And what, pray tell, is the name of these marauding reptiles?

“REALTOR Remarks”

Ah yes, that hobgoblin of good intentions in the multiple listing service that provides for private communication amongst local Realtors.  It gives me a good shudder just to type the name of the foul beast.  Suburban legend has it that if you say it three times in front of the bathroom mirror with the lights off, you will doom yourself to a lonely stint on the market.  Why?  Because the private portion of the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service which is intended to impart “eyes only” information to the Real Estate sales force is home to some of the most spectacular lapses in judgment this side of New Coke.

“Do not approach cage, monkey will bite!”

“Disregard water damage in hall bathroom shower.”

“Bring me an offer, seller needs to sell NOW!!!”

From the laughable (“House is better than pictures make it look”) to the horrific breaching of client confidentiality (“Divorce situation: husband not cooperative”), one little notation in the private remarks of the listing can torpedo the price you command for your home, if not endanger the sale altogether.  Alarm codes, additional showing instructions, agent to agent disclosures – all are intended fodder for the REALTOR Remarks section.  The mistake that is often made, however, is that anything goes so long as it remains hidden from the prying eyes of the public.

The moral of the story?  Read the full property listing before your agent inputs it into the MLS. While you will most likely view a copy of the completed listing once it hits the system, you will not be able to see what is privately disclosed to other agents.  You will want to see a copy of the FULL listing to ensure that your best interests have not been compromised by a few careless words.

You priced the home well, staged it to look its best, had it professionally photographed, toured and dispersed to the far reaches of the Internet.  Don’t blow it now, kid.

Of course, if you want me to avoid your home like the plague, make sure your agent denotes that it “smells kind of funky, but no known presence of mold.”

In the mood to receive offers that are 50% below your list price?  Instruct your agent to notify fellow Realtors to “Bring me any offer and I’ll get it accepted!”

Unless the Stargate in the study presents a clear and present danger to those who would tour your home, best not to mention the possible credit for intergalactic species remediation.

Enter the Real Estate sneak preview.

Knowing all too well that I am performing preliminary recon, sellers will occasionally grill me as to my intentions when I arrive for a preview appointment.  As I circumnavigate the home, they give me the unabashed hairy eyeball treatment reserved for ex-cons, Realtors, bankers, lawyers and ill-mannered guests who don’t sit on the plastic.  Believe it or not, though, the preview does not merely serve as an arbiter of a buyer agent’s pass/fail verdict.  It is a crash course in product awareness.

To those who would disallow Realtor previews because they anticipate the reports will discourage potential buyers from viewing the home, allow me first to offer a mild rebuke, and then to assuage your fears.  First, disallowing preview appointments will have the opposite than desired effect.  Like the producer of straight to DVD smut who would sooner pay a personal assistant a livable wage than allow an advance screening for critics, you are telling wily Real Estate agents that the house is a total clunker if you won’t let them in for a quick peek prior to an actual buyer showing.  Thou doth protest too much, Ed Wood.

Moreover, you do you and your home a disservice by limiting Realtor previews.  Salesmanship requires a deft touch.  It is just not that easy to sell what one hasn’t seen.  When I come through with my client, you want me to focus on the features with which I became acquainted during the preview rather than blundering about blindly.  Knowing what specific hot buttons light my buyer up, all parties are best served if I have direct, first-hand knowledge of such.  You know, the stuff that doesn’t necessarily make it into the MLS.

Is the second bedroom close enough to the master to make a suitable nursery?

Is the kitchen open to the family room or a candidate for expansion?

Is the yard private, but not overwhelming?

Worst case scenario?  The home is not a fit for my clients, and I save everyone time.  Surely you don’t want any more strangers stomping around your home than absolutely necessary, especially if there is zero chance that the property will work for them.  To boot, I just might remember your house as a possible fit for the next buyer I meet.

Want to sell your house?  Heed the marquee:

Coming soon … to a home near you … Realtor Paul Slaybaugh!

Pretty please, let him in.

