Last month’s Rant was entitled “10 Key Elements of the Perfect Listing Process.”
This month, here’s a real-life recent story about what can happen as a result of doing absolutely everything right with a listing!
I met with the sellers, and after reviewing everything, we set an aggressive goal for the list date. We wanted to take full advantage of the current market conditions, and—quite honestly—I wasn’t sure how long the conditions would last.
We met with Angela right away for the home-staging consultation (a standard service for us on every listing), and she made some great suggestions, as always! But, it was going to be a lot of work, including moving some furniture up and down stairs.
The sellers were up for the challenge and worked very hard to get it all done in time for photography, staying up until 1:00 a.m. one night. They did everything Angela asked them to, and by the time they were done, the house looked fantastic! Angela has incredible vision, and I feel so fortunate to have someone with her immense talent on our team.
In the meantime, I was working on the ad copy. I pride myself on my straight-to-the-point style, highlighting the property’s best features in a way that piques the reader’s curiosity and triggers them to want to know more. After all, that’s what it’s all about—maximizing the number of high-quality showings!
When the images came in (they were fantastic as always), me and my team worked together to choose and arrange the best ones. I don’t think most people realize how much time and effort we put into this aspect of the listing process. We typically start with over 100 images, and it’s a painstaking process to whittle them down to around 25-35 of the best ones, always considering the point of view of the most likely target buyer. Jamie—my listing coordinator—has become super-talented at this, although we sometimes debate back and forth whether an image should be used or not and in what order. It’s a collaborative process!
Once we’ve got all the images in order, the ad copy written, and all the other essential fields loaded for the MLS presentation, Jamie, I, and Rachelle (our graphic designer) all work together to design the brochure. I genuinely believe that the quality of the brochure directly reflects the quality of the listing, which is why we put so much emphasis on this part of the process that most agents don’t even bother with. We’ve taken this to a whole new level this year.
We got all the work done on time and pulled the trigger on the listing early Friday morning, on schedule, and almost immediately started getting showing requests. The sellers were in and out of the house frequently, making sure everything was just so in between showings. After being out of the house most of Friday and Saturday, they were relieved to come home at 7:30 pm. But I got a late call from a Realtor, asking if we could squeeze in one more showing at 7:30 pm. Well, you never know where the buyer will come from, so I called the sellers, and they agreed. They were super-accommodating throughout the process, and I had high hopes for a great result.
The next day (Sunday), I was working the phones, and we ended up with three offers. In a multiple-offer scenario, all three agents are angling to see what advantage they can get, but of course, I’m working for the seller, not them!
I can’t reveal all my tactics here in print (I’ll be happy to discuss this with you directly), but suffice it to say that the end result was that we ended up with a very strong offer $75,000 over asking. And guess where it came from?
From the agent who asked for the late showing at 7:30 on Saturday night!
It turns out that was the only time he could go, and because my clients accommodated him (just as they accommodated everything I asked of them), they ended up with an unbelievable price, far above anything we realistically expected.
This was a well-deserved reward for these sellers for doing everything right!
Of course, I can’t promise the same result with every listing, but I can promise that we do everything possible on every listing to dramatically increase the odds of producing a fantastic result. If you do your part, you will increase the odds even more.
Until next month!
Ted