Is your Realtor serving you?

As I work with Buyers, I’m often baffled by the lack of information on listings…you know, the Multiple Listing Service or as it is know in Indy, the Broker’s Listing Cooperative (BLC) or just MIBOR (Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of Realtors).  Information from this source is what feeds the internet…Trullia, Zillow, Realtor.com and a host of others…95% of Buyers find their next home ONLINE!  Are you certain your agent is getting your home online in the best possible way?

In addition to active properties, I am often trolling the expired listings in specific neighborhoods that my clients are interested in…who knows, it may be the perfect home for my Buyers and the Homeowners may still be interested in Selling!  I recently found an expired listing in the mid $200,000 price range, over 2,500 square feet and the agent had only 8 pictures of the living area, nothing upstairs, backyard and no virtual tour…and you wonder why this property never sold?

When considering who to hire when Selling your home, ask a lot of questions, not just about what they do to sell homes in general, but specifics!  How many pictures do you use?  Do you use a virtual tour?  Do you work with a lender partner?  Besides putting a sign in my yard, what will you do to sell my home?  ASK THE QUESTIONS!  Remember, YOU are hiring ME to represent you in the best possible way in the sale of your biggest asset!

The BLC allows for 24 photos AND a virtual tour…how many photos has your agent put on your listing?  The quality of those photos?  It is not necessary for your agent to hire a professional photographer, we’ve been in the business a while and understand the best way to take photographs and are generally quite good at it.  There are only 500 characters available for describing you property, but we want to make everyone count!

What about information packets in the home?  I always create a packet of information with the sales disclosures, a list of upgrades and features of the home, school, church and shopping information.  This same information is uploaded to the listing.  I also add a stand-up display for the home flyer along with bottled water and snacks for prospective buyers.

I want to Sell your home, I will work to serve you.  I am part of the Number 1 Real Estate Company in the Nation, you not only have me working for you, but every Keller Williams agent in the country.  Click here for videos about my service…then call me!

BDWFMwOCEAEeHw_

Vicki Reed

 

Something to think about BEFORE you put your home on the market…

Whether you are thinking of up-sizing or down-sizing, have you thought about how you are going to pay for your next home?  For most of us, financing is necessary, but will you qualify for that next home?  BEFORE you decide to list your home, please, please get pre-qualified for your next one!

Lesson Learned…

Home was listed for sale at the beginning of September, Buyer made an offer on December 2, a little back and forth and they were under contract on December 5 with a close date of February 1.  As part of the Buyer due diligence, they had a home inspection by Iron Gate Inspection Services, Buyer’s Agent provided Inspection Response to the Seller‘s Agent and Seller quickly agreed to fix everything on inspection response.

Fast forward to January 18, 2 weeks before closing, Buyer receives a letter from an Attorney retained by Seller, that Seller is unable to secure a mortgage and Seller no longer wishes to sell their home and asked that Buyer give them “good title” and walk away.

Buyer retained an Attorney and by January 22, Seller was told they must close on the sale of their home on February 1 as agreed to in the contract.

What would you have done?  In this case, the Buyer was my client and we won and she will be moving into her new home this weekend, BUT, I also represent Sellers and this has changed MY listing presentation and I will be asking my Sellers to pre-qualify PRIOR to their home going on the market.  My goal is to Turn your Dreams into an Address…but I can’t do that without your due diligence, know your status before making a decision to sell, you don’t want to go from owning to renting.  The Shanley Team at Inlanta Mortgage is ready and willing to work through this with you and I’ve made it easy for you with a link on my home page (as well as in the right hand column of this blog post) directly to their application.  Also check out my post “Power of the Pre-Qual“…it’s not just for Buyer’s anymore!

Not sure of the current value of your home?  Visit my website and request a Current Market Analysis of your home’s value and let’s talk!

images

Vicki Reed

Chivalry isn’t dead…but sometimes it’s snoozing…

Remember when men would open and hold doors for women?  Heck, just when anyone would?  I had a great experience this morning that shows me that my Wish # 3 is working!  Just to refresh, Wish # 3 was that everyone remember to be human, not just during the holiday season, but all year long.

Our office building has an exterior door, a vestibule and open stairs coming from the second floor and then another door to enter the first floor of the building and elevators.  As is usual, I’m coming in from the parking lot with a rolling computer bag, another bag on top of that for my BOLD (Business Objective Life by Design) class, and my purse and coffee (yes, I know, too much stuff!  At least with the rolling bag I no longer feel like a pack mule!) and a very nice man had just come down the stairs to leave the building, held the door for me THEN came around me and held the door into the lobby for me as well before he left the building!  He didn’t have to do that, went out of his way to assist me in entering the building…THANK YOU!  This small kindness helped get my day off to a great start.

What have you done for someone else today?  Me?  Well, today I fought for my client and won!  It really wasn’t  huge, we had the final walk-through today before closing on Friday and discovered that the homeowner had removed the chandelier that was in the property when we made the purchase and replaced it with a “builder’s brass” one…they are re-installing the light they removed and my client is happy.  Want a Realtor who will fight for you?  Call, email or text me!

Now…go out and do something nice for someone!

HoldThatDoor

Vicki Reed