It’s true, feel free to consult the Chinese calendar to verify.  Scottsdale Real Estate practitioners, in self-defense, have turned to new and interesting means of keeping their businesses relevant in these inexplicable times.  Today’s homework assignment for a Real Estate adventurer?  Finding a profitable, niche specialty.  Thus, the members of the rank and file have been advised to choose a tunnel and follow it out of the malaise.  Two examples stand above the rest as the most popular paths to career CPR: bank-owned property sales and short sales.

Forever a fringe subset of the industry, the foreclosure market has become a predominant segment.  Virtually unheard of outside a counter-culture circle of practitioners a few short years ago, short sale specialization is another a bully of the current Real Estate pulpit.  Given the adapt or perish mantra that permeates a commission based existence, it is hard to fault an agent for migrating to either avenue in an effort to remain profitable.  It’s Survival 101.

I won’t pretend that I have not considered both routes as viable solutions to the systemic problems facing the current Real Estate market here in Scottsdale.  The smart money goes where the action is.  And yet, I have no particular affinity for the institutions that contributed to the implosion of my clients’ property values.  I have no burning desire to represent said institutions in transactions against the little guy whom they have summarily defrocked.  I’ll put my buyer in the car and go try to steal a property from the bank, but there aren’t enough deflated greenbacks in the US Treasury to convince me to sign on as the Devil’s listing advocate.

Short sale sellers deserve professional assistance.  Sadly, I fail to believe that an agent who would flee to “specialization” in this sector at this late stage would prove a legitimate source of the expertise that so many need (and so few actually have).  A weekend course and some moxie do not an expert make.  Perhaps the specialists that are being churned out at an alarming rate will boast the training and experience necessary to be of legitimate value during the next down cycle, but such “expert in training” zygotes are not the answer for those who need assistance NOW.   The stakes are too high to navigate the short sale obstacle course on a bike whose training wheels were only recently, and prematurely, removed.  A substantial incubation period is necessary before such a “specialist” fully morphs from a liability to an asset.

Beware the marketing Sirens who would lead a negative equity seller onto the rocks with good intentions.

So where does that leave a conscientious objector to the hordes of freshly minted “experts” with 6 months of experience in a chosen area of specialization?  Right back where I started: 100% loyal to real, live humans.

There is nothing wrong with diversifying one’s business practice to gird against shifts in the market, but I refuse to abandon a loyal client base for the new money of bank business.  Once you become beholden to the financial institutions, there is little time left in the day to service those who now constitute an under-represented segment of the Real Estate market.  Sure, the bank guy might take on a few moms and pops here and there, but can an overextended agent really provide a private seller the level of service required to do this job?  A dubious proposition in the best of times, let alone in the murkiness of 2010.  With a market that is still twenty thousand leagues beneath the sea, your agent’s periscope better be nimble and at the ready if you are to avoid the same shipwrecked fate that has befallen so many neighbors.  Unthinkable in an industry with more per capita agents than snakes on a plane, but I surmise that all of this nichefying has relegated the non-distressed homeowner to afterthought status.

Assuming you have no equity in your home, or will be unwilling to part with it at the market’s nadir if you do, the industry has given up on you as a viable source of business.  It has moved on.  And yet, there are a few straggling agents who aren’t quite ready to throw in that towel.

While it may seem that every agent and his recently licensed brother have gone to work for the banks, know that there are still a few of us diehards around who pledge allegiance to you.  Our phones aren’t always jammed with 8 bazillion calls about our 8 bazillion listings.  We won’t take a week to respond to your questions and concerns.  We have staked our careers to providing a certain level of service, and we will not compromise it.  Market conditions be damned.

Tempting though it may be to wear the “Certified Gastrointestinal Distress Expert” or “Short Sided Career Reinvention Specialist” hats, we stay away from the light and cement our enduring commitments to those left behind in the industry’s pursuit of the next big thing.

Our niche is you.

Should you require the hands on, fully attentive assistance of a couple of non-certified, non-distressed, non-toxic property experts, give us a call.  We’re not too busy panning for the bank’s gold to take it.

Surely the right play is to go the conventional financing route, right?

No private mortgage insurance, the lowest possible rate, less red tape than government sponsored financing vehicles.

From a strictly cost-based approach, all signs point to a nice, vanilla 30 year fixed conventional loan at a microscopic rate as the biggest no-brainer in the history of money.

