Ambulance Chasing — & Its Opposite When you first start out in real estate, you want to sell everything. Single family homes, apartment buildings, farmland, the Mall of America . . . you name it. Gradually, it dawns on you that you may not be qualified to sell one or more of those things — in fact,...Read More
Congrats to Edina Realty Title’s Richelle Pikala For a Realtor, closing 662 deals would be a breathtaking achievement over a 30-year career. So, that’ll give you an idea exactly how impressive it is to handle 662 sales, as a real estate closer, in just one calendar year. That 2018 production qualifies Richelle Pikala as Edina Realty...Read More
Passing on Overpriced Listings Everyone knows this famous passage from The Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” —Reinhold Niebuhr Here’s my version for listing agents (Realtors representing home sellers): “God, grant me...Read More
A Fern Hill Primer — Plus, the Neighborhood’s Two Distinguishing Features There aren’t too many Twin Cities neighborhoods that include both 1950’s ramblers for $300k and — less than one mile away — custom, upper bracket Contemporaries with gorgeous views of Cedar Lake and the Downtown Minneapolis skyline commanding (well) north of $3 million. But,...Read More
Novice Realtors Rush In Where Pro’s Fear to Tread “Never negotiate furniture.” “Never negotiate furniture.” “Never negotiate furniture.” “Never negotiate furniture.” Realtors who don’t know the above rule ” or forget it ” soon get the opportunity to (re)learn it. That’s because negotiating the sale of personal property, particularly furniture, can be more challenging than dealing...Read More
Qualifying Buyers #101 In the course of holding hundreds (thousands?) of Sunday open houses over the years, I can usually tell relatively quickly whether a given prospect is serious or not. See if you can guess which of the comments below indicate serious Buyer interest: A. “I LOVE this house. Why is it so cheap?!?” B. “What...Read More
