“Three fifty? Are you out of your freaking skull,” the rotund, little man bellowed beneath a reddening bald pate.

“You disagree with my analysis,” Maxwell Listers surmised. He was not unaccustomed to the question, though twenty six years of patient rebuttal had him rethinking the answer some days.

“You call that an analysis,” Ollie Meanders dismissed. “Even my senile mother in law could tell you this house is worth five hundred grand, and she thinks you can still buy a ticket to a picture show for a nickel.”

“I see,” Max replied, organizing the stack of comparable sales he had spent the past half hour explaining in excruciating detail. “Your mother in law would no doubt be swayed by the thirty two hundred square feet you claim to possess.”

“Damn straight,” Ollie confirmed, puffing his hirsute chest beneath an overmatched, crumpled white undershirt.

“Why, that three thousand square foot house one block over just sold for four eighty after all, and it didn’t even have a fireplace, did it,” Max agreed, leafing through his stack to the appropriate property listing.

Ollie stared at the agent with suspicion roiling in his beady eyes. He knew he was being taken for a ride, he just didn’t know where.

“Of course,” Max continued, “that was all original square footage …”

“So,” Ollie challenged.

“So original square footage is more valuable than added square footage,” Max concluded on cue, his silver hair lending more credence to the proclamation than the dirty blonde it had crowded out a decade earlier.

“What the hell is the difference,” Ollie pressed. “Thirty two hundred feet is thirty two hundred feet!”

The cords in Ollie’s sausage forearms rearranged themselves into angry knots beneath his taut, freckled skin.

“Think so,” Max asked, his arched eyebrows issuing a direct challenge.

“Well, sure,” Ollie sputtered. “Who cares … I mean, what does it, uh, matter if it, um …”

“Remind me, how many bedrooms do you have, Ollie?”

“Four,” the homeowner boasted, jutting his chin at the listing in Max’s hand. “Same as that one!”

“And did I miss the formal dining room somewhere when you were showing me around?”

“No,” Ollie said with slightly less confidence. “That’s where I added the fourth bedroom.”

“And how many baths?”

“Well … still just the one and a half,” Ollie admitted.

“How about parking,” Max asked.

“I, um, enclosed the garage to make the game room.”

“And this kitchen,” Max continued, looking about the small galley.

“Installed the granite counter tops myself,” Ollie crowed.

“And they are stunning,” Max allowed. “But does this room strike you as the hub of a thirty two hundred square foot home, or would you agree that it more closely embodies your home’s former life as a seventeen hundred square footer?”

“It might be a bit on the small side,” Ollie acknowledged. “But I converted the laundry room to a pantry for extra storage.”

Max scribbled something on a manilla folder marked “Meanders, Ollie.”

“These low ceilings ….”

“No, I don’t have the big, fancy vaults that some of my neighbors do,” Ollie ceded. “But do you have any idea how much it costs to cool that extra space?”

“And the back patio … wait. Where is the back patio,” Max asked, craning his sinewy neck to look past the homeowner.

“I enclosed that, too,” Ollie replied, slowly being sapped of his pugnacity.

“Ah yes, I see,” Max nodded. “That would explain the step-down and the funky slope to the roof line. A shame how it darkens the family room and eats up the backyard.”

“Should I put in some skylights?”

Max shook his head.

“You’d just be throwing good money after bad,” Max advised the crestfallen homeowner. “I’m afraid you have a Frankenstein house, Ollie.”

“Frankenstein house?”

“A Frankenstein house,” Max confirmed. “You took a perfectly good little home and created a monster – a big, sprawling octopus of a property, one incongruous addition at a time.”

“But the bigger, the better, right?”

“No, Ollie. Not necessarily,” Max corrected. “Your house doesn’t fit the needs or expectations of a larger family despite the raw square footage, nor does the new layout fit the single or couple to whom it would have originally appealed. You are stuck between buyer demographics. Homeseller Purgatory, if you will.”

Ollie buried his head in his hands.

“You just can’t juice a little house into something it isn’t,” Max added for good measure.

“All that work,” Ollie moaned. “All those trips to Lowes.”

“Wish you’d called me in sooner,” Max lamented. “Would have aborted Rosemary’s Baby here before it was ever conceived.”

“Hey!”

“My apologies,” Max offered.

“Well,” Ollie breathed with a heavy sigh. “I need to move, but I’ve put way too much into it to sell it for three fifty. What do I do?”

Max took a moment to ponder their options.

“How’s your insurance,” he wondered.

“Insurance,” Ollie parroted with evident confusion. “Full replacement cost, why?”

“Fire bad,” Max suggested with a conspiratory wink.

The agent stood and lumbered out of the cramped kitchen with arms extended out in front of him like the monster fleeing an angry mob of torch-bearing villagers.

