Getting your home sold in today's market requires being not only aggressive, but also pro-active. Right now, the lower price ranges in many communities are selling quicker than the higher price ranges. In some areas it is not unusual to see homes on the market over 365 days. After a certain point, your home becomes invisible to buyers. Below are tips to keep your listing fresh and in front of buyers.

Price It Right

I cannot emphasize this enough. When I do a market analysis for a client, one stinking statistic is that the homes in the "sold" column sold reasonably close to their asking price and have also only been listed once (agents usually do a 3 or 6 month listing). The first 6 weeks you are on the market are the most active and the most crucial.

Once your listing goes beyond the average listing term, it becomes stigmatized. Today, it is very easy for buyers to find total days on market and number-savvy buyers have figured out that MLS numbers are sequential (more on that later). Buyers see an old listing and rightly think that many people have passed your home by without writing an offer. They think to themselves that those other people might know something and decide to follow their lead and pass yours by. There are plenty of other homes out there.

A good agent will present you with a COMPLETE market analysis, showing you not only comparables in your neighborhood but also within your whole community. Don't just pay attention to the properties that have sold, but have a good handle on what is on the market right now. That is your competition. You should never be priced the highest in your market.

Pricing correctly can make the rest of this article unnecessary.

Photos Are Important

When a buyer walks through your door for the first time, that is usually their second showing. They have most likely shopped extensively on the internet before making a decision on what homes to see. A great majority of them will pass on homes with either poor pictures or not enough pictures. The Milwaukee Metro MLS system allows agents to upload 25 photos of each property. Now, it might be hard to have 25 photos of a small property, but your agent should have an appropriate amount online to entice buyers.

Photos can also date your listing. The most obvious way is if an agent has a camera that imprints the date onto the photo. That is a huge "DUH!"

The other way they can date your home is by not being seasonal. During the summer, people don't want to even think of snow and therefore they might subconsciously attach a negative onto your listing based on a picture. Don't be one of the only listings out there with white in Summer or green in Winter!

Knowing that people are more intuitive than they realize, a thorough agent will at the very least take exterior photos as the seasons change. I will take photos after the first significant snow, then right after what is expected to be the last melt, then again when the grass greens a little, when the first blooms occur then one mid-summer. I keep that one until the leaves turn, then another photo when they fall. Even further than that, all of your INTERIOR photos should also reflect the seasons - people can see out the windows in the photos and they do notice it. Your agent should be shooting these after the first snow (and again after the Holiday decorations are down), after the first melt, once trees and grass are green then once the leaves fall. Another good practice is for your agent to use different exterior angles each time and even for you to do a little re-decorating or furniture re-arranging each time.

A careful eye should also be used when composing the photos. Photos taken on sunny days ilicit a better emotional reaction in buyers than do ones taken on gloomy days. Crooked photos are unprofessional and can create a certain amount of unease in a buyer viewing them.

Ad Copy

The old sales adage goes "Sell the sizzle, not the steak." Which is your listing selling?

The Metro MLS system has fields to designate how many rooms your home has, square footage, style, subdivision, age and many more. MLS then gives your agent 400 characters to really sell your home. How is he or she using those precious few characters? Knowing first that all your home's statistics are covered elsewhere in the MLS system, your agent should use that description to create mental ownership in prospective buyers. Home buying is extremely emotional and a description that only reiterates the dry stuff like "3 bedroom, 2.5 bath colonial" is not pressing a buyers hot-buttons at all.

While I am on the subject, is your agent using all 400 of those characters to sell the sizzle?

How Old Is Your Listing?

You may not know exactly how long you have been on the market, but you can bet that your buyers do!

Even without a buyers agent to tell them how long you have been on the market, astute buyers know that MLS numbers are sequential. When you look at your listing online (you do so on a regular basis, right?), is your MLS number something like 998754 when everyone else is 1090XXX? Do the math, your listing is OLD!

Taking a listing costs the agent money and many agents will sign people up for a 6 month or even a 1 year contract. This does save the agent some money, but could wind up costing you! In faster-moving sections of the market, an agent interested in YOUR needs will do something closer to a three month listing, while in slower-moving sections a 6 month is acceptable. Should you have to be on the market longer, it won't be as obvious. Another plus, when you re-list with a fresh MLS number, your property will get emailed to everyone looking for homes that match your criteria!

It is also obvious in any market analysis that older listings sell for less than they normally would have had they been priced and marketed properly from the get-go.

The "Nuclear" Option

I know, you are thinking to yourself "we've been listed for a few months and still nothing, what do we do?" Maybe your agent has done everything right, some things right or nothing right. What can you do?

