“Sabotaging Your Listings” – Removing Home Showing Obstacles
April 24th, 2008 by Rich JacobsonWe were pressed for time. My Out-of-State Buyers had only a few days, and were on a whirlwind schedule. They scoured the Internet from a coffee shop wireless connection, and threw a few more candidates into the mix.
It ended up being like that VISA commercial, where everyone in the store is using their VISA card, and then the one guy tries to use cash, and the whole place shuts down from the log jam.
I called one of the last minute entries. The ‘phone-to-show’ number was the Listing Agent’s cell number. I got his voicemail:
“Hi! This is Rich Jacobson of Brio Realty. I was wondering if I might be able to schedule a showing for your listing on Jones Street for later this afternoon. I have some Buyers from out of town, and they would like to see the house.”
I got a return phone call later that day:
“Hi, This is Bill from XYZ Real Estate. Here are the showing instructions for the Jones Street property. Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 5:30pm to 7:00pm, Tuesdays and Thursdays from Noon to 2pm, and Saturdays and Sundays after 7pm.”
…..The brakes on the Home Tour bus came to a screeching halt!!!!…..
It amazes me, given the current market conditions (slow as molasses going uphill on a cold day), why anyone would create obstacles to prevent a home from being shown?
Typically here in our market, the ‘phone-to-show’ number is the Seller’s phone. The Buyer’s agent calls and sets up the showing appointment with them directly. This eliminates one more step in the communication chain. Some Listing Agents prefer to have their cell phone as the ‘phone-to-show.’ This isn’t necessarily an issue, as long as the Listing Agent is readily accessible. But then, the Listing Agent still has to call the Sellers, obtain permission, then call the Buyer’s Agent back. This can sometimes cause delays.
In a slow market, where you have tons of inventory, and lots of homes competing for the same pool of Buyers, Sellers need to do everything within their ability to make the showing process easy and painless for Buyers and their Agents. That means removing any potential obstacles that may exist.
Now, obviously, this doesn’t mean, as a Seller, that you do anything that compromises your safety. Don’t ever allow anyone in through your front door who can’t establish their professional standing as a licensed real estate professional. Always have them activate the Lockbox first, to ensure they can properly/legally access the key, and provide digital record of their visit.
As a Seller, you need to be as accommodating as possible if you’re going to successfully compete with other homes on the market.
Jack…
The most thorough and informative information I have found. Enjoyed it immensely….
That’s ridiculous showing availability. Definately NOT motivated sellers. In Spring Texas, the majority of listing agents use a centralized showing service. It makes it easy for buyer’s agents to only have to call one number to set up appointments. There are still quite a few agents that do not set their listings up with the showing service because it costs money. I have found once I started using the showing service my listings were getting more showings.
I was going to say “You are SO right,” but Karen beat me to it.
I have also planned a post on the importance of making your home EASY to see. The easier it is, the more people look at it, the higher the price. So on the listing side, my clients even change their voicemail to be more appealing. It says “Hi, calling about the house? I’m out, but use your lockbox key and leave a card, thanks” and the remarks say “Easy to show, call leave VM and go” (heck they have 3 kids, so they deserve a heads up).
But that is for sellers. If you are working with a buyer, the opposite applies. While it is more of a pain for us, make sure you get into those pain in the neck places to see. The renter who, if he shows you the place will get kicked out, is a perfect example. Nobody sees the place, it sells for $50k less.
Recently I also wrote about how people tend to skip over photoless listings. Not worth the trouble. Hello! I found that they sell for $15,000 less, so get inside them http://tinyurl.com/5wvqxz
Thanks for the post!
Frank
[...] Rich Jacobson, a Kitsap County Washington REALTOR, wrote an article about not sabotaging your home showings. Thank you, Rich, for giving me permission to link your excellent article. [...]
The part here that gets me is not so much the seller’s unrealistic schedule for showings, but the listing agents’ willingness to go along with it, rather than doing his job to educate the seller on why that’s not only a bad idea, but will literally cut the number of times that home is shown by roughly 80%.
What happens when a home is seen by only 2 out of 10 potential buyers?
In such a situation, I would educate the sellers, then turn down the listing if they insisted on such nonsense. Who exactly is the ‘expert’ anyway?
You are SO right, Rich! I am amazed in this market that people put a 24 hour notice on (and really STICK to it, even if you give 4-6 hours notice…
My favorite one though required 24 hour notice. We had to wait almost a week before we could get my buyers lined up with the seller\’s schedule. When we got to the house, it was filthy, full of clutter, smelled of pets…and we just wondered….why did we have to wait all this time to see THIS? It was so stupid it was almost comical.