Of course, as we have learned all too well, there is more to your choice in financing than today’s consideration.  In fact, there is more to your choice in financing than even the total cost to you over the life of the loan.  While we may not know where the market and its attendant values are heading, one fact is indisputable:

Interest rates will rise.

Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon.  Inflationary pressure makes it inevitable that rates will take off at some point.  All of the warning signs are there.  It will happen.  Rather than banging the tired gavel of “buy today, rates on the way up,” let’s steer the discussion in a less self-serving direction.

Q:  What is today’s buyer?

A:  Tomorrow’s seller.

If you are buying a home in 2010, you need to consider the market forces that may shape 2015 or 2020.  When we agents prognosticate, we tend to focus exclusively on home values.  This is a fool’s errand.  What we really should be thinking about is the buyer pool’s (in)ability to buy.

If interest rates manage to climb into the double digits in several years’ time, the difficulty of selling the property you are buying today may be compounded by a further contraction of able buyers.  How does one counteract the specter of such a looming boogeyman?  By going back to the future for familiar, but forgotten solutions to a similar problem.

What saved home sellers in the era of 18-20% interest in the ‘70s and ‘80s?  Owner financing and assumable loans.  For the purpose of this post, I wish to focus on the latter.

With the low to zero down conventional financing options in the market for my first decade in the business, it was a rarity to consummate a transaction with anything other than non-assumable financing.  Now that FHA loans have forcefully elbowed their way back into the marketplace, however, assumable financing has returned.  Most borrowers are not considering this aspect of the financing in the least, mind you.  They simply jump on whatever they can qualify for that provides the least cost and lowest rates.  I maintain that the assumable nature of a loan will be incredibly important moving forward.

While a new buyer would have to qualify for the loan to assume it, imagine how much wider your future buyer pool will be with such an option in place.  Your 30 year fixed at 4.75% may not look quite as good to you if you find yourself in a position in which you have to sell your home in the midst of 12% interest rates.  Not to sound the bell of an alarmist, but it’s not difficult to foresee a future in which many buyers who have migrated to the security of 30 year fixed conventional mortgages in the wake of the mess spawned by more creative financing find themselves imprisoned within those non-assumable safety nets.

Moving forward, your mortgage might not just be your mortgage.  It could potentially be your future buyer’s.  As such, when shopping for financing, there is more to consider than just the nuts and bolts of your own cost.  Your mortgage could eventually prove either an enticement or a hurdle to a sale.

Heady stuff.

I will close with that which should have served as a preface: I am not a mortgage professional.  DO NOT rely on my speculation in any manner when making a choice in financing.  The nuances and new rules/regulations in the financial world are changing so fast that even those who wade in those murky waters on a daily basis are having a hard time keeping their raft of sanity afloat.  For some, the internal debate is academic anyway, as there are qualification constraints on all financing types.  Only your lender, with a full view of your financial picture can provide competent advice as to which programs you may ultimately qualify for, and which is the best fit for you.  I do, however, want you to add this question to the typical inquiries about rates, fees, penalties, etc when speaking with your chosen loan officer:

“Is this loan assumable?”

I expect it will matter more than the attention it is currently being afforded in most Real Estate circles.

With this surge in demand and a subsequent decrease in supply, rental values have not only held firm, but have noticeably increased in the markets I work.  From a purely anecdotal standpoint, I have been shocked by the level of competition for not only the properties I have had listed for lease recently, but for the tenants I have worked with to secure rental properties as well.  Mind you, I am not simply referring to the low end pricing (sub $1000/month) where heightened competition is always to be expected, but in more expensive price ranges to boot.  In particular, I am seeing a LOT of interest in properties that are renting in the $1400-1800 per month range.

Checking the latest statistics to see if what I have noticed is playing out on a larger scale, I see active Scottsdale rental listings are down to roughly 1800 units (as of ARMLS’s May figures).  This marks a steady decline from an inventory that reached a high point of 2568 in November of 2008 and did not dip under the 2000 unit threshold until January 2010.  The 5.19 months of rental housing supply (as determined by the current rate of absorption) is at its lowest point in years.  Interestingly, the overall average rental rate has not shown a noticeable jump, despite my recent personal observations.  Given the decrease in total inventory and increase in absorption (units leasing per month), however, I fully anticipate next month’s numbers to reflect a higher baseline average.

