BusyRealEstateAgent.com

I get about 2 of these a year, someone comes into the office and says “I want to buy the property over on 150N with the pond.” After a quick check I let them know that, well it’s not for sale!

Now comes the game plan. Starting with some history, how long has the current owner had the property? How much did they pay for it? Is it paid off? Are the taxes current? What do the comps look like? What would a reasonable offer be?

With all of the information gathering done I spend a little time discussing my commission with the buyer, in this instance it will most likely be the buyer pay my commission seeing how the property wasn’t for sale, no listing contract.

We complete the commission agreement and prepare a real estate contract, this is what we will be taking to the property owner. It is important that you have an offer or contract ready prior to approaching the owner. Too many times agents get out and “knock doors” looking for listings with the spiel “I have buyers for you house, just sign this 2 year listing agreement and I’ll bring them right over”, you don’t want to be that agent!

When approaching the homeowner, cut to the chase, let them know that you have a client that is interested in purchasing their property and they have a formal written offer for the property.

The first response is almost always: “This place ain’t for sale, I ain’t never selling this place!”
The second response is usually: “How much are they offering?”

Generally speaking, if you can bring the buyer and (potential) seller together, these will be some of the smoothest transactions you will ever deal with.

This article was written by Tim Williams, A consultant at Rentalforeclosure.com and editor for TheEasyForms.com.

It’s not too often that our buyers happy about spending more money when buying a home but a home inspection is one cost we should not let our clients try to cut from the closing table.
Dave Madam from EveryHomeOnTheMarket.com in Las Vegas did a nice write up about home inspections in his blog.

I have seen so many agents shy away from home inspections because they don’t like telling their clients they have to spend more money or even worse because they “know an agent” that has lost a deal because of a bad home inspection. As an agent you are supposed to be looking out for your clients best interests and not “chasing the commission”. Get that inspection, protect your buyers.

One of the more common requests the agents get from potential buyers these days is information on foreclosures. While most agents don’t like to deal with short sales and foreclosures it wouldn’t be too smart to pass up all the leads that are generated from providing this type of information. Some agents have even been so proactive as to start providing foreclosure information on their websites.

If you as an agent are going to start working the foreclosure market be sure to educate yourself. For instance, you should find out if your state has a statutory redemption period for foreclosures. This is the amount of time the defaulting borrower has to redeem the property after the foreclosure sale. You certainly wouldn’t want to advise an amateur investor to purchase a foreclosure only to have them find out that the previous owner still has a right to redeem that property for up to a year.

Even if your state does have the statutory redemption period, all is not lost. An available option is to ask the defaulting borrower if they would be willing to sell their statutory right via a quitclaim deed to the investor. Generally a property owner going to foreclosure is having financial difficulties and is willing to walk away from a right they will probably never use in exchange for a few dollars.

Interactive real estate maps, next generation real estate advertising. People like maps and you as an agent should be advertising your real estate listings on maps. Websites like realado.com allow you to advertise your listings for free on their interactive real estate maps, Google and Microsoft have made their maps available for you to put on your website for free. So what are you doing to promote yourself and your listings, what new Internet technology are you using to make more money in the real estate industry?

Many of the realtor associations across the country have created affiliations with zipforms.com to provide agents with real estate contracts and other real estate related forms.
We have found that many real estate agents and real estate companies prefer to have their own branded real estate contracts. When company we found online that does this for agents and brokers is TheEasyForms.com. They have standard forms available for download and can brand forms with your company logo or company name.

Many companies have been getting branded forms to provide potential clients such as for sale by owner sellers. “We’ve had a lot of success in providing information packets to do-it-yourself home sellers which included our own branded contracts. The sellers seem to like it, they like the fact that we’re not just there to list them were there to help” one agent tells us.

FSBOs in Las Vegas have a friend in the real estate industry. Dave Madam of EveryHomeOnTheMarket.com, a licensed real estate agent and member of the Association of Realtors, is allowing FSBOs to advertise their properties on his website for free. The site, living up to it’s name, has a section for “for sale by owner” real estate right along with the local Las Vegas MLS, new homes, foreclosures, and auctions.

Dave really goes the extra mile for the do it yourself homeseller. In addition to the free advertising, Dave and his team are always available with friendly advice and suggestions.

“This is a great example of an agent that truly cares about his community” says Shawn Shepherd of Realado.com, “most agents do their best to discourage home sellers from tying to do it themselves, Daves out there helping them.”

Sellers have the opurtunity to write a description about their property and submit pictures to be displayed on the site. If a seller wanted, Dave even has for sale by owner yard signs that he will have professionall installed for free. “We have found that a profesional yard sign atracts more attention then the standard paper orange and black for sale sign on a wire frame. A nice yard sign gives the impression that the home owner cares about their house.” says Dave.

Great job Dave, you truely are a BusyRealEstateAgent.

When you’re marketing your listings it’s easy to see that it is for the good of the home seller. What most agents miss is that you are also marketing yourself when you advertise those listings. The average number of transactions per listing is 2.3. So where do the other 1.3 transactions come from? Market the listing and you market yourself.

There are many different ways to market listings in today’s society. The old standbys such as the local newspaper and community bulletin boards are still effective. The new trend is free real estate advertising on the internet. There are a few popular sites available to agents for free like Realado.com and Craigslist.org. Taking advantage of free marketing is always a good idea, remember market your listing, market yourself.

Well, most of you will notice that we have changed the site a bit (completely). Unfortunately we had to, the previous forum design was being assaulted by spam factories. We’re going to try a get the forum up and running again soon, hopefully spam free.