VARbuzz » Tina Merritt

Buyer’s agent unexpectedly turns a buyer service into new listings

Tina Merritt — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:47:34 +0000

I recently had a conversation with a well-respected agent regarding property photos. She mentioned that when she works with buyers, she photographs the properties (after asking permission from the listing agents) and creates showing “albums” on the photo sharing site Flickr for her buyers to reference. This practice makes her buyers happy in that they can review what they have seen as well as helping her to better represent her buyers if there is some sort of question regarding a change in condition of the property prior to closing.

In creating these online albums of properties, something unexpected has happened. Sellers who Google their addresses are finding this agent’s pictures in the top search engines for their properties. The agent can attribute three recent listings to sellers who found her photos of their property online. The former listing agents didn’t have a clue as they never did much advertising online.

I mentioned this story in an office meeting last week and received a variety of comments from agents. Some felt that the practice of putting photos of a listing that is not yours online is unethical and could be a security hazard for a seller. Others felt that if the buyer’s agent has the listing agent’s permission, all is fair and she is representing her buyer. It’s not the buyer’s agent’s fault that the listing agent is “technologically illiterate”.

What is your opinion?

--------------------------------------------------------------------- Setting yourself apart from other agents is closer than you think, “Go Beyond” with zipLogix. The creator of zipForm^® real estate forms software, zipForm Mobile, zipLogix Digital Ink^®, zipVault^® document storage, and relay^® transaction management tool. Broker solutions available. ---------------------------------------------------------------------

The Administrative Fee. It’s Just Not Good Business.

Tina Merritt — Mon, 11 May 2009 18:30:23 +0000

Kenneth Harney wrote a story in The Washington Post on Friday about a recent court challenge to a real estate broker’s "add-on" fee.

Call them what you will: "admin fee", "add-on fee", etc…….they’re basically junk fees. There, I said it. I used the "J" word.

In the past 5-10 years, it had become a rather common practice for real estate brokers to charge a separate fee, in addition to the commission, at closing. These fees generally run anywhere from $150-$450 and are charged to a buyer or seller or both.

The Real Estate Settlement Practices Act of 1974, which governs home purchases, includes provisions designed to prevent junk fees. The law dictates that fees can only be collected for services actually provided. That means junk fees levied simply for the heck of it are not allowed.

In a recent court decision, "U.S. District Judge Virginia Emerson Hopkins in Birmingham, Ala., ruled that when a real estate firm charges clients an "admin" fee, for which no specific settlement services are performed, the fee violates the law.

(I’m not an attorney: You might want to call one for some advice in light of this ruling)

Some brokers call the fees "a cost of doing business". In my experience, real estate agents, for the most part, cringe when the fees are mentioned. Why? Because the majority of agents must pay the fees out of their own pocket if they do not collect them from their clients. Also, there are all of the "exclusions": banks are usually not charged the fees due to the volume of business they provide, ditto for relocation companies. Some mortgage programs will not permit a buyer to pay an administrative fee so it is waived. So is it "fair" to charge the fee to some and not all?

As an agent, I despise these fees. Even after all these years, I am still embarrassed to have to explain this fee to my clients. Why? Because I truly do not see any value in service for these fees. The clients will receive the same service, the same marketing, the same quality whether they pay the fee or not.

So, what is NAR’s take on all of this? According to NAR, they support brokers’ ability to charge legitimate fees for real services provided. "To the extent the administrative brokerage commission is stated separately from the real estate broker commission, the broker should ensure that the fee is disclosed, that real services are being provided to the client in exchange for the fee, that the services are documented and, again, that the fees are reasonable in relation to the services being provided."

While this ruling sheds light on the legality of these fees, the ultimate test is that of the consumer. In the free market economy, what is the consumer willing to pay for real estate services? I have often heard the argument that many other companies tack on "fees" – such as airlines charging a fee for a reservation placed over the phone rather than online, or hotels charging a "resort" fee, or pizza companies charging a delivery "fee". The difference with these examples though, is that as a consumer, I have a choice in the matter. I can physically see what the actual service is that I am being charged the "fee" for and make a decision on whether or not I want to pay that fee. I can choose to make my airline reservation online to avoid the phone fee, I can pick up my pizza to avoid the delivery fee.

With these real estate administrative fees, it seems the only choice the consumer has is to pay it, or go to another company. That’s not good business.

Moral of the story? In order to stay on the right side of this ruling, brokers who add these fees to the transaction better be able to demonstrate what the fees are for. Again, consult an attorney.

List it and Forget It???

Tina Merritt — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:47:32 +0000

As I was scanning a few listings in our MLS looking for comparables recently, I noticed some pretty disturbing things:

Public comments like “have a new home for Christmas” – obviously from 2008
No pictures. Zilch. Nada.
No comments. No public information. No words to entice buyer-agents to show the listing.

