Sequim and Port Angeles has many homes for sale, and in this competitive market (a buyer’s market), sellers must do everything they can to make a home attractive to buyers.  There are some things over which a seller has no control, such as the architecture and floor plan.  And sellers can’t do anything about the location of the home, or the outbuildings.

Homes for Sale Should Look Good

But there are many things a seller can do to make their home appeal to potential buyers.  There are the obvious things, such as staging the home, or arranging the furniture to make it look as nice as possible.   With all the homes for sale, a home for sale should be clean, and some like to have coffee brewing or fresh coffee beans on the kitchen counter for the pleasant aroma.  These are all good, but there are a few really big deal killers that sellers should be aware of.

Homes for Sale Deal Killer

Smells are a huge factor when buyers are walking through a home.  Bad smells alone can push buyers away completely.  Since buyers have so many choices with all the homes for sale, sellers cannot afford to make mistakes.  Here’s a true story.  I showed a home to a couple because the home fit the general parameters of our search.  The location was good, and the size and floor plan was good too.  But when we walked in the front door, there was a horrible cat urine stench.  It was so strong, we hesitated before going further.  We all knew this home was immediately off the list, but out of curiosity we walked through the home, and the strong urine smell permeated the entire home.

Homes for Sale with Smells

I showed another home to a couple from California, and again this home was within the search parameters for my client’s ideal home, but when we walked down the stairs into the daylight basement, our noses warned us we were walking into a high moisture area with a strong moldy smell filling the entire basement area.  With all the homes for sale today, this strong moldy smell is a deal killer.

Some of the homes for sale with bad odors will simply sit on the market and will not sell.  No one wants them.  Some of these homes have been listed for sale for one or two years or even longer.  Discerning home buyers are not going to buy a home with an unsolvable odor or moisture problem, not when there are so many homes for sale and so many choices.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Safe Internet Search for Real Estate
• How Does the MLS Days on Market (DOM) Affect Buyers?
• Looking at Sequim Homes
• Sequim Homes for Sale in the MLS – Shocking Discovery
• How a Home for Sale is Advertised

“More sellers are dissatisfied with their real estate companies these days, griping mostly about the marketing of their home and some of the other services offered by the firm with which they’re working, according to a report released by J.D. Power and Associates this week.”  This quote is from the Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch.  This probably does not surprise you.  There are as many complaints about real estate agents as lawyers and auto mechanics.  But I have observed there is an increasing dissatisfaction with listing agents.  Why is that?  There are several logical reasons.

First, let’s get the obvious out of the way.  This is the worst real estate market for selling a home I’ve seen going back 30 years in real estate.   To state the obvious, it is harder to sell a home in this real estate recession.  That’s true in Sequim and Port Angeles as it is in so many parts of the country.  It’s no surprise that homeowners who hire a real estate agent to list and market their home are feeling dissatisfied when nothing happens, nothing meaning “the home hasn’t sold.”  But there are more substantive reasons so many sellers are not pleased with their agents.

There has been a dramatic shift in real estate sales and marketing.  Traditional real estate brokerage is struggling with this gigantic change, and many agents are going out of business, not just because the market is slow.  The vast majority of consumers readily acknowledge that print newspapers and magazines no longer are the big tools for selling homes.  The Internet and powerful technology has changed the game plan, and nearly all buyers are now using the Internet to search for and find their next home.  This has nullified the power of traditional sales media.  As consumer demand has shifted, tools have been developed to meet that demand, but the super majority of traditional real estate agents have not gotten on board.  It is such a huge shift, that agents must re-invent themselves, and you can image how uncomfortable that is for most agents.  Consumers may not comprehend the extraordinary changes in sales and marketing that have been taking place behind the scenes, but they do comprehend that something is wrong with a real estate model that uses old methods and old sales language to advertise their home, especially when the results are nil.  As a result, sellers find themselves dissatisfied with their agents.

There’s one other significant reason sellers are dissatisfied with agents and traditional real estate brokerage.  We live in a time when all of us have been so thoroughly bombarded by sales pitches all our adult lives, we feel like we can say, “Heard it all before, been there, done that.  Not interested.  Thank you.  Goodbye.”  Imagine for a moment that you could meet a professional real estate agent who has made the shift from the old to the new, and is using the most powerful technologies to sell homes today.  Is there anything he could say to you that would turn on a light bulb and suddenly give you the confidence to know that this agent knows how to market your home?  I can answer question.  The answer is, “No.”  Let me explain why.

