Archive for Expired listings

Expired listings – Price your home right – Price it on the zeros

As I’ve been working expired listings, I’ve found that frequently the pricing is wrong. This is the most common reason that homes don’t sell. Most agents and consumers realize this. Some home sellers do, but a lot of them do not. What they may not realize is that the home is in the correct price range, but is priced wrong. The real estate agent is to blame for this and I am amazed at how many people get this wrong.

The basis for this is a classic psychological pricing strategy.

psychological pricing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To learn more about this theory visit Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_pricing.

The classic pricing example is used in infomercials where I’m sure you’ve noticed that almost all products are priced at $19.99. People think, “Hey it’s less than 20 dollars.” This backfires on you in real estate pricing. The reason for this is because of the way home buyers shop for homes. This tactic probably works great in Best Buy when your wife won’t let you spend over a $1,000 for a TV, that one for $999.99 looks really good.

People don’t shop for homes like they shop in Best Buy. You can’t walk into a store and see hundreds of homes lined up right next to each other. Shopping for homes is started online. In fact, 87% of homebuyers begin their search online. How do you search online when you look for a home? Trulia, Zillow, and Realtor.com all have searches from blank to blank. Do you type into the search a price range of $250,000 to $299,900 because you don’t want to spend $300,000?

Several individual agents use an IDX feed on their website allowing you to search for homes. This search function is designed with price range options to select such as $250,000 – $300,000, not $250,000 to $299,900. My point is, very few people are searching any other way.

Price your home right - Expired listings

When my wife and I were actively looking for a new house, we were looking for homes between $250,000 – $300,000. I would sort with the $300,000 homes on top. During the market conditions at the time I wanted to get a great deal. My wife, who wanted the lower mortgage payments and gets stressed over money, would sort with the $250,000 homes on top. If your home is listed at $249,900 isn’t going to even show up on our list. It might be the perfect home for us.

I’m not sure why other agents price homes that way. I’d like to hear from them. If your home was priced like this and it didn’t sell, is it possible your agent could be making other marketing mistakes as well? If you would like to talk to someone who can help you sell your home that has not sold, please call Mike Henderson at 303-949-5848. I would love the opportunity to have you interview me as your next agent. Even if you don’t choose me or decide not to put your home back on the market, at least you will have a good idea of your present situation and options after speaking with me.

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There are a wide variety of reasons that your home didn’t sell last year.For sale expired

    • Your home was not priced correctly.  This is typically the biggest reason.  Many real estate agents are inexperienced, lazy, don’t understand the neighborhood, or simply don’t want to tell the seller what there home is worth.  They are afraid to communicate with their client that there home is not worth what the homeowner wants it to be.  If you had a price reduction was your home remarketed to everyone who previously saw it

    • Marketed correctly your home was not.  Yoda and sounding like him is great for the movies.  Writing ad copy for sell an asset in the six figures is probably a bad idea, unless you are trying to sell Skywalker ranch. 

    • Was your home available for showings?  When agents tried to sell your house able to get inside at a convenient time?  Was the home clean and well kept?  This is one of the hardest things for homesellers to deal with.  Did you get feedback on your listing from other clients. 

    • Staging – Did your agent hire a stager or recommend that you get one?  Did they offer tips themselves?

There are a wide variety of reasons that your home didn’t sell last year.  These are just a few.  There are many others but if I told you everything why would you need to call me.?

 

These are all reasons that you need to contact a different real estate agent for this year.  Most consumers are unaware that once you go under contract with a real estate agent no other real estate agent can tell you any of these things!  If nothing else use this opportunity to get that second opinion before you put your home back on the market.

 

If you really want to get your home sold this year make sure you get a second opinion.  In the Denver, Colorado market I would love to give you a second opinion and likely show you housing market data you haven’t seen before

 

Mike Henderson

303-949-5848

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Current analysis of the luxury home market in Denver, Colorado it is fragmented to say the least.  One of my biggest focuses lately has been expired listings in the Denver metro area.  The market has started to shift to a neutral market on the whole it favors neighter buyers or sellers. However certain areas and market segements are unique.  To search the Denver luxury home market.