This shift in the rental market tells me two things:

1)  Before deciding to walk away from a house that appears irretrievably underwater in terms of negative equity, homeowners (and potential future renters) really need to study their options carefully.  If I had a nickel for every misguided homeowner who erroneously believed there was an unmitigated plethora of housing options, at bargain basement prices, waiting for them once they pulled the plug on the Bank of Extortion … er, I mean “America” … I could comfortably retire to my literary tinkerings.  The assumption that lower selling prices go arm in arm with lower rental rates is patently false.  Further, with all of the newfound competition for rental housing, your chewed up credit report will be scrutinized a bit more by potential landlords than most would expect.  Sure, a human landlord may be more understanding of the recent economic woes than some faceless underwriter, but as in any free market, it always comes back to options.  If there are renters out there with fewer credit issues and deeper pockets, you are going to get aced out.  Please consider where your escape pod is heading before abandoning ship and scuttling that home turned financial Death Star.  If there is no soft landing, how have you benefitted?

2.  Our market may have reached (or is close to reaching) that sweet spot in which it makes sense for the homeowner with designs on a move-up purchase to revisit the rental potential of his/her existing home.  While the notion of renting an existing house out (to offset the mortgage) to free oneself up to take advantage of the market conditions and purchase a considerably larger home for a fraction of its prior value is nothing new, the increasing strength in the rental market makes the strategy more feasible at present.  The biggest hurdle to this play, other than deciding whether one is really cut out to become a landlord, remains  the qualification process.  Unless you are one of the fortunate few who maintain at least 25% equity in your home, you will essentially have to qualify to carry both loans (the existing house as well as the new one you would purchase).  Even if you secure a tenant whose rent will cover the payment, you will be qualified for the new loan as if you were qualifying for both properties.  If you have the means to do so, the time could be right to finally leverage the conditions that seemingly everybody and their brother’s mail carrier have already managed to exploit.

Whatever your goals for the Scottsdale Real Estate market, drop us an email or give us a call with your specific needs / questions.  You might not be as trapped as you think.

(480) 220-2337 | paul@scottsdalepropertyshop.com

Before you place too much importance on these latest additions, make sure your virtual Captain Stubing has what it takes to avoid the icebergs of an honest to goodness Real Estate transaction.

The great equalizer, the cyber-world provides the blank slate upon which even the most novice agents can paint a colorful picture of expertise.  Years of experience trumped in the search engines by weeks of keyword optimized content.  Those with their hard hats on in this soft medium can easily be mistaken for proven veterans of the Real Estate world.  As such, even the most obstinate curmudgeons have yielded to the inertia of technology and joined the online fray in the ever-expanding global search for the next business prospect.

While we here at the Scottsdale Property Shop are ardent followers of the Internet prophets, we realize that this shiny new(er) medium is only the latest and greatest hat to hang on our business rack.  The fixation with getting to the top of the pagerank heap has distracted many agents and consumers alike from the actual job of selling Real Estate.  Think getting the most online exposure possible for your home is key to the probability of a sale?  Well, you’re right.  That said, raw exposure in the absence of ability is tantamount to brain surgery via an enthusiastic first year med student with a text book, albeit it one with exceptional illustration.

If you are reading this, you already know that we are adept at getting our services and our properties in front of a target audience.  What you may overlook, however, is the fact that this is but one minute portion of the job.  You must fully vet the agent(s) you choose to employ on all facets of the service, not simply the “Cool, my house will be on page 1!” factor.  Click through the articles, peruse our thoughts on the state of the market, review our credentials.  Only then, if you believe we’ve got the chops to handle the full responsibility of listing and selling your Scottsdale home, give us a call to move into stage 2 of the vetting process: a personal consultation.