Selling a tenant occupied home … how do I put this delicately … kind of sucks. That’s right, selling a home with a tenant sucks.

Why, you ask?

Because there is little to no motivation on the part of the occupant to participate in the process. Think about it. With zero financial stake in the sale of a property, why would anyone care to have their daily lives disturbed by pushy Real Estate agents and their snooping clients? As such, tenants tend to make home showings more difficult than owner occupants.

You want to show the home in an hour? No, today is impossible.

Tomorrow? No, tomorrow doesn’t look real good either.

Given that a landlord or an agent of the landlord cannot legally enter the premises in cases of non-emergency without permission or 48 hours written notice (under the AZ Landlord-Tenant Act), it is not uncommon to come across such tenant-occupied listings that require 2 days minimum notice prior to showings. These constraints cost owners more than a few showings, particularly those of the spur of the moment, I’m in town to buy a house today variety.

In a market choked with inventory, especially in the lower price points where rental properties typically live, few will bother looking at the homes that are difficult to view. There are simply too many readily accessible options to make special plans to see one nondescript investment property.

So how does the owner of such a home counter the tenant malaise that is killing his/her ability to sell prior to the expiration of the lease (inviting the holding costs and desperate pricing decisions that can accompany a vacancy)? By incentivizing the tenant to participate in the process.

It frankly amazes me that tenant-occupied properties are often so difficult to show when the remedy is so readily apparent: money.

Offer your tenant a discounted rate on the rent or nominal alternative compensation ($500 is a lot of money for the average tenant) if the home sells while they occupy it. By doing so, you will not only encourage your tenant to eagerly agree to the showings that were formerly abhorred, but will provide the requisite motivation for showing the home in its best condition as well. Get the tenant on your side by offering a stake in the outcome and watch the beds make themselves, the dirty socks disappear from the living room floor, the food-caked plates on the kitchen counter find their way into the dishwasher.

When you empower the powerless, everyone benefits. From the only perspective that matters in a Real Estate transaction – yours – that means minimized holding costs and maximized sales price. Cool beans.

Selling a home is not rocket science, just an exercise in the practical study and application of human motivation. For your own sake, you have to step outside of your head every once in a while to learn how to help others help you.

This is your Jerry Maguire moment. Don’t blow it.

The Steadfasts barged through the garage door as the familial octopus they’d become, arms and legs of varying sizes jostling to cross the threshold first.

“Gently, Blaine! Put it down gently,” Alexis bellowed after the seven year old victor who approached the kitchen counter at breakneck speed.

“Mom, Blaine pushed me,” five year old Daniella squealed, already back in hot pursuit of her brother.

The second bag landed with a satisfying crash mere seconds after the first. Alexis had long suspected that Jason insisted on paper for that very reason. She didn’t buy the environmental angle, not when the trip to and from the store was made in an Escalade.

“I won! I won,” the elder child trumpeted.

“Cheater,” his sister shrieked.

“What did I say about slamming groceries,” Alexis admonished. “And, Blaine, don’t push your sister.”

Jason propped the door open for her with his backside as he held two bags of his own.

She scooched past him with the sleeping Anne Marie in her arms.  Already stocked up on groceries for the week, the colicky six month old was the ostensible reason for the redundant trip. It was the rhythm of the road they’d been after.

Tip-toeing past the carnage in the kitchen, careful to give wide berth to the flyers that were strewn all over the floor, Alexis disappeared into the deeper regions of the house.

“How many times do I have to tell you to leave the flyer stand on the coffee table,” Jason moaned, the door slamming shut behind him.

“Not that anyone’s taking them anyway,” he mumbled as he deposited his bags on the counter and began retrieving the forty nine scattered reams of high gloss photo paper. There had been fifty originally, but he’d taken one in to the office to hang on the bulletin board exactly twelve months ago to the day.

“Hey, hon,” he said as he finished up and followed her into the family room clutching one of the flyers. “I was thinking, maybe we could hold some kind of auction or something to increase the demand. Maybe raffle off tickets or …”

The thought died as he turned the corner to find a group of people seated around the sunken conversation pit at the base of the fireplace, staring at him with a tense mixture of anticipation and dread.

“Mom? Carl? What’s going on here,” he demanded.

“Hello, Jason. Please come have a seat. There’s something we’d like to discuss with you,” a stranger sitting slightly apart from the rest of the group invited, his incessant blinking exacerbated by an ill-fitting pair of bifocals. His bald head looked hot in the glow of the 1980′s vintage canned halogen lights.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the invitation to sit down in my own house, but I think I’d rather stand, thank you. What’s this all about, Gerry,” he asked, turning towards the well-groomed man in the grey slacks and pullover sitting closest to the de facto master of ceremonies.