Again, knowledge of the MLS system and how buyers and their agents look at things can help you.

The MLS system will run a total days on market for all consecutive re-lists. So, if your listing ran for 6 months then you immediately re-listed (same or different agent, doesn't matter) then you will have 2 numbers for days on market - current and total. The total ads the previous 180 days to your count. Agents and buyers will also look at consecutive listings as well, not to mention that even if you did everything listed above, your listing could just "disappear" to buyers. They see it every time they check their listings and just don't pay it any heed.

What may be your best option is a strategic, but temporary, retreat. If your home is off the market for over 90 days, the total days on market resets to zero. During your "pause" from the market, look closely at the feedback from your showings (your agent shared those, right?) and develop a plan. Did everyone make a comment about the purple bathroom? Paint it. They were't into the burnt orange shag in the family room? Replace it.

You should also look at what kind of feedback you got on your price, both from buyers and the agents from the office that toured your home when it was first listed (you had an office tour, right?). Remember that it isn't price that sells your home, but value. Some fix ups or neutralizations may bring your value up to your price.

Finally, even if you are happy with your agent, you should take this opportunity to interview at least two others. What is their price suggestion? Marketing plan? If you liked your first agent, re-interview them. Go with the agent who is best prepared for your appointment with good information on what to do to get you sold and also with strong data to back up their price suggestion.

Today's market is tough, there is no denying it, but homes are still selling and in some cases there are multiple offers. Choosing the right agent and listening to their good advice will get your home sold, too.

Everyone says they hate negotiating, yet when the chance arises they do everything in their power to make sure that a negotiation occurs.

Rule number one in negotiating: don't take it personally! The person on the other side of the table has the same job as you - they want to hold on to as much of their money as possible, can you really blame them?

When people think of negotiation they think in terms of winning and losing. If you lose the house you want, or the only buyer out there that wants your house, who won? Not you, not the person on the other side. In reality, negotiation is an adversarial engagement which resolves itself as a collaboration towards a mutual goal.

WHAT???

"Negotiation is an adversarial engagement..."

In most negotiations we have two sides, a seller and a buyer, and a great majority of the time they have a differing idea on the price of a home. And, as stated above, both want to hold on to as much of their money as possible.

To be an effective negotiator, first you absolutely cannot have a horse in the race. Whether you are a seller or a buyer, your best plan is to have someone working between you and the other side. If you don't, you are likely to get swept up and either give up more than you should or miss an important condition in the contracts. A good agent works for you without getting swept up in any type of emotion in the negotiation.

You must also be aware of your playing field. In the case of real estate especially, you should know your market. Important things to know would be how many homes are on the market that roughly match yours, you should know their asking prices and how they compare to yours. Knowing how many buyers are out in the market is also important. I don't mention "buyers' side" or "sellers' side" here because both sides need this information. Since price is generally a function of supply vs. demand it is important to know if the home you are negotiating over is one of a kind or a dime a dozen. Could a buyer find pretty much the same house in the same area for a similar - or better - price? It works for buyers, too. Are there only two or three buyers out there or is the market swarming with them? If you are on the selling side, remember, in a slow market you are essentially "buying the buyer".

The first "salvo" in a negotiation is often called "putting them in the river". You need your price, or offer, to be such that the negotiations wind up in your favor. Here, I need to separate the buyers from the sellers.

On the seller side, you need to have an asking price that both has your buyers "in the river" enough that you walk away with the maximum amount of money in your pocket, yet you cannot have a price so high that a buyer won't even consider your home in their search. Remember, there are most likely other homes out there that they liked as much as yours.

Advice for the buyer is similar, your offer needs to be low enough that you keep the maximum amount of cash in your pocket but not so low as to telegraph to the seller that you are "not serious about buying a home". Yes, even though you went through the contracts and signed your name a few times you could still be regarded as being not serious. Your offer should be commensurate with the market conditions, though 90% of sellers would probably counter even a $1 offer rather than out and out rejecting it. Also, a rediculously low offer could elicit a similarly riduculously high counter offer. An initial offer should be a little lower than reasonable. This is where the "putting them in the river" analogy comes in. In a slower market like the one we have today the buyers are downstream with the sellers trying to pull them upstream from their initial offer.

After the offer is made is when the adversarial engagement ends.

"...which resolves itself as a collaboration towards a mutual goal."

What do you mean? We're still negotiating - we're still adversaries!

Are you? Think about this - buyers, you chose to write an offer on one house out of the many you toured. I am sure you have a second, third or even fourth choice, but none of those were your first pick. Sellers, face it, there aren't a whole bunch of buyers out there. You need them to move on to the next chapter in your life. At this point you MUST collaborate in order to move forward. Both sides have the same goal: to change the name on the title of the house.

