Is buying a home a good idea in November and December?

As the holiday season approaches, based on my years of experience, the months of November and December are great for home buyers. The reasons for this appear to be:

1. There are fewer buyers – with all the things going on around the holidays many buyers are simply too busy to focus on finding a home.
2. Fewer buyers mean Sellers may be willing to deal – when homes stay on the market during the holiday season that indicates the seller is very motivated to close quickly.
3. I find sellers are more willing to pay closing cost and leave items (like refrigerators) as part of the transaction.

So, if you are looking for a home during the holiday season, be sure to contact me and we will find the best place at the best price.

Are you Taking Advantage of Referrals?

How do you handle a referral? When someone gives you the name and contact information of a potential client, do you have a process? If you don’t, there’s a good chance you’re not going to take advantage of the referral.

Your Personal Network

Sometimes referred to as a “warm lead”, a referral is not an automatic sale. You must manage and nurture the potential client to prevent them from becoming another name in your client list. Here are five tips recently offered by Zillow.com to turn a referral into a client.

1. Arrange an Introduction

Try to set up a meeting where the prospect, the person giving the referral, and you can meet face to face. Having everyone together is a great way to create trust, get to know one another and generate rapport which is the foundation for a strong working relationship.

2. Do Your Homework

Once you’ve met the referral, set up a time to discuss exactly what the prospect is looking for and how you can be of service to them. By understanding their “wants” and “needs” is a critical first step in determining exactly how you can best present solutions to meet those wants and needs.

Dig deep, many times people don’t know exactly what they really need or want, but they know what they don’t want. Build a picture for them. Be sure to ask follow up questions regarding what they’ve told you to help explain why they want a specific option or service. “Why is that?” or “Please explain?” are great ways to find out the why behind the want.

3. Assume Nothing

When you receive a referral, the referrer may try to tell you everything they know about the prospect. Don’t rely on this information as the only information you depend on as you move forward. You must get to know the prospect personally. Your relationship may well be completely different than that of the referrer and the prospect may respond completely differently in the context of your dealings.

4. Don’t Overwhelm Your Contact

It is human nature to want to give the prospect everything they will need to make a decision right at first, but many times this will run them off. We want them to be well informed but remember too much at once can overwhelm and frustrate potential clients. Introduce important information each time you meet with them.

5. Let Your Personality Shine

It’s quite likely that you received a warm contact through someone that knows you, or at least knows of you. They referred you for two primary reasons: your professional ability and your likability. You can prove your professional mettle in a number of ways — defining wants and needs, educating your client on the local market, and demonstrating your expertise in the buying/selling process. Showing your personality is sometimes more difficult than proving professionalism. It’s important to do though, as people want to work with someone they like. As a real estate pro, you’re used to reading people and understanding what makes them tick. Use that skill to “break the ice” early in the process. While you can’t force someone to like you, making an effort to be personable can pay huge dividends.

Once you’ve taken care of the referral, remember to take care of the referrer. You don’t have to fill them in on every single aspect of what you’ve done for the referral, but a few key points will help strengthen your relationship, especially if you tell them how much they have helped you succeed. Of course be sure to reciprocate with a good quality referral. Building your referral network will do more for your long term success than any advertising campaign.

When does a Buyer’s termination option really end?

In a recent blog post on the Texas Association of Realtors web site, asked this very question. When does a Buyer’s termination actually end?

Many Realtors say the deadline is 5:00 PM of the last day of the contract but in actuality “TREC contracts and addenda do not specify a time-of-day deadline.” Further the post commented “The language of the termination-option provision allows for termination at any time within a specified number of days after the effective date of the contract. Therefore, a buyer may provide the notice to terminate up until 11:59 p.m. of the last day of the termination-option period.”

The best thing to do, of course, is for all parties to avoid last-minute compliance with performance-of-contract obligations or requirements whenever possible to avoid controversy.

It must be noted that the blog has a legal disclaimer (which is repeated here for convenience):

“The material provided here is for informational purposes only and is not intended and should not be considered as legal advice for your particular matter. You should contact your attorney to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem. Applicability of the legal principles discussed in this material may differ substantially in individual situations.”

“While the Texas Association of REALTORS® has used reasonable efforts in collecting and preparing materials included here, due to the rapidly changing nature of the real estate marketplace and the law, and our reliance on information provided by outside sources, the Texas Association of REALTORS® makes no representation, warranty, or guarantee of the accuracy or reliability of any information provided here or elsewhere on TexasRealEstate.com. Any legal or other information found here, on TexasRealEstate.com, or at other sites to which we link, should be verified before it is relied upon.”