“Just hear the man out, Jason,” Gerry answered.

“Hear him out about what? What is this?”

“This is just a group of your friends and family that cares about you, Jason. Very much,” the stranger responded.

“Oh my God. I’ve seen this on TV. This is an intervention, right,” he asked, panning each face as if he were polling the jury after a guilty verdict.

“If you want to stand on formalities, yes, this is an intervention. Really, though, it’s just a chance for those who care about you most to share their concerns and offer their support,” the stranger replied.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me. Is it about the coffee? I mean, I know I probably drink more than the next guy, but-”

“It’s not about the coffee, Jason,” his wife said from off to his left. He hadn’t seen her reenter the room.

“You’re in on this,” he asked in horror.

“I invited them, Jason.”

He stared at his wife with mouth agape, trying to wrap his mind around the scope of the betrayal.

“Judas,” he hissed.

“Your wife asked us here today because she loves you, Jason. No one is here to attack you. We are here to help. Now, are you willing to listen to what your friends have to say,” the stranger asked, his fleshy Adam’s apple bobbing beneath his double chin with each syllable.

“Not until someone tells me what this is all about,” he answered. “And where are the kids?”

“The kids are in good hands, Jason,” the stranger assured him.

The room fell into a pronounced moment of uncomfortable silence. The assembled guests looked back and forth at each other, willing one another to break the seal.

“It’s your price, Jason,” Gerry finally informed him to the room’s relief. “We are concerned about your list price.” He started to run a soft hand through his slick-backed, black hair before thinking better of it and smoothing the disturbed follicles back into place.

“What about my list price,” Jason challenged his Realtor, crossing his arms in defiance.

“It’s, um, well it’s … it’s high, Jason. It’s just too damn high,” Gerry spilled, punctuating his words with a year’s worth of frustration.

“Too high, huh? Like the Crawford’s place down the street was too high,” Jason countered.

“We’ve discussed this, Jason,” Gerry reminded him. “That comp is three years old.”

“I know what this house is worth. We just need the right buyer,” Jason said.

“No, Jason,” Gerry retorted. “You know what this house WAS worth. Lotta market fallout under the bridge since oh seven.  Besides, that home was fully remodeled from the ground up. Yours … could stand a little work.” His eyes darted to the imitation crystal behemoth masquerading as a chandelier in the adjoining dining room.

“That’s not what you said when you took the listing, Gerry,” Jason accused. “I seem to remember you going on and on about our indoor-outdoor carpeting when you were trying to get my signature.”

Gerry hung his head in shame. The reflection in his brilliantly polished black shoes captured an enabler’s remorse.

“He’s a Realtor, Jay. What’d you expect,” the man sitting to Gerry’s right asked. “Look, there’s no excuse for him shining you on in the beginning like that, but he wanted the business. He’s trying to atone for it now.”

“I’d expect this from him,” Jason replied, jerking a thumb towards his despondent agent, “but not you, Carl. I mean, my own flesh and blood …”

“Come off it, Jay. I’ve been telling you all along that your price is stupid, but would you listen to your big brother? Nooooooooo.”

“What do you know about housing values, Carl? You’re in pharmaceutical sales, for crissakes!”

“Doesn’t take an economist to know your house isn’t worth a hundred grand more than you paid for it back in the boom years. Gerry showed me the last round of comps. It’s ugly, Jay.”

“You can’t stand to see your kid brother do better than you, can you, Gerry? It’s just like that time with the bike. I get a new ten-speed when you were still tooling around on a hand-me-down Schwinn, and you manage to accidentally crash it into the Flanders’ queen palm. How convenient.”

“Jesus, not the bike again. It was an accident!”

“Sure it was, Gerry,” Jason snipped. “Sure it was.”

His big brother shook his considerable head and looked to the couple on his immediate right to pick up the baton.

“Bruce? Maggie? What are you doing here,” Jason wondered, taking in their presence for the first time.

“The Maguires are here as concerned neighbors, Jason,” the ringleader interjected, his glowing dome now verging on spontaneous combustion.

The elderly couple eyed each other in evident discomfort, hoping the other would take the lead. Finally, Maggie spoke.

“It’s just that Bruce is getting ready to retire, Jason,” she began. “Now that the kids are gone, we’re thinking about putting the house up for sale in the spring. It’s more than we need, and we’d really like to do some traveling.”

Gerry perked up at that, reaching into his wallet for a business card.

“That’s great, but what does it have to do with me,” Jason asked.

“We’re worried about the effect your home is having on values,” Bruce answered. “You’ve been on the market so long that people are going to start wondering if there’s something wrong with the neighborhood.”