There’s just no excuse for this. The MLS is the #1 advertisement for a property. Not only that, multiple feeds pick up the MLS data for their site (Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow, etc.). If the information in the MLS is incomplete, the feed may reject the listing and it won’t be picked up at all!

Here are a few tips:

Review your MLS data weekly. Put it on your calendar as a recurring event so you won’t forget.
Set up an auto-notification for the neighborhood so everytime another property is listed, reduced, sold, etc., you are notified and can adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.
Have excellent pictures. Use a professional photographer if you need to. The MLS is the “Match.com” of houses; first impressions are everything.
Put as much data as possible into your MLS listings.
NEVER put the same remarks in the public and agent remarks fields.

Don’t forget your client, the seller. Keep them updated too. Send them the neighborhood data and review your pricing strategy regularly. Share the analytics of how many “hits” their property is getting on various sites. Let them know how hard you are working for them.

Does a Changing Market Bring Out the Worst in Agents?

Tina Merritt — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:06:53 +0000

Randy Prothero, an agent in Mililani, Hawaii, recently wrote a post on Active Rain titled, “A Changing Market is no Excuse for Bad Behavior“. To quote Randy, “When the market was hot, it seemed like people were crawling out of the woodwork to become real estate agents and loan officers. They had little to no training and no experience, yet they had a license. The market was hot, everyone was making money and it seemed like clients were willing to forgive and forget.“ I’d like to add to Randy’s statement, “And agents were also willing to forgive and forget“.

Think about it, back in 2004, when a listing could easily get 10 offers in 24 hours, did we really get THAT upset about a fellow agent now showing up for a scheduled showing appointment? Were deals constructed so feverishly between buyers and sellers that verbal offers were sometimes thrown in so as not to “waste” anyone’s precious time?

Now that the market has slowed, there are a lot of agents left lingering who don’t know how to sell real estate, don’t know how to relate to their fellow agents and basically, don’t know what to do with themselves. They are frustrated that they can’t find a client at every turn and that once they do get a client, putting a sale together isn’t as easy as filling out a contract in the driveway while the client looks at the house.

In the meantime, brokers are feeling the pinch and compensating by consolidating offices, cutting support staffing and trimming agent benefits. So much for the happy, cheery, bustling office environment of five years ago.

But, times are not tough, they are just tougher. Having to work harder is no excuse for treating fellow agents poorly and forgetting basic manners of working as a real estate agent. Brokers need to step up to the plate here too and take some responsibility for their agents. They got away without training them properly a few years ago; now they need to reel them back in and train them correctly. Help them learn to overcome objections, read body language, prospect, all the basics of salesmanship which were missed due to the market conditions. Along those lines, also reinforce the fact that we all need to work together, respect one another and “do unto others”.

1. Make showing appointments with a reasonable amount of notice. If a buyer is serious about looking at houses, they will understand that appointments need to be made and confirmed and houses need to be prepared.

2. If you will be late or will not make it to an appointment, call the other agent and inform them so they can let the seller know. It’s just rude to not do so.

3. If the sellers are at home when showing a property, introduce yourself and your clients and ASK to take them through the house. When finished, thank the seller and inform them you are leaving and that you will be in touch with their agent. Remember, you have been INVITED into THEIR home.

4. Leave a card whenever you show a property. Take time to go around and secure all doors, turn off lights, etc. Even if vacant, you are still a guest in someone’s home.

5. Call or email showing agents with feedback. That way the feedback is left when the properties are still fresh in your mind and also, when it is convenient for the showing agent. Yes, it is frustrating when you have shown 10 houses and the buyer didn’t like any of them. But, feedback can be a great time to brainstorm with another agent – maybe they have a listing that WILL work for your buyer.

6. Listing agents, remember, this is not YOUR house. Do not argue with a showing agent about feedback. Return showing phone calls promptly and THANK the other agent for showing your listing (they probably had a lot to choose from).

7. Work TOGETHER to overcome objections! That is OUR job! So, the buyer didn’t like the house because their entertainment system wouldn’t fit in the family room? How about if the seller leaves their flat screen which is hanging on the wall and fits perfectly in that room? If we put our heads together sometimes, we can make things work.

8. Put EVERYTHING in writing. It protect us and protects our clients.

9. Buyer-agents, please don’t show property to buyer’s who are not verifiably qualified. It’s unprofessional. Would you go to the grocery store not knowing how you are going to pay for the groceries? No. Then why would you go look at a house without knowing how you will pay for it?

10. Keep emotions in check. If you don’t have ridges in your tongue from biting it so hard, you haven’t come into your own as a real estate agent. As real estate licensees, we represent our clients first. Do you think your seller really cares whether or not you like the other agent or if they didn’t treat you nice 2 years ago? No. All the seller cares about is selling their house.

