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Archive for June, 2010
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
I cant believe July is here…where is the summer going?!?! Waiting on the final approval for the tax credit deadline…I know everyone is waiting to hear.
HUD owned homes: Currently 5% and submitting a contract on line is easy and no worries about offer presentation…check them out! Not just for investors.
We had a great program on Monday to learn about the “Hud Secrets for successful offers”…Did any go…I could not be there, unfortunately and would love some feedback.
Was it helpful? Should we have a repeat?
Love to know.
E
Posted in Eileen's Desk | Comments Off
Friday, June 25th, 2010
Well, Friday is here and most of us are hoping our work week is just starting. Times are tough out there.
Agents are fighting for every dollar and sometimes, at others expense. As a broker, I get the problems – that is my job or at least, a big part of it.
One of my agents – a woman of great integrity, wrote an offer on a property that was a short sale…and this short sale was over $1M (the offer that she wrote). The offer was not presented. The listing agent told her that the home was now sold. Interestingly, the listing agent is the selling agent (I know you are VERY surprised by that!), but we know the offer that was presented was less than the one that we wrote. We know that because the seller and the purchaser with the accepted offer are friends of our purchaser (what a fluke!).
Looks like we have a fight on our hands….again … love to know….
have you come across this situation?mmmm?
Posted in Eileen's Desk | Comments Off
Thursday, June 24th, 2010
I was thinking today, Jeff Jarvis is all about openness, and transparency, in most circumstances I understand, and agree, but as far as real estate agents go, if the MLS was as open as say, Craigslist, and anyone could post a listing on it. That would be a bad thing! Why, you ask? Simple, another thing he does not seem to take into consideration, a little thing that is ALL OVER Craigslist called fraud, Craigslist is FULL of not just real estate fraud, but all kinds of fraud. Not that there isn’t fraud that happens in real estate anyway, but it would be A LOT worse if just anyone could post a listing on MLS. Of course, just because there is fraud, doesn’t make it right, and people who commit fraud should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
The reason Mr. Jarvis that real estate agents charge commission, has nothing to do with MLS, it’s because of the work they do, which is far from “little work”.
In his book, he says that he knows there are good agents out there, and he would work with one that would charge a flat fee like the discount brokers instead of a commission. That isn’t always up to the agent Mr. Jarvis, that is the company, and it is true, that most real estate companies take most of the commission. That’s not the case with Magnolia Properties.
Posted in Matt's Desk | Comments Off
Thursday, June 24th, 2010
Don’t we always hear “the weekend is almost here”… “Have a Good Weekend”…
Thinking about that last weekend while sitting on the porch in North Carolina – I realized that a good weekend for a realtor is working, really. (I should say “Selling”). Not to say I don’t enjoy a weekend with my husband and family, but we should consider planning our weekends just as we do the time off weekends.
Right?
How to do this? Do you have a prospect list, prospects who are perhaps long term? Give them a call, tell them you know they are not quite ready to buy but you want to preview some homes and realized that these homes might be some they would enjoy seeing – and maybe they also know someone else who would like to look in that price range – area…whatever…
Or perhaps an open house, planned and organized, to “pick up” some buyers. Most Realtors have great personalities – which is why we are in real estate – so what better way to meet people that are somehow interested in property than in an open house!
How do you plan an open house? Well, on short notice – I put up signs early in the day on major intersections or nearby traffic areas that say Open Today 1-4 …put them up early with an address or just the street name…or community name…bold bright and attention getting signs. Even posterboard…homemade looks even more intriguing and perhaps less threatening. Bring a list of listings to hand out with your card…say a line list of a picture, address, price and sf…or perhaps no address just the rest of the info. I also group the list by price…say 20% below the asking price of the home you are in… another group 10%…etc…
I don’t know about you but most visitors to open houses seem to be below the price of the one they are visiting. Do you find that true?
Of course, a lap top…so you can find out what someone really might be interested in and encourage them to…”lets just check MLS and see what there is…”…while walking over to the computer and just doing it…
After all, the goal of the open house is to find buyers to work with. Its great to find someone interested in the property but that would be rare – Open houses are the best of all vehicles to find people that want to buy.
Anyway…more for another day on Open Houses…but today would be a good day to plan your real work week…. the weekend!