While the Internet is a valuable tool, there is no magic Real Estate bullet or panacea for an overpriced or under-represented property.  Your agent should know the community, the builders, the amenities, the home sales, the effective means of procuring a buyer, the nuance of negotiation, the ability to close and how to effectively navigate the escrow to the finish line.  Google and Facebook will do none of those things for you (him).  To add another clumsy metaphor, consider the various legs that prop up your home sale. If your agent does not have adequate experience with / knowledge of the product, the integrity is suspect.  If your agent cannot effectively close buyer leads, the integrity is suspect.  If your agent cannot, or does not know how to handle the various hurdles of the escrow process, the integrity is suspect.  And yes, if your agent does not leverage the proper media for attracting suitors for your property, the integrity is suspect. Ask any particular leg to support more than its burden, and watch the entire structure collapse.

While I know a few terrific agents who have been in the industry for relatively brief durations, I am aware of all too many Internet marketing wizards who lack the first clue about the process of selling a home.  It seems that the only thing taught in new agent training these days is how to leverage social media and/or drive traffic to one’s site.  Valuable tools, but am I crazy to posit that learning to actually do the job is every bit (or more) as valuable as tracking hits?

I see such agents in my keyword Google alerts often enough to know that they have the marketing portion of the job wired, but who exactly are they? For all of that search engine juice, I’ve never seen their names on a sign in the communities they target. I applaud the promotional efforts, but cringe for the consumer who hires the Internet warrior out of mistaken belief in his/her expertise. After all, are we Real Estate professionals who market on the Internet, or Internet professionals who occasionally dabble in Real Estate?

I can buy dominant online position for a particular neighborhood for about $20/month, but I can’t buy ability. Even in the 24/7 virtual “what have you done for me lately” world, a track record is always in vogue.

Consumers … choose your weapons wisely.

______________________________________________________

*Now, because I am a full-time Real Estate agent who moonlights as on online personality, you may follow me on the social network of your choice via the icons in the footer.  One more Twitter follower and I win a free chicken!

Subscribe to my blog or an angel loses its wings.

Shoot, I still generally decline a store clerk’s offer of assistance despite clearly having no idea which bottle of red to pair with the flank steak atop my cart’s haphazard grocery selection.  Just a knee-jerk reaction to get the salesperson out of my space.  I am perfectly capable of bungling the choice on my own, thank you very much.

Which leads to the thrust of today’s discussion of a well-traveled suburban myth:  The (presumed) advantage of listing agent attendance at all property showings.

Some agents, either out of deference to demanding sellers or as a standard business practice, require they be present at all showings.  They show up, open the door and then go in one of two directions.  They either stand aside and let the buyer’s agent handle the actual showing of the home, or they commandeer the next thirty minutes; leading buyer and cooperating agent on a room by room tour, pointing out each frivolous nuance in painstaking detail.  The buyer’s frozen smile masking (or revealing, if the blithe monologist would bother to notice the glazed over eyes) the fact that mental check-out occurred shortly after exiting the foyer.

You say there are TWO electrical outlet receptacles along this wall?  Both GFCI protected?  Get the *%&^ outta here!

There may be two schools of thought on listing agent presence at showings, but one is simply promoting the wrong curriculum.  When the listing agent inserts himself into the process, he lacks the rapport to understand which items are important to the buyer and the ability to sell the home’s strengths from a position of trust.  Further, much as if the seller were in attendance, a buyer is less comfortable exploring a stranger’s home in the company of a stand-in stranger.  The idea is to allow a buyer the breathing room to open cabinets and linen closet doors.  To stand in the family room in silence for a few minutes and decide which wall is best for the sectional.  To visualize his artwork hanging above the bed in the master, or the family gathered around the breakfast table on a lazy Sunday morning.  It doesn’t work if an interloping chatterbox squeezes the breathable air out of the house.

Thanks for the fifteen minute demonstration of the pool’s waterfall.  I wasn’t sure if I wanted the hassle of a house with a pool … now I’m sure I don’t.

Even if the agent hangs out of sight, the unnecessary presence can trigger an internal stopwatch within a buyer.  While he may not care about wasting his own agent’s time (as well he shouldn’t), the stranger factor tends to accelerate the showing.  Humans are much more apt to “put out” those with whom they are familiar than the guy off the street.  Whether borne of politeness, the discomfort of feeling watched or a hesitancy to reveal any indication of interest to a salesman, the end result is a showing that is less likely to live up to its full potential.

