July 2009

Want to Get Your Real Estate License?

I don’t know if all REALTORS are experiencing the fantastic market that I seem to be enjoying but if you’ve considered becoming a licensed real estate professional, now may be the perfect time.

I received the following email from our training center coordinator:

Do you know anyone who wants to get their real estate license? Yes… despite the negative media about the real estate market, there are still people eager to join the business.

Last month, I had a dozen people take my pre-licensing class. At least three of them were referred by agents at RE/MAX Allegiance.

Starting next Monday, July 13th, I’ll again be teaching the Principles of Real Estate Course. The class runs for two weeks, Monday through Thursday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. and is being taught at our Training Center. The cost is about $300/student.

If you know anybody who’s thinking about getting their license, please have them contact you to sign up. I’ll be offering the same class again in September, starting on September 14th

So, if you’ve thought about this exciting career change, feel free to contact me or call 202-345-7399 to find out more! I would be happy to discuss the pros and cons or answer any questions you may have.

Why Isn’t My House Selling?

Your home is overpriced.  If it were only so simple… Your home probably is overpriced but not in the literal way you’re thinking. Even if your home were identical to the house next door that sold for the same price your asking for, you may have several disadvantages forcing you into having to lower your price. Disadvantages may include:

• Your home doesn’t look it’s best, because you weren’t advised to paint, make repairs and/or perform general cleanup
• You’re not allowing a lockbox or sign to be placed on the property
• You’re insisting on “appointment showings” only
• You hired a “part time” Realtor who wasn’t always available to take calls and answer questions
• Your home had inadequate traditional and online exposure
• Inadequate signage
• Priced comparably to other homes but not for the “unique” location of your house
• Too many other houses for sale to compete with

Any real estate agent, or any person for that matter, can only give you their price opinion on what your home should sell for. Of course real estate agents are far more practiced at giving those opinions than the average homeowner who sells a house once every 7 years or so. Many of us give price opinions many times each week in dozens or in hundreds of different subdivisions. In the end, the only way to judge whether your home has been priced right, is by the offers you receive and the speed of your sale. True market value is a combination of:

• Current market and economic conditions
• Competition
• Relative merits of your unique home, property and location
• Ability to appraise properly

Protect yourself, Use a Checklist!

Every contract is unique but all of them have time frames for actions to be completed. Even the cleanest of contracts will have a small handful of deadlines that need to be met. If something isn’t done on time, someones money could be at risk or the whole thing might fall apart. Examples of items may include:

• Inspections and follow-up deadlines for the home (systems, structural, pool, etc…), radon, lead based paint & others
• Loan application & more importantly approval
• Appraisal
• Potentially many more

Without a checklist, even a seasoned professional may occasionally slip up. My paranoia has been with me for well over a decade. Back when I was a new agent and everything seemed so complicated, I worried over the timing of items set forth in the contract. So much so that I started using a handwritten checklist, which progressed to one which was typed on an IBM Selectric II, before I finally discovered technology and became a Wordperfect 5.1 user to create that same list, remember Wordperfect 5.1? These days I use Excel of course and every new buyer or seller client that goes under contract gets a checklist. I open up an old checklist and change the names and addresses and then start going through the contract. I usually go through it twice just to make sure I’m not missing anything and then I sort the data by the date due. Not only does the client get a copy but the other agent in the transaction gets one too, just in case he or she doesn’t have a system in place. The most important reason for the checklist though is so that I never forget anything. Especially when working with multiple clients on different transactions.