Missoula, MT

Photo by Kelsey Ray

Missoula Farmer's Markets & Local People's Market

A Saturday morning in Missoula wouldn't be complete without visiting our local Farmer's Market and the People's Market.

Located in downtown Missoula at Railroad and Higgins, the Farmer's Market has been in operation since 1972 and provides a place for local farmers and vendors to share their goods.

The People's Market features locally made crafts, jewelry, baskets, and arts. It has something for virtually everyone.

The Farmer's Market/People's Market is open on Saturdays from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. from May to October. For more information visit, Missoula Saturday Market.

Over the last several years a new farmer's market

also started on Saturday mornings under the Higgins Avenue bridge, along the Clark Fork River. The Clark Fork River Market provides locally grown produce but also offers farm fresh eggs, locally made sausage, fresh salmon and other perishable products. They are open from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. More information is available at Clark Fork River Market

With the two markets so close together, many people take the opportunity to walk through downtown Missoula, enjoying the fresh air and lively Missoula culture. A great way to start your weekend!

Kevin & Monica Ray are real estate sales and marketing professionals for Access Realty in beautiful Western Montana. For more information on Missoula Real Estate or surrounding areas, they can be reached at 406-207-1185 or online at www.AccessRealty.net.

Social Media Club Missoula to Hold First Meeting

Social Media Club Missoula

Strategies for Video in Social Media

July 15, 2009 at 6:00 p.m.

Missoula Public Library - Downstairs Meeting Room

If you get it, share it.

The First Meeting of Social Media Club Missoula is set for Wed., July 15th at the Missoula Public Library from 6:00 - 7:30.

Tim Danyo from Imagination Media will talk about Social Video Strategies and we'll discuss future events, elect officers, and generate new ideas. Admission is Free! Please RSVP.

For more information on the club and our upcoming meetings, Visit our Wiki: Social Media Club Missoula or contact Monica Ray at 406-544-3098.

The Missoula Social Media Club is looking for help shaping the future of social media in our local area and sharing information. We will have planned events with guest speakers and informal get-togethers. We would also like to bring in some well known speakers to talk about social media.

We are a local chapter of Social Media Club. Social Media Club has been organized for the purpose of sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and promoting media literacy around the emerging area of Social Media.

Social Media Club Missoula on Facebook

Follow Social Media Club Missoula on Twitter

Kevin & Monica Ray are real estate sales and marketing professionals for Access Realty in beautiful Western Montana. For more information on Missoula Real Estate or surrounding areas, they can be reached at 406-207-1185 or online at www.AccessRealty.net.

Last week’s team meeting produced an interesting tale of ‘overpricing woe’. The parents of one of my associates listed their house in mid-2006 at $590,000. The inaccurate list price was determined by their real estate agent, and the property sat on market for nearly 2 years, suffering a price drop of almost $200K. By the time my co-worker’s family unloaded the property, they had to settle for only $400,000; this unpleasant situation could’ve been avoided if only it had initially hit the market in the correct price range.

Overpriced listings are, unfortunately, a common practice in real estate. Some agents overprice their listings thinking they have provided themselves with “wiggle room” when it comes time to negotiate. Other agents price too high because they are either in agreement with the seller’s over-inflated valuation, or they are “buying the listing”: an unethical practice I will expound on later in this post.

Overpricing a listing for the sake of “wiggle room” may seem like a good idea, but in the end it will only serve to hamper your selling efforts. High priced homes do not yield as many inquiries as listings that are priced competitively; the lack of offers usually leads to several price reductions and a lengthier term on market, two factors that serve to erode the integrity of your listing. Savvy buyers will shy away from ‘lemons’ that have sat for months on end, only moving in for the kill when the agent has reduced the price by half of its original value.

Sometimes homes are priced too high for no other reason than the agent-seller team is in agreement. The trick in this situation is being able to look at a property objectively, as a buyer would see it. The seller’s viewpoint is obviously biased, but rightfully so since he/she has large sums of money invested in the property. Oftentimes valuations of a home are inflated due to upgrades the seller has performed. Sadly, buyers tend to not see the value in these upgrades, opting instead to modify the home themselves and therefore considering any upgrades the current owner has performed nothing more than the offering that’s on the table. Overpricing your listing based on current homeowner upgrades has the potential to lead to the unpleasant situation where the homeowner realizes that they spent more money on upgrades than they will ever see at the time of closing.

Unethical agents will sometimes attempt what is called “buying the listing”. This happens when the agent enters into a listing presentation with a purposefully over-inflated CMA. Of course, since homeowners oftentimes (through no fault of their own) have inflated valuations of their property, the ‘shady’ CMA aligns with the seller’s wishes and the agent has effectively bought himself a client by knowingly catering to their unawareness. Sometimes agents enter into these situations with the intention of talking down the seller at a later date; this, also, is not a good idea since your initially over-inflated price will undermine any chance the agent has of cashing in on the “New Listing Hype”.

You will get no argument from me that this is a touchy situation. No agent has ever won a listing by strong-arming their clients and ordering them around like green recruits. But, the question becomes: at what point are you catering too much to the seller that you are, in fact, sabotaging the transaction? It is the responsibility of the agent to draw on their industry expertise to protect their clients from low-ball offers, high-priced listings, and any physical harm incurred at the negotiation table. They are not only investing in your expertise, but ultimately placing their future in your hands. It is the duty of the agent to live up to those expectations.

Yesterday there was a 12 home Realtor lunch tour on the south side of Missoula. All of the houses were larger/newer homes in newer subdivisions, priced between $350,000 - $600,000. For those of you unfamiliar with our market, that's probably what you'd consider the "top end" right now, there's higher priced stuff, but these are mostly large homes with 4+ bedrooms, newer, big lots as high as 2 acres, etc.

After completing the tour it was sobering what is going on in our "top end" market, the general disconnect between agents and sellers, and how people still don't realize the changing national market. A few observations:

- Not a single house was priced within 10% of it's market value.

- Of the 4 most expensive homes only 1 had a yard, the rest had an acre of weeds or dried out dirt/clay. I figured some were foreclosures, none were, and in two cases the agents pretended to be shocked that I'd dare ask such a question.

- Only a few agents had the confidence that they were going to get a price reduction or work done on the house to improve it's appearance.

While the lower price range of our market is flying by, the top end crawls at a much slower pace, and agents are failing to help their sellers recognize that. In one house that was probably $100,000 over-priced the agent said she wasn't going to pass our feedback along b/c she was afraid of what her clients reaction would be! In another house that might've been $150,000 too high priced, the agent said that her clients would, "probably go that low." Well then, REDUCE IT! I don't usually search $150,000 over what my clients are approved for, and I doubt many other buyer's agents do so as well.

Someone help me, when did we go from being the professionals in our market that helped our seller clients get their house sold, to someone who will just appease their seller clients and not tell them what they need to hear? Come on people, if your sellers need to sell, and are willing to be priced within their actual fair market range, get it done. How on earth are you going to sell a house that's $100,000 over priced (at least), ugh.

The best advice I could give any seller's agent; if the seller wants to horribly over price the house, or bases their opinion on an old appraisal compared to your market advice, walk away - don't take the listing. Badly over-priced listings are probably the 2nd or 3rd biggest time wasters in this business (behind working with extreme low-ball bargain hunters, and selling short-sale houses).