To say at this point that negotiating the deal is like landing a fish would over simplify things - neither the buyer nor the seller have hooks in their mouths. Either one can walk away at any time during the negotiation phase. But, each side must work to ease the other to an acceptable landing point or risk the whole thing blowing up.

Do you have to move in price when you counter? That depends. For sellers, if you have your house priced aggrssively (i.e. lowest price and/or nicest house out of all the comparables) then you really don't. The buyers have most likely seen the competition and know that your house is a value. If you are working from this strong position I would counter back at full price or at least close to it.

Buyers - suppose you get a counter back at full price or close to it, what do you do? Again, that depends! Are you bidding on the nicest and/or lowest priced house in the market? If so, you actually may need to move up towards the seller at this point to reach your goal of owning the house. But suppose that the house you bid on is pretty darn nice but over priced and your number two choice is very similar and that your initial offer was in line with the market. Counter back at or close to your original offer.

This could go on and on and on. Someone is either going to give in or give up. This is where most people let it get personal and dig in their heels and do something dumb in the name of saving face:

"Heh - he wanted to pay $250,000 and I told him I wouldn't go under $260,000! Take it or leave it!"

"Really? Did the guy buy it?"

"Nope! I showed him!!!"

Yes, I have heard that very conversation (different numbers) more than once.

At this point, provided the buyer really wants the house and the seller really wants to sell, it is up to each side to ease the other in for a landing - hopefully on their side of half way. Just like with a fish, this is a give-and-take proposition (gee, some would call that "negotiation").

The give and take could include moving in baby steps on the price as opposed to vast swings as that usually indicated the other side is getting down to their "drop-dead" price. You don't drop the price $500 then $5000 the try to go back to $500 drops. If the other side sees there is no logic to your negotiation then they may be less likely to move on their price. Also part of a give and take could be things like the closing date, amount of earnest money, right to cure, home warranty or testing contingencies. In a slightly more robust market, removing a home sale contingency is another concession - or at least taking a 72-hour bump down to 48, for example. The more you let the other side know you want to work with them to reach mutually agreeable positions, the easier the negotiations should go. They are also more likely to end up on the side of the person being the most reasonable.

Make 'em sweat.

One of the hardest techniques in negotiating is the takeaway. It is hard because it is basically a game of chicken - get them to blink before you do. Suppose that negotiations are at an impasse. You can quantitatively show you are at a fair number yet the other side won't budge. You have the counter-offer from the other side in your hands and the deadline to respond is in an hour. What do you do?

Sit on it. Let that time pass. Depending on the market and how well your proposed price is compared to it, just wait. How often does the other sides' agent call yours? If it is often, you may have the upper hand. Now, here is gut-check time. You can either delay your response a day or two or just let it die. There is no right or wrong answer, you have to do what you feel comfortable doing. Remember, too, if the other side is being very unreasonable and you truly think you are being fair, then the transaction not coming together may be the best thing to happen.

If all goes well, you may get the other side to counter their own counter (the one you sat on). They are now no longer in the driver seat. They WANT this transaction to close. If their counter is in line with what you wanted, then accept it. If not, then it is back to the negotiation - or you walk away. It might take a couple of times for the other side to realize that you are offering a fair price. If you are in heavy competiton, this may not be the tactic to use.

If they don't counter their counter, you can still counter the one you sat on. I'd suggest this be your absolute drop dead number. The one that if they even counter back a mere $100 less you would walk away. (Buyers' side, this is your "Highest and Best", Sellers, it's your "Lowest and Best"). You won't be in the driver's seat, but at least you will be closer to a closing. Again, do what you think is best for you.

In the end, provided all goes well, both sides reach an agreement. It is important for both sides to remember that they agreed to the given price and that the thought of complaining that they got ripped off should never enter their minds. If you felt that you were, then you should have never agreed to the numbers!

Unless you absolutely have to, NEVER verbally negotiate anything. There is absolutely no commitment and by doing so you may be tricked into showing your hand. Sure, the buyer "said" they'd go up to $260,000 but what is going to keep them from countering your $260,000 offer with $250,000? Nothing.

Negotiating is an art. You need to be aware not only of your playing field (market), but also what may be in the minds of the people on the other side of the table. The best negotiator is like a chess master - always planning the next move. He or she makes their move knowing all of the possible counter moves and has planned what to do should any of them arise. Furthermore, the best negotiator knows that the negotiations do not begin with the offer to purchase, they begin even before they buyers walk through your door. Today, the negotiations begin online.

