Rate A Home Blog

The American Bald Eagle, once nearing extinction the eagle had to change its habits. The Real-estate industry as we knew it is facing the same demise as the mighty eagle.

For the eagle (thank goodness) the government stepped in to protect and save this national status. But as Professionals I don't feel we will be awarded the same benefits that the eagle enjoyed. So it's up to us to change the way we live, do business and strive for survival.

How will the Real-estate Professional avoid falling prey to the Eagles in the market? Today the Internet savvy buyer has the resources available on-line to surf, research and streamline the housing search. With 80%+ of home buyers educating themselves via the Internet the time has come for the Professional to think outside the box.

Thinking outside the box doesn't merely consist of going door to door or cold calling, its been done and doesn't work most of the time. To open the lid, the Professional has to provide the tools and services that the buyers are missing. These services and tools add time, but the upfront time is being cut with the buyer doing a lot of the leg work before making contact with the Professional.

So are you an Eagle or is your buyer the Eagle? Who will soar into the future or become extinct? The Internet vs. the Real-estate Service industry will unfold before our eyes.

Change is inevitable, its happening all around you. Will you be an Eagle or prey?

With the ever dwindling savings of the population in this economy, its more important for the home buyer to avoid becoming married to a home. To dodge this fate one should know their personal budget before taking on one of the largest investments in life.

Utilizing a budget before making the decision of purchasing can alleviate the stress of financial difficulties down the road. Todays divorce rate is climbing due to couples over extending their finances and not doing their home work in advance.

Streamline your finances to allow the time for family, vacations, and allowing the "us" time to keep your marriage strong and happy.

In the hectic world of real-estate you have to take the time to enjoy life to it's fullest.

Take time to enjoy the flowers, a sunset, a glass of wine with a loved one. Life is to short not to take full advantage of it.

A good friend who has been diagnosed with a disease that will change her life as she knew it has given me a new outlook on life. Her favorite saying is Carpe Diem. Seize the day! Think about your life, your family are you doing all you can with the fast pace we live in?

Make it a bright day for those around you.

Carpe Diem!

Are you as an agent holding the ace in the hole for helping your clients? The blogs I'm reading are riddled with the frustration in the real-estate industry.

What are some the cards your playing to help your clients through the hand that the industry has been dealt?

With "AR" being such a great place to share the ideas or search for insight, tout your services on what you are doing different these days to hit the jackpot for your clients.

It may be listing ideas, selling idea, web sites you tell us.

Todays market has the buyer and agent running from home to home as if they were on a Halloween candy hunt. 

With the growing number of properties a buyer is touring these days it's more important then ever to keep track of the features.

Now you can utilize and provide a service that will streamline your tours. Thereby eliminating the return refresher trips that inconvenience the client, the seller and adds costly expenses with the price of gas.

Add to that, whats your time worth?

Using a detailed Walk through Check List during each tour will help in the decision making process and remove the frustrating return visits.

I'm a newbie to Active Rain but have quickly come to enjoy the input from fellow comrade's in the Real-estate world.

Where else can we continue our education (as well as share our knowledge) in our bath robes.

Kudo's to all the Active Rain members for helping expand the general public and my education.

Plus I find this board to be much friendlier in regards to attacks on others. Let's hope it remains that way.

Home buyers, sellers and Real-estate professionals are getting the Trick and the Treat of the market.

The Trick:

• Sellers are experiencing lost equity of their investment
• Foreclosures are rising due to the slow sales and mortgage financing blips
• The flippers dove into the great unknown looking for the potential huge returns
• Saturated listings with growing days on the market
• Agents and Builders bottom line eroding with extra marketing cost and competition to survive
• Frustrated sellers being pushed into the rental market
• Home ownership plummeting
• Banks and mortgage companies earnings are being diluted
• Guessing the rate of divorce will be rising with money woes developing
• Add to the list through your comments

The Treat:

• Buyers finding great deals
• Rental Market expanding
• More time to blog
• Extended family time with the lack of business
• Hard time coming up with more treats, add to the list through your comments

Where does it all go from here, and what will the final out come be in your eyes?

Will Real-estate ever be what it once was, or is this a permanent change?

Is "Location, Location, Location" still the correct term in todays market?