E
Posted in Eileen's Desk | Comments Off
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
Monday, the 28th at 10:30…Join us for HUD training.
RSVP – space is limited
Call Monique at 821 3083
A HUD trainer will be here!
We would love to have you!
Magnolia Properties
9086 Cypress Green Drive
Jax, Fl 32256
Posted in Eileen's Desk | Comments Off
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
Welcome to my world…
My son, Matthew is Magnolia Properties “IT Specialist” and he said, Mom – if you write some Notes on your Facebook page, it will blog on the Magnolia site. Thank you, Matthew. Everyone should have a Matthew both at work and at home!
If the tv doesn’t cooperate…I call Matthew. If I can’t program my something, connect to something…etc.. Matt always rescues me.
Anytime one of our team members has a computer glitch…Matt to the rescue!
We are very fortunate to have him.
Can you tell, I am so proud of him!
E
Posted in Eileen's Desk | Comments Off
Monday, June 14th, 2010
There are also several things, that Jeff Jarvis fails to take into account when he refers to real estate agents, is the fact that most real estate companies, actually take a large cut of the agent’s commission, so they don’t make nearly as much as he claims, and honestly the 6% he refers to is nothing, if you take into account, that the company that holds the agent’s license takes a large cut of that.
He also does not take into account, the various fees that an agent also has to pay, to the association, to insurance companies for Errors and Omissions insurance, plus a lot of companies even charge them for desk space and their use of office resources. So in the end, the agent does not get nearly as much as Jeff Jarvis claims for doing “little work”.
I’d like proof Mr. Jarvis, that my mother working from dawn to dusk everyday, is doing “little work”.
Posted in Matt's Desk | Comments Off
Sunday, June 13th, 2010
The last day or so I have been listening to, yes that’s right Leo Laporte, I said LISTENING TO, because you do not READ audio, the audiobook version of Jeff Jarvis’ book “What Would Google Do?”. Even though I have yet to listen to the entire thing, I would still highly recommend this book, It’s an interesting look at the changes companies like Google have brought to the world, thanks to the Internet, like Dell and Starbucks putting up sites for their customers to voice ideas.
Now, compared to Jeff Jarvis, who also blogs on his own site BuzzMachine I am pretty much a nobody blogger, who rarely gets any real comments left on the blog. That said, I have had companies like Belkin actually put two and two together with an issue I had with an iPod case breaking when I fell down the stairs, and made good on it by calling me and offering to send a replacement case as long as I edited my post. Wow, me nobody blogger me, people from Comcast have reached out to me too, once when I had a problem with my wifi and my Xbox 360 due to bad weather though I had not explained that the wifi router was actually above the garage detached from the house. I don’t live there anymore, I live in a condo now.
Now on to the meat of this post, which is my beef with Mr. Jeff Jarvis. A few times on This Week in Google and in his own book, he has stated that real estate agents make commission for doing little work. I challenge you Jeff Jarvis, to come down to Florida and spend a day with my own mother, or one of the 200 some odd Magnolia Properties agents, who work every single day, from the minute they wake up to the minute they go to bed. I am the IT department for that company, my paycheck was made possible by that company, and so therefore the thing you seem to state as fact, when it’s not, has even made it possible for me to buy your book. All you’ve done is ride around in the car with an agent, you do not see the work they do when you are not around. My mother is what we call a “working broker” not only does she have her own company, but she also has to sell houses herself in order to pay the bills and put food on the table, but she can’t do it all herself, and because she also runs the business, she has office staff that sometimes make appointments for her. My mother has not had a single day off of work for years. She has no real weekends! When she’s in the car, watching TV, eating dinner, doing anything else, she’s working.
Sorry, but I am going to tell you that from experience, of being around the industry as long as I have, living in it, but being slightly separate from it because I am not an agent myself, that you are wrong. I am sorry to even say this to you because I respect your views on the changing economy, and I love how things have changed this day and age.
Also, when you say that discount brokerages now having access to MLS is a good thing, I disagree with you there as well, because they take business away from the hard working agent. I yell at my TV every time a Buy Owner commercial is on. It is not a good thing at all.
Posted in Matt's Desk | Comments Off
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