May. 2, 2006 - Congratulations

Well, well, well............Congratulations Paul and Stephanie. See what can happen when you take my advise and adjust the price on your over priced listing. It took less than a week to sell and you get a mention on my blog.

Read on my faithful readers, this is not a private love letter to the aforementioned Paul and Stephanie. Oh no no. There is a lesson here somewhere.

Let me start at the beginning. Maybe you remember my rant entitled "They Just Don't Get It". This is a similar situation, so maybe I am the one who needs to learn the lesson here.

Armed with a meticulous market analysis I went to see the the nice young couple mentioned above. They of course wanted to test the market. Not a bad idea in a sellers market, but in a buyers market, give me a break. However, after making it clear that the price they wanted to list at was going to be detrimental to a quick sale at a fair price, I listed their property at THEIR price, with what I thought was an understanding that a price adjustment would be an option.

I went into marketing mode. Visual Tour, featured property on the front page of REALTOR.COM, featured property on all three of my web sites, 7,500 Hot Marketer e-mails, 3,000 just listed post cards, colored feature sheets on property, open house, all of the little things I do to get a house sold. I put close to $1,000 into the marketing effort. That doesn't really bother me though, because it usually gets made up when I represent the client on the buying side after they sell the property. I love to market, both me and the property.

Can you imagine my surprise when, a week and a half before the listing was due to expire and I talked to them about a price adjustment and an extension on the listing, they shut me down? They wouldn't even let me show it anymore. Instead of just asking to be let out of the listing agreement, I got stonewalled until the listing just expired.

I was not surprised when the property showed up as a new listing priced $11,000 less with a different agent though. I can tell when I am being lied to.

On the bright side is the fact that the price reduction worked. I gave good solid advise right from the start, as I always do. So here are to more pieces of advise I have for these guys: 1) Don't play poker because you give it away too soon, and 2) get your moral compass fixed, you have a child to raise.

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