To read the comments about the TAR article click on

https://www.texasrealestate.com/advice-for-texas-realtors/article/what-time-does-the-option-period-actually-end

Finding Design Help on the Web

You’ve lived in your home now for many years and its time to start making changes to make it more livable. Where do you go to start your design plans? This article introduces you to a couple of my favorites.

The first site to check out is Houzz.com.

Houzz.com offers great articles, idea books, Advice and weekly e-zine.  Design ideas vary from landscaping to building. This site is very visual. Every article is packed with images of finished projects. It is the perfect place to see what others have done. Check out an example article.

My Houzz: A Texas Home Dances to Its Own Beat

Ella Decor

Another excellent design site can be found at ElleDecor.com. This site, like Houzz.com, has an eclectic array of ideas, concepts and examples. A word of warning, ElleDecor is much more of a typical web site with more advertizing but it delivers when it comes to Desgin and Decorating concepts.

These are just two of the many web sources to help you design that perfect yard, kitchen, or room. Check back regular for more home ideas.

A New Opportunity For Realtors in ’09?

After about 30 years of being a successful Real Estate Agent in DFW, in late 2008 I finally made the decision to get my broker’s license and create my own Real Estate company. Thus, Ideal Real Estate Group, was born!

How many realtors have you known over the years that get frustrated by: Giving away a significant portion of their commissions to their brokers; unreasonably high monthly office rent and overhead; and not getting a significant level or training and/or on going support from their broker.

Having personally experienced all of these things at one time or another during my career, I made the call that I was going to put together a different kind of opportunity for Realtors to take advantage of that would address these issues. That’s where the name Ideal came from…for I wanted to create the ideal environment for Realtors to become successful!

At Ideal Real State Group, we provide an effective solution to basically two types of real estate agents. For the experienced agent, we offer the opporunity to greatly reduce their monthly overhead, with a pricing structure that is one of the best deals in all of DFW, while still providing them with access to a professional, state of the art and brand new office infrastructure. For the new or struggling agent, we offer something that’s hard to find in this profession…an environment that provides them with ongoing training, weekly support and mentoring sessions, while still keeping their overhead at the lowest possible level…to better faciliate them being able to build a successful business quickly.

Here’s an overview of Ideal’s Realtor fee structure.

BASIC PROGRAM FOR EXPERIENCED REALTORS:
-$200.00 a month office fee
-$200.00 per transaction
-E & O fees will be deducted out of the first closing.
-Unlimited use of an office and conference room in our state of the art facility, located in Flower Mound…as well as any necessary office equipment, (fax, computer, copy machine etc…).

BASIC PROGRAM for NEWER AGENTS:
-$200.00 a month office fee.
-20% of each commission earned
-Unlimited use of an office and conference room in our state of the art facility, located in Flower Mound…as well as any necessary office equipment, (fax, computer, copy machine etc…).
-Weekly support meetings to discuss and develop: Managing your business; goal setting/achievement; how advertise at little or no cost; how to find listings and buyers.

INTENSIVE MENTORING PROGRAM for NEWER AGENTS:*
-$200.00 a month office fee.
-50% of each commission earned
-Unlimited use of an office and conference room in our state of the art facility, located in Flower Mound…as well as any necessary office equipment, (fax, computer, copy machine etc…).
-Weekly support meetings to discuss and develop: Managing your business; goal setting/achievement; how advertise at little or no cost; how to find listings and buyers.
-Total mentoring environment, where I will personally work with you hand in hand on all aspects of the profession, including: Writing the paper correctly; Going along with you on your listing appointments, new buyer appointments and showings.

*This package is designed stictly for either, new agents or agents who once licensed, have never gotten proper intruction on not only to the technical aspects of this business, but more importantly, how to deal with the different kind of people you’ll encounter in this profession.

Agents can start at any level that they feel they need and can switch to another to lower their overhead as their business begins to develop.

Compare these programs to what you’re paying now and I think you’ll find this is one of the most competitive in all of DFW!

If you’d like more information, or would like to discuss your particular situation, please contact me directly by phone at, 469-635-3234, or by email at: sandy@idealrealestategroup.com

I’m here to help you succeed!

Sandy Luedke
Broker
Ideal Real Estate Group