Now that we have decided to actually start taking listings again, I thought I would share with you some of the stats that help us to sell homes. Firstly though, it is important to know that there are really only two things that will help sell a home in a slow market....price and exposure.
Price
We have been very selective about the homes we choose to list. Unlike most Real Estate companies, we will not take every listing that presents itself to us. Don't get me wrong, I used to do that like everyone else. It was then, while sitting on 50 listings or so, getting yelled at by every owner, that I realized I need to change our philosophy on Listings.
As most of you know, we do things quite differently at Tropical Realty. Over the past few years we have spent all our efforts on helping buyers buy homes. Because of the scenario above, it just wasn't worth it to carry listings. Besides that, it just wasn't fun. I'm a firm believer that if my customer and I are not having fun, I really don't want to be involved!
I heard a saying a few months ago that I truly love. "Do you want to be IN the market or ON the market". With less than 250 homes selling out of 7200 homes on the market in January, you can see that only a few sellers choose to be IN the market. Since our goal is always to help our customer, we will only take listings of customers who want to be IN the market. So how do you become IN the market?
In this market, it's really all about price. We have been testing our marketing and have found that if a home is priced at 5% below everyone else in their market, the home should sell within 90 days or less. We have seen that a few of the homes we listed in January are now under contract using this rule. The others are getting showings and it's just a matter of time before we should get offers. It's actually very exciting and our customers love us!
One problem with our Industry is that many Realtors will tell you what you want to hear. Fortunately we don't fit into that mold. We are going to be upfront and honest every time. Unfortunately most sellers do not want to hear what we have say! We are not going to list a home for $250k when we know that it is going to get $200k at the most. In fact most Agents will tell you that you should be able to get $250k and they are the first ones to call you in 30 days or less letting you know that you have to lower the price. They are not doing any type of service for their customers. Price your home right and it will sell...it really is that simple!
Exposure
Most Agents will put your home in a magazine and list your home in the MLS...and then what....they just sit back and wait for another Agent to sell the home or for someone to call off the sign in the front yard of the home.
Tropical Realty of Suntree owns and operates two websites currently with two more in the works. The stats I am going to give are a combination of both sites.
Tropical Realty of Suntree – Quick Facts
Did you know that over 80% of homebuyers start their search on the Internet?
Tropical Realty of Suntree is the leader in Brevard County for Internet Traffic and Buyers.
Currently Tropical Realty websites receive approximately 55,000 visitors each month.
www.MitchRealty.com is ranked 14th in the nation for Real Estate websites according to Ranking.com.
Tropical Realty of Suntree was the Number 1 office in Brevard County in closed transactions with buyers in 2007.
There are over 500 registered Real Estate companies in Brevard County
Tropical Realty currently has over 25,000 people in our database with approximately 10,000 buyers actively looking to buy within the next year.
Tropical Realty spends more money on Internet Advertising than most companies spend on print Advertising.
All our listings are found on Google, Yahoo, Homegain, Craigslist, Trulia, Lycos, AOL, Zillow and many more sites with a total of over
Our goal is to have 100,000 visits per month by the end of 2008 with an additional 20,000 new customers in our database.
As you can see there is a lot of great stuff here ! I have more stats but don't want to put to much writing on here as I try to keep these blogs to a reasonable length. As always, let me know if there is anything I can do to help.
Have a great night!
Mitch
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