Bad, unprofessional behavior damages the way the public views us and our profession. If we concentrate on working together with respect and courtesy, good things will come.

Unfazed???? How About Dazed and Confused????

Tina Merritt — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:27:33 +0000

VAR recently brought a post on Realtor Magazine’s blog to my attention. The article talks about how Charlotte, NC agents are having it “hard at the top”. They are in one of the few US markets which has been unfazed by the national housing downturn. That is, Charlotte has actually shown an increase in property values over the past year. As a result, NAR economists continue to parade Charlotte in the press, as if to say, “See? It’s not all bad!”

This is having unintended consequences. It turns out that because of the all the positive press about how Charlotte is weathering the national housing storm, agents there are dealing with multiple fall-through contracts and sellers who perceive themselves to be immune from the downturn of the rest of the country.

In Hampton Roads, we are going through something similar to Charlotte. VAR occasionally points to Hampton Roads as one of the bright spots in the Commonwealth’s housing market. According to VAR’s most recent figures, the Hampton Roads market has seen values hold steady, and there are even pockets of increases. We also have the luxury of living in a very transient environment. We constantly have people moving in and out of our area (in large part due to the military) and the need for housing is always active in our market.

I suppose we are fortunate in that the media coverage of our local real estate market has leaned toward the “doom and gloom” of the nation at large. Reasonable sellers (for the most part) understand that they have competition in this market and need to compete in order to sell.

Wise brokers tend to use the term “Real Estate is Local”. That is DEFINITELY the case in Hampton Roads. We have pockets where you can’t seem to GIVE a house away and others where multiple offers are still par for the course.

So, where IS our market? Our market is back to basics. Buyers want to see affordable and in great condition. Buyers are looking for single family homes under $245,000 with no updating needed. If they look at condos and townhouses… there are a lot to choose from so they choose the BEST for LESS. Higher end? Buyers want the least expensive home in the neighborhood and they expect it to be in average to good condition. Buyers want a DEAL. If a seller won’t negotiate, the buyer will work their way down the street until they find a seller who will.

Foreclosures? We really don’t have that many. They normally sell within 15 percent of market value so the “deals” are not here. I recently was asked by a bank to complete a BPO for a property about eight blocks from the Virginia Beach Oceanfront. The bank asked for only foreclosed comparables and the closest I could find was more than nine miles away.

The biggest downturns we have seen are in the outlying areas (Isle of Wight, Suffolk, NE North Carolina). These are areas that became “hot” when is was virtually impossible to obtain a decent, affordable home in Norfolk, Chesapeake or Virginia Beach. Since the majority of the population commutes to Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake or Portsmouth, the outlying areas are feeling the pinch as commuters have chosen to live closer to their places of employment (with gas at $4/gallon).

So, we are counting our blessings here in Hampton Roads. We still have buyers and we still have sellers. Our inventory is up; however, our sales prices are pretty level.

On a side note…with the price of fuel so high, many vacationers are choosing to stay closer to home and we are seeing more and more tourists from the Commonwealth! Maybe along those lines we can regain some of the lost second home market!

Video Killed the Open House Tour?

Tina Merritt — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:02:35 +0000

The featured Active|Rain video blog today is an interview between Joel Burslem and Doug Heddings. Doug discussed his tremendous success using video tours for his listings. He uses a professional videographer who tapes and edits the videos at a cost of approximately $300-$500 each.

What really caught my attention was Doug’s description of HOW to make a video tour. He NEVER once mentioned promoting himself! If you watch one of his video tours, you never even see him (just an arm or two as he opens and closes doors). Doug then describes “acting” in the video just as if you were showing the house to a buyer. He is relaxed, at ease and very good at “showing” the property.

In Doug’s videos, he not only shows you the property from top to bottom, but also the sites around and convenient to the property. He describes how easy it is to access the George Washington Bridge from one of his properties, shows the butcher and cafes within walking distance as well as the area parks.

It’s almost like popping a client in a golf cart and whisking them through the neighborhood and touring the sites and even, sounds of the neighborhood.

Last week, I purchased a Vado camera for video blogging. Now, I don’t see myself putting together a quality presentation like Doug’s with this camera. But, I do see possibly adding video of the schools assigned to a particular listing, the area parks, the neighborhood recreation center, etc. I plan to start small and grow with it.

I agree with Doug, in the big picture of things (no pun intended), $300 isn’t a lot for a quality video tour. I would rather spend $300 on a great tour than sit for hours upon hours at open houses with just a few walk-ins. Nothing can replace that person-to-person communication, but if a video tour gets viewed hundreds of times, doesn’t it make sense to do a video before sitting an open house? Will video tours kill open house tours?