People, and I do mean all of us, have become so skeptical, so jaded with sales pitches, lied to by so many sales ads in every industry, that we don’t know how to discern the real thing form the rest of the pack anymore.  Let me make the point another way.  If a gold salesman came to your home and told you he could sell you gold at a 30% discount over other salesmen, you would most likely send him away politely.  Who hasn’t learned, “If it sounds to good to be true, it is,” or “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”  But suppose another salesman came to your door and opened his brief case and showed you a dozen gold bricks that he said he would sell you right then and there for a 30% discount.  What would you do?  I know what the vast majority of people would do.  So skeptical are we that you and I would probably send that salesman packing, too.  We wouldn’t trust him, even if he was legitimate.

And so it is with Realtors.  Most sellers can’t tell the difference between me (and the other true professionals who have made the shift) and the rest of the pack still using the same techniques and sames pitches.  But I can assure sellers that there is a vast difference between Realtors these days.  Because of the dramatic shifts in marketing, the differences are greater today than ever.  Your job is to figure that out.  After all, how many days on market do you want your house to sit before the price is low enough to attract some offers?

[Megan Kelly did not actually interview Chuck Marunde.  This is his effort at humor, although, should you read this Megan, Chuck is available for an interview.]

Possibly Related Posts:

• Port Angeles Real Estate
• Port Angeles Real Estate Investing
• Port Angeles Real Estate
• Port Angeles Real Estate: 445 Hunt Road $450,000
• Inman Reports Major Changes in Real Estate Brokerage

If you live in California and you are moving to Sequim, and you’ve been checking out the Sequim MLS online, you undoubtedly figured out that so many of the listings posted by real estate agents are lacking good photos.   I hear this from my California clients all the time.   Homes for sale in the MLS here often have pitiful photographs that fail to show clients from out of state what the yard looks like, what the neighborhood looks like, what the views are, and sometimes not even good photos of the inside.

Don’t take my word for it.   Just take a peek at the MLS right now, and you’ll see what I mean.

So HERE’S MY ANSWER FOR YOU.   Do what many of my clients do.   Just email me and tell me which home in the MLS you are looking at but does not have sufficient photos.   I’ll go out to the home and take photos for you, inside and out, and email them to you so you can filter through the possibilities before you get here.

I do this for all my clients who need it, and as far as I know, I’m the only one who does.   This is just another way I try to show you that my business is to serve you and to help you find the perfect home, then to help you negotiate the best possible price, and to handle all the transactional details all the way to closing, even if you are not here yet.

May I recommend the most powerful MLS online service that is both easy to navigate and includes 100% of the listings in both the Olympic Listing Service and the Northwest MLS?   I’ve had this specially programmed to make your job of finding your next home easier and more enjoyable.   It is SearchSequimMLS.com.

Also available at the tip of your fingers is our Guide to Sequim or our California Relocation Guide to Sequim.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Safe Internet Search for Real Estate
• How Does the MLS Days on Market (DOM) Affect Buyers?
• Looking at Sequim Homes
• Sequim Homes for Sale in the MLS – Shocking Discovery
• How a Home for Sale is Advertised

It’s obvious to most Sequim and Port Angeles homeowners who want to sell their homes that we are in a buyer’s market. Buyer’s are in the driver’s seat on price and terms, and its been that way for a period of many months now. In my opinion, now is not a good time to list your home for sale. (I’m a Realtor, too, so you would expect me to say the opposite.) For those who are desperate and have no choice, this counsel is irrelevant. You must list and do all you can to sell. That may mean you have to take whatever you can get, and that could be tens of thousands less than you hoped (or $200,000 less in one case I’m thinking of).

For others who are not in foreclosure or who do not have other exigent circumstances that are forcing them to sell right now, I recommend waiting until next spring, April 1st. Buyers are few and far between, and the deals they are cutting with those who are desperate to sell is almost embarrassing. Sellers who are forced to sell at low prices in the worst market we have ever seen in Sequim and Port Angeles and in the worst national real estate market we have seen in decades might just as well volunteer to get poked in the eye with the proverbial sharp stick.

Listing your home for sale right now in December in the slowest market with so few buyers (who are now very powerful) in the slowest time of year, is a bit like wading barefoot across a shallow river in Brazil at the precise time Piranhas are in a feeding frenzy.   Why do it?   You would wait until the Piranhas swim downstream.   My suggestion on selling your home in Sequim or Port Angeles is to wait until next spring.

As most homeowners know only too well, traditional real estate brokerage and traditional newspaper and magazine advertising has not been working of late.   Hmmm.   Wonder why?   Everything is changing.   The old rules are fading and new rules for buyers and marketing and the Internet are taking their place.   If you are serious about selling your home, and you want to sit down and talk about what works and what doesn’t work, and how you can move forward with your plans to sell, email me or call me.   There are creative ways to market your home for sale, and there is much more to pricing and negotiating than meets the eye.

