“Expired’s,” “Cancelled’s” Loom Larger Until a few years ago, I never spent much time looking at Expired or Cancelled listings when I was preparing a Comparative Market Analysis (“CMA”). Today? Depending on the part of town and property type, that’s often where I start. If you don’t take unsold listings into account these days —...Read More
The Blindfold Test, or, “Buyer Due Diligence” Want an old-fashioned way to tell if a given “For Sale” home is a value? Skip the complicated CMA (“Comparative Market Analysis”), detailed spreadsheets, etc. Instead, follow this two-step approach: One. Get up to speed in the area you’re interested in, familiarizing yourself with prevailing prices. Two. When you tour a...Read More
Pricing a Home When the Comp’s are Tough “You have to know the rules before you know when you can break them.” Normally, the standard way of doing a CMA (“Comparative Market Analysis”) is to limit your focus to three Comp’s, or “Comparable Sold Properties.” By definition, those are the nearby homes most similar in...Read More
Make that Three Times Once upon a time, I used to tell prospective Sellers that the Comparative Market Analysis (“CMA”) I was about to do would be repeated two more times. First, by the Buyer’s Realtor, trying to advise their client what to offer (and ultimately, to expect to pay). And second, by the appraiser dispatched...Read More
Earning Goodwill — But Not a Listing In my post, “When Realtor MLS Statistics Are Misleading,” I talked about all the things that take up Realtors’ time these days, but aren’t necessarily captured in their MLS sales statistics — or are easily missed. The list includes pre-list (non-MLS) sales; acting as a Facilitator; handling the...Read More
Telling Sellers What They Want to Hear — Initially It doesn’t happen to me that often, but — believe it or not — there are occasions when I interview for a listing, and the would-be client decides to go with another Realtor. In fact, I fielded a phone call informing me of that news earlier this week....Read More
