Shawna Ebersole | Greenwood, IN Real Estate

Yes, you read that correctly. And in Keller Williams country, it's a little phrase we've been having fun with over the last several months. Ever since the latest book in the Millionaire Real Estate book series came out.

It's a red and white paperback book entitled "SHIFT: How Top Real Estate Agents Tackle Tough Times". After all . . . "IT'S NOT ABOUT THE MARKET . . . It's about what you do!"

What an awesome book . . . especially for the market we find ourselves in.

Well, I had a lot of fun playing Santa's helper today, traveling from one real estate office to another, dropping "SHIFT" everywhere (OK, maybe I'm having a little too much fun with that word!)

But what our team decided to do was to gift wrap the SHIFT books and hand deliver them with a hand written note to all of the real estate agents that we had great transactions with over the last year. After all, if an agent is able to get to the closing table in this market, they're already ahead of the game.

Why not reward them for their hard work with an excellent book that could possibly take their business to the next level?

Of course, this is not the most elaborate gift in the world, but it sure did feel good to take a step out and do the unexpected. After all, when is the last time you received a Christmas present from an agent you had a cross deal with?

Who knows . . . it may not turn in to anything, but by trying to reach across the table with a friendly gesture, I have a feeling that the next time one of these agents has a chance to work with our team again, they'll remember this gesture and be more likely to want to work with us again in the future! :)

Since yesterday's post, we've had several people contact us by email, requesting more info about our 120 Day Guarantee Sale Program.

So, to make it easier for people to get what they're looking for, you can simply click on the following links for our 21 Step Marketing Plan and our 120 Day Guarantee Sale Program...in Plain English.

Want more specific marketing materials? Please feel free to let us know - Thanks!

Wow...life sure has become so much easier when I figured out that it's so much easier to get price reductions on the front end, as opposed to trying it a few months into a listing contract.

In the beginning, you're definitely the expert and the sellers cling to every word you say. If a couple of months go by and you don't have many showings, they forget all about the discussion of "price" that you had with them at the beginning of the contract. They simply translate "no showings" = "agent doesn't know squat".

To help avoid this is to simply get the price reductions up front. We simply start with our list price and (depending on what the trends are in your specific area) we say that if we don't have an offer within ___ weeks, we will drop to __________. If we go another ____ weeks and still have no offer, we then drop to __________ and so on.

When we insert the price reductions, we also make sure that the reduction will be significant enough to get us down into the next pricing tier. For example, if your starting price is $100,000 it doesn't make any sense to reduce to $97,000 because you're not entertaining any new buyers. You're still going to be found by all of the people that are looking up to $100,000.

We need to catch the next group of buyers, the ones that are only looking up to $95,000. I don't know why it is, but people are never looking up to "96,000" or "97,500". They use flat numbers and they seem to search in increments of $5,000 or $10,000 in lower price ranges...$25,000 or $50,000 or even $100,000 in higher price ranges.

People, including your sellers, are searching homes online all the time, and this is something they can understand. It's almost like you can see the light bulb turn on in their head when you explain that this is how you're going to do it. It's makes sense to them. They get it!

If you haven't tried this strategy before, you might give it a whirl. It sure does beat those dreaded "it's time to start thinking about a price reduction" phone calls. Click here to see if it's something you might be able to tweak and use for your business!

Do you have a lot of those "Guaranteed Home Sale" Realtors in your area? You know the ones...that offer to buyer the listing if they can't sell it within a certain time frame?

Well sure, that sounds like a great idea if you have a big fat line of credit, or just a huge pile of money laying around. But what about the little guy (or girl) like me? How in the world am I ever supposed to compete with that?

Well, I figured out a way to Guarantee my home sales...without costing me anything out of pocket! (I'm a notorious cheapskate to those who know me well). And believe me, this little marketing plan has definitely helped us to get our foot in the door for many listing appointments that we wouldn't have otherwise been invited to.

Best of all, we've been offering this program for almost 3 years and we've only had 1 home that didn't sell within our guaranteed 120 day time frame. (We also offered a 39 day guarantee once for a higher commission and we lost....it sold in 47 days....grrrrrr......my team-mates have threatened me with my life if I ever do anything like that again).

I say all of this simply to say that we recently had an agent on Active Rain request to see a copy of our 21 Step Marketing Plan. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to make it into a jpeg file, but if you would also like to receive a pdf version of it, please let us know. We'd be happy to share it if we thought it might help someone else, too.

Want more specifics on exactly how our program works? Please feel free to contact us directly. We'd be happy to share any of our marketing materials and help you any way we can!

It's YOUR Time To Shine In 2009!!!

This information was originally posted at www.iShopGreenwood.com

The answer, believe it or not, is actually "Yes!" But in order to do it, you're going to need to use the FHA 203k Loan Program. Now this is not giving you an open checkbook to go out and fix up a property in need of help but, it is a way to help you make some necessary repairs without paying for them out of pocket. Here's how it works:

Prior to closing, you will need to have contractors come in and give you bids for how much it will cost to make the needed repairs to your new home. Now your new loan amount will be based upon the sale price of the home plus the amount of money it will take to make the repairs.

After closing, you will have a limited amount of time to get all of the repairs made. Then the property will be re-inspected by the lender and if everything meets their approval, the money to pay for the repairs is then released to the contractors.

There are many HUD owned and bank owned properties that could qualify for the FHA 203k loan program. Right now, the loan limits for FHA loans in the Indianapolis area is $271,050. And best of all, the down payment needed for an FHA loan is only 3% of the purchase price. But if you're thinking about going this direction, you may not want to put it off because this down payment amount will be increased to 3.5% as of January 1, 2009.

Want more info or want to see if you could qualify for this type of loan program? Please contact Jody Bleier at Stonegate Mortgage (317.213.1387) and be sure you tell her you found out about her at iShopGreenwood.com ! Good luck! Thanks for the info Jody!