Working my expired listing market is not price constricted it is geographically targeted.  I’m going by this house in a great Denver luxury home neighborhood.Analysis of the Denver Luxury Home market

This home is designed to be a scrape.  The home itself is not that attractive.  It was priced around $800,000.  It is a well established neighborhood.  I absolutely loved the neighborhood driving around in there.  It was quiet and out of the way, off the beaten path, surrounded by luxury homes. The buying of a lot and scraping the hold house off is quite common in these areas.  It definitely was before the real estate crash. There is a lot of challenges in the construction loan market. There is also a plethora of luxury homes in the Denver market. These scrapes aren’t done nearly as often as they used to.

Denver luxury home construction

Building luxury homes is still going on!

Just up the street a new luxury home is being built.  This is what really gets the economy moving, new home construction.  Absolutely this is a luxury home going in here, just look at the sign.  Whenever you see a custom sign for a new home consider that it’s not a tract home.  Then you see this going on in the same neighborhood.

The bad news that is going on the same street

Denver luxury home foreclosure

Whoops

Denver luxury home foreclosure

Here we have a luxury Denver foreclosed property.  People are all to familiar with this situation.  The foreclosure crisis is even hitting the luxury home market.  This makes sense for a few reasons.

  1. The rich generally have more assets and options than most people.  This allows them to delay foreclosure longer.  They can liquidate assets to help with their situation.
  2. Option Arm’s were generally more prevalent among luxury properties.  These are finally coming due, resetting, and/or becoming fully amoratizing.
  3. The stated income loans went away.  This takes away the option of refinancing for a lot of people.

So here on one little street you can see a snapshot of the entire luxury home market. If you would like to search for Denver luxury homes.  My analysis, especially in this market is that each property and neighborhood is unique.  Some favor the buyer and others the seller.  There is a great deal of customization of homes and there is a much greater variety and divergence in these homes compared to track homes.  On the whole I’d rather be the buyers agent rather than the selling agent.

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I have been working expired listings in the Denver, Colorado market. Most real estate agents just rely on there Sphere of Influence (SOI) or as we used to say at MCI Friends and Family. That is low hanging fruit. I’m a professional salesperson, marketer, and businessperson, and my feeling is if you can’t market to more than those people then you will likely have a short career.

I actually go up and knock on the expired listing in the metro denver area if you are afraid to talk to strangers then how are you going to negotiate a contract effectively? As I am starting to do this, most of my career has been spent working with investors, the stories and situations that I see are incredibly weird. Here is my favorite one and I was at almost loss for words.

As I’m pulling up to the house there is the big real estate sign in the front yard. The house is on a corner so there are actually signs on both corners. I’m thinking somehow I screwed up and this got relisted and my search missed it. I’m a completely ethical agent and I’m like, don’t engage in sign crossing. I pull out my trusty Android phone and check the mls. Yep it’s expired, so I proceed to go knock on the door. It looks like they are home so I have really got to be ready.

I knock on the door and the homeowner answers. She’s holding back a big dog, a Golden retriever I believe, that is desperately trying to get outside to greet me. I have two boxers at home so I’m very familiar with this problem. It certainly makes talking difficult and I realize unless she can come out of the house I’ve got between 30-60 seconds to make my pitch.

confused dog

What do you mean you didn't know your home was off the market?

I noticed your listing has recently expired and I was wondering if you have any plan to put your home back on the market. She tells me, I didn’t know my home was off the market. I felt like my dog when you try to explain something to him, very confused.I was dumbfounded. Having been a championship debater in high school I knew not to say “uhhh uhhh uhhh.”

I had a million thoughts running through my head.

  • What a bad agent.  I work so hard to get and satisfy my clients that I can’t imagine letting this happen to them.  My listings get sold, they don’t expire.  I’m certain going to communicate with my client to see if they want to relist.
  • Does this person have so much business that they can just ignore this client and potential?
  • Do you just want your signs on the corners of this house to troll for buyers?
  • Can I tell the homeowner you hired a bad agent if this is how they treat you and your house?
  • Did the agent make a mistake on the date or enter it in wrong.  Would they make a mistake  like this or screw up a date in the actual buy and sell contract?

What did I tell her?  I’m not exactly sure what is going on, but if you are actually under contact with the other agent I’m not even allowed to talk with you about anything about your house.  If you are not under contract then you really should talk with another agent they can offer opinion of your marketing campaign to sell your home and even if it is realistic to get the price you need for your home.  I’m going to leave this packet of information with you and if you aren’t under contract then you can call me and I’ll be happy to give you a second opinion on your situation.

Follow up: I still haven’t heard back from her nor have I followed up with her.  That happens tomorrow.  I went door knocking again today and had the exact same thing happen.  I handled it much better.

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