Is the other agent still in the living room?  I’d wouldn’t mind calling my wife to have her come see the house, but don’t want to keep him from other appointments …

Showing quality aside, the other big knock on mandatory appointments with the listing agent is showing quantity.  The anticipated control and added security over the showing comes at the steep price of deterrence.  Not only do properties that are more difficult to access get thrown to the bottom of the stack by many agents (if an agent is paring 10 potential properties down to 4 to show a buyer, guess which ones get the axe first?), but listing agents are not always available to show the home when it is convenient to the buyer.  The ease of access issues with such properties can prove insurmountable.  Say a relocating buyer is in town for the day, but your agent is unreachable or booked through tomorrow.  You just lost your shot at that buyer.  With the number of properties from which to choose currently, the very last thing you want to do is erect needless hurdles.

As to the safety issue, the integrity of your home’s security is always an issue when you open the doors to the general public.  That said, with the state of the art electronic lockboxes that are utilized these days (please tell me your agent is willing to pony up the $80 per box cost), a record is kept of all agents who access the premises with clients.  Each agent has an individual keypad with a unique code.  Every time the key is accessed, that code is stored and available to the listing agent.  Further, agent keypads crash unless they are updated every 24 hours.  Thus, the threat of the missing or stolen keypad is not the cause for panic that it once was.  Put the valuables away for safe keeping, but one licensed professional per showing provides adequate protection without diminishing the quality of the showing, or precluding it outright.

In our experience, the most advantageous means of ensuring high-quality and high-quantity showings is to dial phasers back to “stun” and stay the heck out of the way.  Market the property to the nines, accompany unrepresented buyers on tours of the home, but don’t micro-manage the sales force.  Draping oneself over a potentially hot showing like a wet sales blanket may appease a needy seller, but it does not serve the interest of the actual goal:  selling the house.

My choice?  I choose anti-branding as my brand.  In disavowing the frivolous and the cheesy, I opt for a quality over quantity approach to client acquisition and retention.  In short, I hope for my service to speak in place of the glamor headshot on a bus stop bench.

Some chase the ambulance.  Some let the ambulance chase them.

As such, I have assembled a loose collection of industry pet peeves which may help you determine whether or not my substance over style approach to the industry will mesh with both your disposition and expectations for your choice in representation.

I do not wear a nametag. This should be reserved for Walmart employees, mechanics and the truly forgetful.

I do not carry a clipboard.  If you believe you require a prop to look more professional, odds are high you are right.

I do not wear a suit and tie.  Nothing wrong with dressing for success, but a guy in a tie wants to sell you something.  I want clients and customers to feel comfortable around me.

I do not have pictures of my pets on my business cards.  “When the time comes to sell your most valuable asset, you can trust Paul Slaybaugh … and his kitty cats!”

I do not press said business card into the hand of every neighbor on my block.  Probably a bad business decision on my part, but I never liked the idea of my neighbors ducking inside their homes to avoid “that guy” when they see me walking down the street.

I do not inform buyers, “This is the kitchen!” when showing a house.  You’ve seen this agent on House Hunters.  She doesn’t trust your ability to bridge the convection oven + refrigerator = kitchen divide.

I do not sell insurance or loans.  Or pomegranate juice.  Or encyclopedias.  I sell houses.  That’s it.  If I’m good enough at it, there is no need to branch out into repping energy elixers on the side.

I do not work a good ‘ole boys referral network.  I refer my clients to the best service providers I know with expectation of neither reciprocation, nor compensation.  Too many great guys, but bad practitioners out there to gamble my client’s best interests with a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” relationship.  If I provide an affiliate’s name, it’s a name worth knowing.

I do not turn off my cell phone. I’m not always available to field a call, but the phone stays on.  Some emergencies can’t wait for normal business hours.

I do not introduce myself at parties as “Paul Slaybaugh, Realtor.” Rest assured, you can let your guard down when we are off the clock without fear of a never-ending solicitation.  I am a whole person.  Real Estate is what I do, but not the entirety of who I am.

I do not sell houses. I help houses sell themselves.  I can sell you a pen if you already have four, but I cannot sell you a house that you don’t want.  Many agents put on a show for their clients in an effort to demonstrate just how salesy they can be when promoting their home.  It’s a mistake.