Or should this be revised to "Price, Price, Price"

Seems like today's buyer is solely focused on price, while location has taken a second seat.

The current Buyer's markets seem to dictate this thinking, but the buyer someday will have to sell. Then location will become a key word once again.

Let's hope they put some thought into the important decision.

Are you stuck in a rut? With the changing world of Real-estate the agent that doesn't change will be the dinosaur of tomorrow.

Sure, we can all surf the blogs and learn from there, which is an excellent source. But what we do with our new found education is what will make the difference of surviving or not.

Todays general public is so much more advanced and savvy than the buyers of yesteryear's. Reports show that 80%+ are now surfing the net before ever making contact with an agent. It has become the agents obligation to think outside the cookie cutter box that our forefathers have used over the past 100 years for marketing Real Estate. But are they?

Playing off an old joke, changed for the Real estate world:

Real estate Consumer: How many agents will it take to change the Real Estate world as we know it?

Agent: CHANGE!

We don't like change in our lives, but it's inevitable. Just ask the past agent who's now flipping burgers at the fast food restaurant. The consumer is making the transition, what are you doing to make your services valuable to your clients? Today the general public more then ever feels they are doing the up front leg work and I read many posts on-line about their feelings on commissions. Are we a service industry or just a person with a license that can write the purchase agreement?

The agent of today has to be the all and every thing for the consumer (big shoes to fill) and utilize the tools, technology and education to meet and exceed their needs and remove any frustrations.

Otherwise we must learn to ask politely "Would you like Fry's with that."

With today's economy builders are desperate and some times find ways to be the low bidder only to sock it to the buyer after construction has started. The builder that under bids the next builder by $10k isn't always the best choice. It's not the bottom line that the buyer should be looking at!

A few suggestions to the upcoming new home buyers. The Home building industry isn't as organized as the commercial building industry. That has to change and unfortunately it's the buyer that's paying the price of certain associations not educating their members or the general public.

1. Use an online New Home Wish List including all your wants and needs. Provide this to each builder you are getting quotes from. Also, attach the wish list signed and dated by all parties to the final purchase agreement. This will protect you and the builder from discrepancies of verbal agreements which don't hold any water in court. Request that the wish list is referred to in the builder quote.

A wish list off all your needs will help to eliminate some of these over runs.

2. Utilize a Builder Interview and Rating System to choose the builder that best fits your needs. Get references from previous clients of the builder.

3. Check with the local Home Builders Association (HBA) and/or the Better Business Bureau. Ask the HBA if there have been ethics complaints against the builder.

4. Use search engines to check for any postings or news about the builder.

5. Have a plan that each builder is bidding from. Best approach is to have a plan drawn, but also the most costly if the plan isn't within your budget. Next choice, plans from magazines or online. Once you have the general cost of the home then have a plan drawn. Once the completed plan is finished it may change the price up or down as plans from magazines square footage can fluctuate when put on paper. Many builders include the plan as part of the building process. Plus the builder may have stock plans for you to choose from.

6. Tour the builders homes that are under construction, not just the model homes. For liability purposes the builder will most likely want to bring you on these tours.

7. Check with the local building inspector, many times they can't add their two cents, but some will.

Do your home work in advance, get organized, provide your wishes, protect yourself and GET IT IN WRITING!

Home building can be a fun and rewarding process.

The importance of showing a homes full potential is in the hands of both seller's and agents. Have you ever walked into a home for a scheduled open house to find it in disarray? I've seen it first hand on open houses I have visited.

What are some of the horror stories you experienced? Such as unfinished laundry, dishes in the sink, seller's who plan to remain in the home during the open house, etc.

http://www.rateahome.com/Documents/OpenHouseCheckList.aspx

With over 80% of Real estate buyers and renters surfing the Internet before making verbal contact, you have to capture them at your home page.

Rate A Home provides a Free Lead Generating Wish List program where only the web site owner receives the leads. There's no fees to you or the buyer.

Wish Lists for existing homes, new construction, condominiums (high and low rise) and rentals

How the program works:

You add a link on your home page, for example: "Create your Dream Home Here" or "New Home Wish List"

The buyer or renter completes a personal wish list. Only the customer and yourself receive a copy of the wish list via e-mail. Rate A Home receives no copies, so you don't compete against 20 other professionals for the same lead. And it's all free, so there's nothing to lose but potential leads from your site visitors.

