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Posted at Matthew Ferrara & Company by Matthew Ferrara
Feb. 10, 2008
Good morning, friends. Here's a thought for today:
What if the market wasn't really slow? What if there was some other reason why houses were sitting on the market for months rather than weeks - as it was barely two years ago? Well, after visiting some open houses in my neighborhood this weekend, I think I may know why...
First, the open houses we visited weren't easily found online; sure, they were probably in the newspaper, but we don't get the newspaper in my house. We do browse the internet - every hour is seems like - and let's just say that some of the listings we knew of (because there are old, battered, crooked signs sticking up all over our town) weren't obviously "open" for visitors on Sunday - at least from their websites.
Second, the actual open houses themselves were a disaster; Who teaches these agents to do open houses (sorry, I know the answer to that)? While they were all smiles when we entered, nobody (and I mean nobody) walked through the house *with us* and narrated what we were seeing. How did we know what kind of heat it was or whether the appliances were new or just newly shined? Of course (because I couldn't resist) I played "excited buyer" and asked all sorts of questions about payments and money down and that kind of stuff. BUT Not a calculator or laptop was to be found that could help us with finance scenarios or email us links to suggested mortgage vendors. Was anyone really interested in selling us the house??? What about other listings the agents had? Couldn't tell you - no laptop, no internet connection. But they'd be happy to email us stuff *later*.
Of course, everyone was pleased to give us their card and a listing sheet; clever how those photos (all four of them) really compensate for the lack of useful data on the paper. Sure, a few bullet points and lots of exciting acronmyns (3BR, 2 BA and so on). And the listing sheet that stood out the most was the one with the typos; very nice touch there.
To summarize: After visiting five open houses this weekend:
Number of videos of the property seen: none
Number of neighborhood reports provided at open house: none Number of mortgage spreadsheets provided to us by email or cdrom: none Number of other properties emailed to us: none Number of offers we made: None.
Could it be that the "buyers were liars" or maybe was it something else?
-- M
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1. RE: Not a Slow Market
I hear you Matt. I had an open house both Sat and Sun and I was fired up and excited and treated it as such. Bottom line, I have 9 buyers with contact info that I CHOOSE to work with and they want me to help them locate property to purchase. I mean CHOOSE based on how we hit it off with one another and their temperment (positive people vs. negative). I have this kind of result because I show people visiting the open that this is and should be an enjoyable experience and we will have F-U-N in and with this process. Can you impagine in anohter few weeks after the new mortgage limits kick in. Yes - if you choose, you can be in for the ride of your life. Are you or better yet, will you be ready? It's your choice.