Stay tuned...I will complete that thought in another post!

Wow - 2 weeks in a row I have had teriffic open houses!

Where in November and December I was getting 0-2 people through, in the last two weeks I have seen nearly 20 people through 4 opens (one open didn't get anyone, bummer). I really hope this trend continues - and why shouldn't it? Home prices are great and so are the rates.

From JSOnline:

Price declines reach shore

With values falling, is now best time to buy on a lake?

By Joe Taschler of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Dec. 12, 2008

Town of Oconomowoc - Although properties in Waukesha County's Lake Country have not been immune to the downturn in the real estate market, now might be a good time for savvy buyers to make a run at land on the water, area real estate agents say.

Prices have dropped after years of steep run-ups, and inventory is fairly good, they say.

In a state where there are 1.4 million licensed anglers and 617,000 boats - 37,000 in Waukesha County alone - lakes are a big deal, and land along the water has always commanded a premium price.

Prices, though, have fallen anywhere from 10% to 15% along with most other residential real estate in the region.

"Lake properties are definitely taking a hit in this market," said Paul Liebe, president of Redefined Realty, parent company of LakeCountryByOwner.com.

That's a turnaround from recent years when Lake Country property was in high demand and prices soared.

"There was a flurry. It was like there weren't enough lake properties," Liebe said.

While not coming to a halt, sales of lake property seem to have come to a crawl.

"It's been very, very slow moving lake properties compared with past years," Liebe said.

What has resulted is motivated sellers.

"If you want to sell it today, partly because it's winter and partly because of the market, you need to be willing to negotiate," said Roger Rushman, executive vice president of First Weber's Lake Country office in Delafield.

As for getting a mortgage, lenders might be scrutinizing things a bit closer, but financing is out there, agents say.

"If you have 20% (as a down payment) there's lots of money available," said Rushman, a past chairman of the Wisconsin Realtors Association.

Read More...

Yes, there is money out there. It's just not the giveaway it used to be. As much as my pocketbook would love to see things the way they used to be, it really isn't good for the economy. We'd have a couple more years of boom, but then the bubble will burst and here we are again.

Later in the article, a gentleman is quoted as saying that the mortgage rates need to be lower. according to my little BankRate.com widget we are at 4.86% for a 30-year mortgage. That is lower than it has been in the last decade!

What is needed is consumer confidence. Right now people don't know what is around the corner - will their taxes skyrocket? Will they have a job? Will commodities prices shoot up? Auto manufacturers are offering 0% long term financing and/or huge rebates and their sales are down. Not because of the prices, but because of confidence.

People are sitting back and seeing what policies are going to come out of Washington. In other words, Washington is controlling the marketplace. This is not the role our Founding Fathers envisioned for government.

The latest from Trulia.com regarding listing prices of homes in the areas on which I keep a close eye.

Brookfield - week-over-week average increase of 2.9% or $10,484 to $366,715 (week ending Dec 24, 2008). However, year-over-year the median sale price dropped 1.8% or $5000 to $275,000. More...

Brookfield Real Estate - Trulia

Elm Grove - week-over-week average decrease of 5% or $19,729 to $378,099. Year-over-year the median sale price dropped 3.3% or $9,900 to $290,000. More...

Elm Grove Real Estate - Trulia

Muskego - week-over-week average decrease of 2.1% or $9,674 to $442,629. Year-over-year the median sale price rose 10.1% or $23,950 to $260,950. More...

Muskego Real Estate - Trulia

New Berlin - week-over-week average increase of 0.6% or $1,724 to $280,892. Year-over-year the median sale price dropped 0.2% or $500 to $236,500. More...

New Berlin Real Estate - Trulia

Waukesha - week-over-week average decrese of 0.0% or $111 to $272,725. Year-over-year the median sale price dropped 1.2% or $2,450 to $208,000. More...

Waukesha Real Estate - Trulia

Mukwonago - week-over-week average decrease of 2.6% or $10,128 to $379,990. Year-over-year the median sale price dropped 3.1% or $7,900 to $243,000. More...

Mukwonago Real Estate - Trulia

Wauwatosa - week-over-week average decrease of 2.7% or $7,000 to $252,651. Year-over-year the median sale price rose 2.4% or $5,000 to $215,000. More...

Wauwatosa Real Estate - Trulia

Overall, the communities I pay most attention to remained pretty stable with some small exceptions. It is notable that the biggest swing in price was actually the 10.1% sale price increase in Muskego. However, the year-over-year sales are down, sometimes well into the double digits. Hopefully we will see that trend reversed as people recover from a very negative election season combined with very attractive interest rates and home prices. Think of it as a sale!