Once you receive a wish list, you will know exactly what the buyer or renters needs are along with their contact information through a detailed report.

To test a wish list feel free to run a trial at my home building web site http://www.marlinkbuilders.com/and enter your name and e-mail address as if you were the buyer. This way a copy will automatically come to you via e-mail. Where the Marlink Builders logo appears is where your logo would show on any wish list completed from your personal or company web site.

The best I have seen was a Remax agent who added his contact information, logo and name to the reports. You can also test a wish list at Todd's web site to view his logo set up: http://www.westmichiganhome.com/

To add the FREE wish list program to your web site: http://www.rateahome.com/Documents/AddLink.aspx

Provided by Rate A Home as a service to all. www.rateahome.com

80%+ of the general public search the Internet before ever making contact with an agent. It's even more important to have a resource page for the general public to locate you.

To help the buyer's and seller's please post in the comment area what area and state you do business in. Include any information such as, what services you specialize in, web site, name etc. 

Buying a home can lead to frustrations and different opinions for a couple.

If a couple is searching for their dream home who gets the final say in the home choice?

In most cases it's the individual with the strongest opinion of what will make them happy with the choice. The emotions of home buying can lead to split and hurt feelings if the decision isn't approached in the right format. So how does a couple keep the emotions and still make the right choice to meet both their needs and wants? Simple, by utilizing a rating system to turn the process into a due diligence approach as one would do with any investment.

To really "narrow down" the choices, a buyer's home rating program and walk through checklists become the ultimate tools to locate their dream home. By rating 5-10 features in each home the buyer tours, then combining and calculating a couples ratings will determine the best home to meet both their needs. The emotional approach of buying now becomes a due diligence approach to their largest investment in life. See a sample and a demo at http://www.rateahome.com/ (Don't let the rating demo scare you, Rate A Home chose to rate all the features for demo purposes only, commonly buyers rate 5-10 features)

With a rating report that ranks the homes that meet both the individuals needs the couple has a guideline of the top choice for the place they will call home.

Buying a home can be a frustrating venture. But it doesn't have to be!

To streamline your house hunting trip to locate the trophy home you must prepare for your hunt. 

The weapons you will want for your excursion to be a success:

• Create a budget of your current house hold expenses and income.
• Get pre-qualified of a mortgage.
• Create a Wish List of your families needs.
• Research the area's you plan on hunting. Make a radius map with your targeted area, and how far from the bulls eye you are willing to hunt.
• Hire a Licensed Professional "Realtor" or Builder guide. Do your research on your hunting guide through the local "Realtor" or Builder Associations. Check with the local "Better Business Bureau." Utilize a questionnaire and rating system to locate the best guide that meets your needs. Check with previous clients of the Agent or Builder. Present your Wish List to your hunting guide.
• Scope the homes from the outside before scheduling a tour of each home.
• Don't hunt merely with emotions. Emotions will result in a cloudy hunt, be bright and do your due diligence.
• With so many choices of homes on the market, do keep a hunting journal (Walk through Check List) of each trophy you see. This will help to alleviate return refresher hunts.
• Utilize a Rating Program to narrow your hunt down to the trophy that best meets the families needs. Rate the homes separately as you tour. As each of you rate a home, decide on the 5-10 features that are most important to you, together. Combine the individuals ratings (if you are a couple), and rank each home accordingly. Discard the non trophy ratings and cross them off your hunting list. Narrow the list to the top three trophy's you would like to bag. Start with your top ranked trophy with two backup choices.
• Load up your purchase agreement for the offer. Your hunting guide is your best protection from the elements. Include an inspection clause. Don't be surprised or disappointed if your target ducks your offer. Negotiation is part of house hunting. It never hurts to seek legal advice at this point.
• Once your offer is accepted, do have the home inspected by a licensed inspector. Review the report with your guide.
• Your guide will help you with the best steps to proceed to the closing to turn your house hunt into your trophy home.

Utilize a Moving Guide to streamline your final destination move.

Bottom line, do your homework as Mom always said!