound of escrow deposit, or a certain type of loan pre-approval.

Whether you like it or hate it, the seller gets to set the parameters under which they will accept an offer and sell their house.

We especially see this in bank-owned or “REO” properties as well as pre-foreclosures where the lender will need to approve the sale.

When I am selling a property, I always put in the listing that I want offers on a Far/Bar form only. This is because this is the contract that I am most familiar with and understand all of it’s clauses. When an agent submits an offer on any other form, I immediately have doubts about the brain-power of an agent that can’t read simple instructions, and I start to doubt whether this agent is savvy enough to get his/her buyer to the closing table or not.

Please don’t be the one the listing agent is wondering about…read the listing and follow the instructions that are spelled out. If you or your buyer aren’t WILLING to give what the seller is requesting, then move on to another house.

By the way, if it’s your listing and the seller is asking for silly things, keep in mind that you may have a harder time finding a buyer…in this market they can just go find something else where the seller is being more reasonable!

In my 12+ years in this crazy real estate business, I have seen many deals fall apart at the last minute due to the buyers doing something really crazy right before the closing.
It was such a costly problem that I designed a flyer for my loan officers to give their clients spelling out what NOT to do during the financing process and risk losing the deal.

I was reminded of this fact this morning as Tim has just had a “challenge” come up on a really big loan he’s working on. The lender pulled another credit report and the client’s score has dropped 30 points! This puts him in a different pricing bracket and means his interest will be 1% higher leading to a $625 a MONTH higher payment! There is a chance that this loan will not close.

I also remember a guy years ago that we had all ready to go on a purchase loan, then the lender pulled a last-minute “credit update” which showed a brand new $900 Corvette Payment! Needless to say, he no longer qualified for the house and was not able to close.

Right now, you may be having a challenge FINDING buyers, so I want to make sure when you find them, you can KEEP them!

Here’s a link to the flyer in PDF form. I hope you get a chuckle out of it and are able to use it with your clients. If you’d like a version that you can give to your buyers, just email Tim@Compass123.com