I do not treat lenders, title officers, stagers or contractors as if they work for me.  We’re all a team, with the client as captain.  It is my goal to create an atmosphere in which all professionals involved will be eager to work with me again upon the successful conclusion of a transaction.  It doesn’t serve my clients’ purposes to have the network of providers I rely upon cringe when my number flashes across their caller ID.

I do not put balloons on my open house signs.  I don’t juggle or have pie-eating contests either.  We are selling a HOUSE here people, not a set of Goodyears.

I do not drop client names around the office.  Or around other clients, for that matter, in an attempt to convince them of my importance.  Aside from valuing your privacy in this modern TMZ world, who really cares?  “Famous by association” is entirely overrated.  I’d rather attain my promised 15 minutes through merit.

I do not attend tour groups for the scones and gossip alone.  I’m there to work.  The scones are great, though.

I do not advertise sales, incentives or gimmicks for the use of my services.  I offer competitive fees, but I will not trick you into working with me.  If you select your professional representative based on the allure of a complimentary fruit basket or shoulder massage, God speed.

And I do not have a magnet on my car.

If you think we would make a good professional match, drop me a line.  It would be my privilege to represent you in the purchase or sale of your Scottsdale home.

*ACT NOW!*

Be first to “Like” this post and receive the half-eaten remnants of a bologna sandwich!

If you will humor the presumption, I’d bet my license that my attendant impressions from the following gambits jive with those of today’s buyer to the tee.

“I’m Beautiful Inside” is henceforth redubbed “Coyote Ugly from the Street,” or “Look Past My Goiter and Love Me For Me.”

“Very Special!” is not outwardly off-putting, but it carries a stunning lack of associative context.  While I happen to be very special to my mother, the man on the street just might cut my throat for the eight bucks in my wallet.  If one can’t think of anything in particular that is worthwhile about the property, “Very Special” seems to fit the vanilla bill.

The insecure younger sister to the first member of our list, “I’m Gorgeous!” is a tired refrain from a house who doth protest too much.  When was the last time that the person who regaled you for hours on end with tales of a jet-setting fashion model’s life was a true American beauty?  It just doesn’t happen.  Such a lovely has learned that his/her stunning visage requires no hyperbolic self-aggrandizement. This house, on the other hand, is the eight foot sasquatch with bad skin who won’t shut up about herself.

“Terms” – While agents generally know this to mean there may be some kind of owner financing available, this one is just patently confusing to the general public.  Of course there are terms.  Whether you are selling a home or Pet Rock, all transferences of ownership come with terms.  Such as, “You pay X, I give you house.”

“Voted First On Tour!” – Congratulations, you beat out two other houses for the distinct honor.  Seriously, if the agent’s colleagues were so taken with the home, where is the procession of buyers?  My first reaction to such a proclamation is to surmise that the home has hung around the market long enough to make it into a tour lineup.  Must be overpriced.

“Pool” – What else needs to be said?  Some might argue that isolating any one feature of the home is pointless without the rest of the details, but I say who cares how many bedrooms, bathrooms, square feet, etc this home has?  It has “Pool.”

“Extra Special!” – Oh snap!  Take that “Very Special!”

“Pride of Ownership!” – For every abortion of a house out there, there is a proud homeowner.  Shoot, that same owner is likely just as proud of his forty year old kid who still lives in the basement.  Forgive me if I don’t lean too heavily on the hubris of persons unknown.

“Original Owner” – The decor has remained hermetically sealed within this time capsule since 1958.  Forensic anthropologists will break down the door in the year 2200 to study the long-term effects of asbestos on shag carpeting.

“Won’t Last!” – Wanna bet?

“Look Here >>>” – I love this one.  I mean, I absolutely love this one.  If you somehow managed to notice the evidently insufficient “For Sale” sign, you are prompted to look at it.  By a rider whose visibility requires you are already looking at it.  A paradoxical delight.

“Neighborhood Specialist” – Silly me.  Here I thought the idea was to promote the house.