Chuck Marunde, J.D.
chuckmarunde@gmail.com

Possibly Related Posts:

• Safe Internet Search for Real Estate
• How Does the MLS Days on Market (DOM) Affect Buyers?
• Looking at Sequim Homes
• Sequim Homes for Sale in the MLS – Shocking Discovery
• How a Home for Sale is Advertised

Buyers of real estate today are taking their searches and their methods to entirely new levels, thanks to the Internet.   Buyers want access to instant information that is free, and they do not want the kind of uncomfortable confrontation that occurs when they have to pick up the phone and call a salesman.

I believe there are two powerful reasons for this change.   First, the Internet has given consumers the ability to search the multiple listing service in their target markets at no cost anytime of the day or night.   When I first started in real estate before the Internet, I had an MLS book that was published every Friday with all the listings in it.   People had to actually come into the office and sit down with me while we thumbed through this two-inch thick book.   Now, buyers can jump on the Internet from the comfort of their homes and search the MLS without even talking to a real estate agent.   They like that.

Second, there is a cultural shift occurring that is fueled by consumers.   Technology has facilitated consumers’ desires to move away from traditional high pressure sales and from traditional advertising.   Buyers do not like being force fed news and advertising without choice.   They don’t like being told what to do.   Consumers want to have the power to decide what they look for, who they talk to (or don’t talk to), and who they do business with.   And they want to be able to come and go as they gather information without being hindered.   The advent of the Internet and the explosive growth of technology on the Internet to facilitate consumers is a Godsend for the majority of Americans.

Even the news that consumers are reading is part of this cultural change.   They are shifting from print newspapers to the Internet at the speed of light, and they are loving the fact that they get to choose what news to read.   A fascinating study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism examined what news consumers are reading when they have a choice:

The question of whether citizens define the news differently than professionals is becoming increasingly relevant. It started with offering visitors a sense of what others found interesting: what news stories were most emailed and most viewed?

Soon, establishment news sites like CBSNews.com allowed users to make their own newscasts. Then, names like Digg, Reddit and Del.icio.us emerged as virtual town squares that became a way to measure the pulse of what the web community finds most newsworthy, most captivating, or just amusing. The trend continues, as even Myspace, the social networking site popular among 20-somethings, has launched a news page (http://news.myspace.com).

Some key findings include:

• The news agenda of the three user-sites that week was markedly different from that of the mainstream press. Many of the stories users selected did not appear anywhere among the top stories in the mainstream media coverage studied. And there was often little in the way of follow-up. Most stories on the user-news sites appeared only once, never to be repeated again in the week we studied.

• The sources user news sites draw on are strikingly different from the mainstream media. Seven in ten stories on the user sites come either from blogs or Web sites such as YouTube and WebMd that do not focus mostly on news.

• The three user news sites differed from one another in subtle ways. Reddit was the most likely to focus on political events from Washington, such as coverage of Vice President Cheney; Digg was particularly focused on the release of Apple’s new iPhone; Del.icio.us had the most fragmented mix of stories and the least overlap with the News Index.

• On Yahoo News—even when picking from a limited list of stories Yahoo editors had already pared down—users’ top stories only rarely matched those of the news professionals.

Consumers are taking control of what and how they gather information.   That is true with the news and the advertising they choose to read, or ignore, and it is true today about how they search for and buy real estate.

Home buyers can search a beautiful map based multiple listing service (see example of an MLS search that is easy to navigate and graphically pleasing), they can search the locale of interest with a Google search to find for-sale-by-owners, to find an exclusive buyer’s agent, to read local real estate blogs, and view photos of the area.   They can do all of this from the comfort of their home without talking to a single salesman.

The vast majority of buyers are not using real estate portals either.   Buyers are no longer pulled by the big names of real estate companies branded on billboards or on TV commercials.   The dominant branding of big names that was such a major factor in the 60′s, 70′s, and 80′s has faded just as the Internet has grown.   Consumer loyalty is no longer to the “branded companies.”   Consumers are loyal to themselves, and that is the way it should be.   Technology has finally given the consumer what they have always wanted–the power to choose.   They choose the information they view, how and when they view it, and they choose what to do with that information without interference from anyone.

Buyers are taking control, and they love it.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Sequim Buyer’s Agent – On a Mission for Clients
• Do You Know About Buyer’s Agency?
• Character is Everything
• Sequim Buyers Agent Sells The Most Homes in 2011
• Sequim Real Estate Broker Writes Book to Help Realtors