Aras Butas

A short sale in real estate might not always be a pleasant situation for the person owning the home, or the realtor or banks involved. As an alternative to foreclosure or bankruptcy, Odyssey Real Estate Consulting Group has experience in the short sale services industry, so we are offering a 10% referral fee paid for your short sale referrals. The short sale process is very time consuming and risky. Its important to rely on those that are experienced in short sales to handle some of the stressors that come with them.

Please call Odyssey Real Estate if you have any questions, or if you would like to offer a referral. We can give you more information and details when we speak with you. Here's our office phone. 703) 224-6099

This Saturday, I'm planning an open house at my condo listing (1301 N. Courthouse Rd. Unit 612, Arlington). In the light of the slow moving market, I think its best to try out every marketing method to try and reach out to those who might be interested in buying a home. Included in these marketing methods is the traditional open house.

However, I've decided to have my open house at a not-so-traditional time. If you are familiar with Arlington, VA, the Arlington Farmer's Market takes place every Saturday in front of the Courthouse. Now since it is the winter season, the market only stays open from 9am-12pm every Saturday. Its awesome that the condo is located right across the street from the farmer's market. So, with good weather in the forecast for Saturday, I decided a great time to have my open house is from 10am-12pm. Hopefully, the increase of foot traffic in the general vicinity of my listing will in turn produce a positive attendance at my open house.

I know many Realtors might be wondering about spending their time doing open houses as well. We are trying to keep our sellers happy by holding them, yet the people sometimes aren't there to attend whether its hot or cold, sunny or cloudy. Where have all the buyer's gone?

If any of you have suggestions for increasing traffic at open houses, I'm interested in hearing what you have done or intend to do. It is very interesting to hear what other agents are doing in this shifting market! Happy open-housing!

I recently signed up for a program after receiving many phone calls from this website. The website is Reply.com and I'm a registered agent in the Reply! Real Estate part of the site. It is mainly used to generate internet leads that will hopefully transition leads into appointments, appointments into business relationships and business relationships into listings.

If you receive a lead form in your email from the Reply website email host, you are then to contact that lead within 72 hours and then pay $53 to Reply for supplying the lead.

So far in the past few weeks, my experience with the Reply! Real Estate lead generation website has not been very pleasant. I have gotten lots of "leads" from the website, but when trying to contact them through phone or email, they are not very serious buyers or sellers, or the information we receive is faulty.

The single lead that converted into an appointment resulted in an awkward meeting between the client, myself and another realtor--and a friendly competition to list a rental property. Yes, I said rental!

I've decided to stay with the website for another month and see what comes of it. I'm always up for new ways of doing business and generating leads. If any of you have any advice or experience working with Reply! Real Estate, please leave your comments below.

Senior Real Estate Consultant Obtains REO/BPO Certification Arlington, VA - January 27, 2009 -

Aras Butas, Senior Real Estate Consultant for Odyssey Real Estate Consulting Group, has become a certified Real Estate Owned and Broker Price Opinon (REO/BPO) specialist in Northern Virginia, Washington, DC and Maryland. Aras Butas now specializes in foreclosure and short sale real estate sales.

In today's real estate market, it is important that real estate agents stay up-to-date with knowlege and resources that allow them to best serve their existing and future clients. Odyssey Real Estate Consulting Group is pleased to announce their involvement in such market movements and trends.

Odyssey Real Estate Consulting Group is up-to-date on the most current laws and markets concerning loan modifications, foreclosures and short sales upon completion of the Keller Williams Realty REO Certification Training.

If there are questions concerning foreclosures, REO properties, short sales or loan modifications, please contact the Odyssey team at (703) 224-6099, or email us at info@orecg.com. Our dedicated team of professionals is proven to be highly educated on all aspects of the short sale, foreclosure or loan modification process.