Annie Hart Cool, Cape Cod Real Estate Specialist

As Supply increases and demand waffels, this buyer driven market warrents care when delivering the under value offer to the seller. Gone are the days of taking offense to what has been termed "ridiculous" offers. Offense these days is a luxury. Consider the offer a conversation starter. A place to begin.

In the big picture, as the foreclosure market looms large and prices are driving downward, why not talk TIME. What is the value of Time? When Time and Money share the stage which rules.

I recently put a property of mine on the market in ski country. Sure, I know it is a bad Time to sell. But we don't use it anymore, we don't rent it because my husband is cautious about tenants, it sits empty and costs me money every month...Seems to me a good TIME to sell. But of course, the real estate climate is slow. My agent, (yes, I hired an agent and will pay full commission) says only one property has sold in my price range in 6 months. YIKES! So I took some advice from an instructor at the Century 21 Top Agent Retreat in Chicago. I told my agent, that I want to be aggressive. That TIME is valuable to me so I would like to start at one price and reduce the price by 2% every 3 weeks until the first of December.

I want an offer. I want to start the conversation. This is no time to be emotional about Real Estate. Sure, I would have loved to have made some money on this little house by the river. Sure, I would have loved the opportunity to pay capitol gains, Are you kidding? Capitol Gain says to me that I did OK! But, because I have kids sniffing around college tuitions and a husband about to retire... Maybe, TIME is a little more valuable than the dream I had of making money.

None of us have crystal balls... we could not have foretold this market. And, even tho the sellers want to make this Selling Climate "OUR FAULT"... ha, ha... we, the Realtors of America, had nothing to do with it.

So start the conversation. Get the offer. Talk TIME with your sellers. A Bird in the Hand... As my mother used to say....

And by the way, if you want to really know what your clients are going thru...try selling your own house... calling the moving company, working with agents... etc... Holy Smoke, that is another blog altogether...

It's National Realtor Safety week and not much is going on to educate agents in our Area. How about yours?

Century 21 Cape Associates in conjunction with the Falmouth Police Department is hosting 2 Realtor/Community Safety sessions at the Falmouth Police Station. This is the topic we all ignore and are sadly reminded of after an iTragedy. It is also a topic that we all hope some other agency takes on and we can go and support them by being in the audience. I couldn't wait for someone else to take it on so on October 9th from 3-4:30 and October 23rd from 6:30-8 at the Falmouth Police Station Century 21 Cape Associates and Officer Rogers are inviting Realtors and members of the Community to attend this common sense refresher course on being safe when selling Real Estate.

Does your office have a code word that signals distress if you call in from the field? Do you have 911 programmed in your phone? Do you casually enter homes with buyers you never met before? Does your local Police drive thru the neighborhood during Open Houses?

There is so much to learn. An easy investment of an hour and half at this session could be the difference between life an death. I remember the 24 year old from Canada at a conference I attended. She was so alive with excitement about being a realtor. How tragic that her life was cut short by a stranger posing as a buyer of new construction. How crazy? I encourage you Active Rainers, to have safety courses in your area for the new agents and for the seasoned and Jaded agents. This is not information that ever goes out of style ...just gets forgotten.

ANNIE HART COOL, SALES MANAGER, with CENTURY 21 CAPE ASSOCIATES on Cape Cod will attend the annual Century 21 Real Estate LLC "Top Agent Retreat." The day and a half conference provided top System sales associates with the chance to expand their real estate knowledge with educational sessions and network with peers from CENTURY 21^® offices from around the nation.

Century 21 associates with 2007-2008 sales production in excess of $110,000 in Adjusted Gross Commissions or 30 closed units are eligible to attend this exclusive event, held at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers in Chicago Illinois.

Ok, so I do a lot of purchasing post cards, advertising and web sites on the world wide web. I use pay pal. I am careful about my information. I pay my bills on line. I do the bulk of my banking on line... I even pay my taxes thru the Internet. So when my business charge card would not work while buying back to school clothes... I thought... "oops, hit my limit". I don't know why I thought that...but I did. When I went to deposit 2 commission checks (yes, it's been a good year) and the bank said my accounts were closed...

I thought ... "should I check and make sure my husband hasn't run away with the pool girl?" It's a wild world, you just never know???? Then the bank told me thousands of dollars had been moved from my account to a Saudi Arabian account and although they knew from my history that I like to travel...they thought Saudi Arabia was a little suspect. Phew, my husband did not run off with the pool girl...

Maybe my pay pal account was corrupt? Maybe I was anxious and gave too much information last time I booked a property web site? How could I have screwed this up? After a few minutes of blaming myself, the woman behind the bank counter assured me I had nothing to do with it. They had traced the problem to a local gas station attendant. The last place I filled up with gas...someone lifted my debit card numbers and planned a $22,000 vacation in Saudi Arabia on my dime.

Wow. So I pay for gas with CASH now. The good news, this thief was not very bright. He lifted 3 credit/debit cards on the same shift, same day and spent the money in the same place... LUCKY FOR ME< I am assured the money will be returned to me... so all is well. Pay with cash!

I have the privilage of speaking every other week with two Real Estate Professionals in other parts of the world for one hour. It's my mentor group. We work in widely different markets. We are experiencing different yet the same challenges. We meet to stay accountable. To offer help. To provoke inspiration and to be our own "quality assurance" department. In the land of the self employed, of the independent contractor... what a gift to have people out side the local area to guide, share, and inspire. Suzanne is a single mother working to provide for her daughter in the southern part of the country.

Mark is the listing King in Canada... where the economy is different... But Real Estate is all the same. We work to provide excellent service for buyers and sellers. We strive to stay educated and to committ to trackable numbers. We committ to holding each other accountable. We expect results ...and so far this has been a good year for all of us. I invite you to find a mentor group. Make it a priority...watch the contracts roll in....