I ridicule the use of trite slogans on Real Estate sign riders only because I have been there, done that.  I am not exempt from this carnival of pie-throwing derision.  At some point along my professional arc, I have tried just about every silly rider there is to get the attention of passersby.  Through trial and error, I have come to realize the only one that is consistently effective is a website address.  Rather than trying to sell a home in one to three words, it’s best to utilize that space to send prospective buyers somewhere they can get all of the property details.  Properly designed, said website will catch your fly in a sticky web of additional buyer tools and resources.  The idea is to keep them coming back for more, with your home top of mind all the while.  Don’t tell a buyer how beautiful you are inside as they pass by, direct them to a resource which shows them in painstaking detail.  Don’t distill the core value of the home all the way down to “Pool.”  Funnel them to a place where the pool, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, upgraded kitchen, hardwood floors, new A/C and half acre lot share equal billing. This is how you best leverage a rider to trade up to its penultimate incarnation: “SOLD!”

Or you can continue to try to reel them in with your “Carpet Allowance!”

Your choice.

As powerful a five word mantra that a salesperson will ever encounter.  When it comes to managing one’s business, the seductive powers of activity are often enough to lead a good REALTOR astray.  While the carefully laid out marketing campaign gets left at home, the erstwhile agent steps out with every new expenditure and panacea that gives him a “come hither” glance.

Ignoring another haggard, old saying, “Never sell a salesman,” we are an easy mark.  Highly susceptible to the allure of the next great promotional campaign or sales technique that is going to set us apart from the competition, we are prone to affairs of the wallet that stand to disrupt the matrimonial bliss of a productive agent and his lovely business plan.

A forgiving bride, we crawl back to her after every unsuccessful tryst.  Whether just looking to spice up a meat and potatoes strategy or a full-fledged case of advertising lust that leads to the delusion that this could be “the next one,” our fundamental methodology will greet us with open arms when we come slink home with tails between legs and hundreds out of pocket.  Jesse James and Tiger Woods could learn a thing or two from a salesman.

What does this confessional mean to you as a consumer?  In short, everything.

The longer you hang around this industry, the better equipped you are to separate the effective marketing wheat from the gimmicky chafe.  Rather than bouncing from product to product in search of an oil strike, we learn to distinguish what works and can be effectively rolled into an existing marketing campaign, and what is an overpriced tramp that has been around more blocks than Heidi Fleiss at Lego Land.

Here at the Scottsdale Property Shop, we won’t gamble with your money.  What, you didn’t realize that it was your coin at stake?  Now we cut to the quick of it.  As all costs of doing business are factored into the fee your chosen professional, in any endeavor, charges, it is an often overlooked component of the value added to the service.  We trot out the advertising we will employ to get your home sold, but seldom do homeowners question what is effective and what is superfluous.  The more the better, right?

Not necessarily.

As the new world order has proven over and over again, print media has been relegated, by and large, to the realm of the ineffective.  Certain exceptions apply, and certain properties must be marketed via publication, but for the most part, newspaper and magazine advertising has become a sinkhole for marketing dollars.  Recognizing this, most sharp agents have directed those dollars to more productive venues:  websites, blogs, social media, etc.

Some, however, continue to throw big money at both defunct media and unproven new products solely to demonstrate to clients that they are spending money.

See, I’m doing my job!  Just look at this splashy front page ad in the Sunday paper!  I also just signed up for a program guaranteed to produce more hits on my website (from non-buyers) to increase your home’s exposure!

Super duper.

All of this activity and all of these expenditures are factored not only into the fees you are charged, but come at great opportunity cost.  There are only so many dollars in every advertising budget.  Those dollars should be spent in a manner that is most likely to produce a buyer for your home.  Only experience gained through ample trial and error will procure a buyer in the most direct and inexpensive manner possible.  The result?  You are not charged exorbinant fees, and your home actually sells.

While it’s true that even the longest tenured agent will look for a little extra-curricular excitement now and again, it shouldn’t be a drunken weekend spree that leaves him devoid of his marketing budget and equilibrium.    Those slots and roulette wheels will eat up your sale in no time.  New tools are brought into the fold, but only as adjuncts to the old standbys, not at their expense.

Traditional networking and sales techniques married to a strong web presence.   And her sister.

Consider it Real Estate Big Love.