$100 Off Weekly, Five Weeks in Row [Editor’s note: if the screen shot above is too hard to decipher, it shows a home that’s dropped $100 each of the last five weeks, from $475,000 to $474,900, then to $474,800, etc. The current price is $474,500.] If you added a zero (or two), you might actually...Read More
$50 Gift Card for Buyers’ Agents “If your Buyers visit my open house and mention your name, I’ll give you a $50 gift card to your favorite restaurant.” –email from listing agent promoting a Thursday night Summer open house. OK, so I don’t see it happening for more modestly-priced homes — say, those listed under...Read More
Too Much of a Good Thing? “As I am smoking . . . I don’t expect to be thanked.” –What John Hurt’s character — in “Love and Death on Long Island” (1997) — says to the cab driver, when the latter points to the cab’s “Thank You For Not Smoking” sign, and asks Hurt to extinguish his cigarette. Who doesn’t want...Read More
Proof That High Pressure Sales Tactics Don’t Work At least in my experience, the odds of any one showing leading to a consummated transaction are perhaps 1 in 10. The exception to that? If the Buyer’s agent is headed to the airport, or otherwise under acute time pressure. When that’s the case, I’d estimate that...Read More
“Real Estate Terminology 101” One of the confusing things about real estate is that, once a deal closes, the Buyer’s Agent is called the “Selling Agent.” Isn’t the Listing Agent, representing the Seller, the “Selling Agent?” Well, no. Think of it this way: the Buyer’s agent is selling something — actually, two things: One. The...Read More
Putting Clients at Ease (Just Not Too Much) My guess is, if you’ve worked with a Realtor (or any salesperson) lately, what you were ultimately asked to sign wasn’t referred to as a “legal contract.” It was called “paperwork” (sample agent-to-client dialogue: “if you’re comfortable with everything we discussed, let’s get the paperwork taken care...Read More