“That’s absurd,” Jason boomed. “You’re coming down on ME when everyone else on the block is just giving their homes away? You should be thanking me! The Smiths or the Gundersons are who you ought’a be talking to right now, not me.”

“I’ll admit that I was happy to see you give it a shot when you first went on the market,” the old-timer said, scratching a suspicious looking cluster of basal cells on the tip of his leathery nose. “Hadn’t seen a price like that in ages. I thought you were nuts, but figured you’d drop the price until you eventually found the market.”

“The market is where we’re priced, Bruce. These buyers and their agents are just too stupid to realize it. If they expect us to give them our house for what the short sale and foreclosure trash is going for, they’ve got another thing coming,” Jason argued.

“For a smart guy, you sure are dumb. The market is what a buyer is willing to pay you, son,” Bruce sighed. “Look, if you won’t do it for yourself, do it for us. We still have a little equity in our place, and we need every penny we can get out of it. Figure at least thirty percent for the down payment on the condo in Sun Lakes, another fifteen thousand or so for the medical bills that Medicare won’t cover and a few other expenses, and there isn’t much left. Every day you sit on the market at that ridiculous price, our golden years get a little less golden.”

Maggie removed a tube of ointment from her denim purse and passed it to her husband. Bruce smiled his thanks and applied a substantial dollop to his angry nose. The musty aroma of wet putty filled the room.

“Not to be rude, Bruce, but how is any of that my problem? I’m holding the line here so that all of us get the prices we deserve. I’m doing you a favor.”

Maggie patted her husband’s knee as Bruce shook his head.

“It’ll be alright, sweetheart. We’ll just have to wait another couple of years. I’ll ask Agnes about picking up that night shift at the diner.”

“And what about you, Mom,” Jason asked the diminutive figure to Maggie’s right. “You can’t be in on this. You just can’t.”

A single tear started the slow journey from her false eyelash to the point of her skeletal chin, leaving a contrail of mascara in its wake.

“Oh my, sweet, sweet boy,” she blubbered before breaking down into soul-rattling sobs. “How could I have let this happen to you?”

“Don’t cry, Mom,” he pleaded. “Please don’t cry.” His lower lip started quivering as Alexis walked over and put a reaffirming hand on his shoulder. He collapsed into her waiting arms.

“Let it out,” she cooed in his ear. “Let it all out.”

Jason did exactly that. He cried openly for the first time in his adult life, purging his body of the shame and frustration that gushed forth with his tears.

“I’m sorry,” he wailed. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Hands engulfed him as Jason suddenly found himself at the epicenter of a group hug.

“It’s okay,” one voice said. “We’re sorry, too,” said another.

“So what now,” Jason asked of no one in particular when the cluster loosened, all still dabbing at moist eyes.

“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Stephan Crawford, of Crawford and Associates Appraisals,” the previously unidentified master of ceremonies revealed. “We have our top residential appraiser scheduled for ten AM tomorrow. It’s all arranged and paid for. All you have to do is be here to let him in.”

Jason blew out the breath he wasn’t aware he’d been holding.

“You mean tomorrow? But I’ve got an appointment in the morning, and-”

“It’s taken care of, Jason. We’ve cleared it with your boss,” Stephan assured him. “Isn’t that right, Henry?”

A dour looking man entered the room from the kids’ wing with Blaine and Daniella in tow. His black on black attire was at odds with the Little Mermaid tiara that sat atop his mussed silver hair. He had the desperate look of an aristocrat who had just spent the weekend in county lockup.

“Mr. Samuels,” Jason gaped.

“Hello, Jason,” the new arrival began. “You are not welcome at the firm until this situation has been … resolved.”  He chewed on the last word as he removed the undignified adornment from his angular head.

“But, sir,” Jason protested. “The Mayfair file-”

“Will be waiting for you when you get back,” his cadaverous boss interrupted. “You’re not doing anybody any good right now. Craig Tallman will handle all of your files until you get your head screwed on right.”

“Tallman,” Jason snorted. “He couldn’t hang a jury with twelve feet of rope and a stepladder.”

“And neither can you in your present state,” the senior partner countered. “The billing errors, the first year lapses in judgment … need I mention the fiasco with the character witness in the McElroy case? Put your house in order so we can get you back to your winning ways. That’s an order.”

Jason nodded his resigned acceptance.

“Besides,” the humorless lawyer continued. “We took a vote at the latest meeting of partners that you managed to miss. One more mention of your house or your lousy agent-”

“Hey,” Gerry objected.

“-and we strap you to the one-way gurney ourselves,” Mr. Samuels concluded behind arched eyebrows. “Understood?”

“Understood, sir,” Jason confirmed. “I know how difficult this has been on all of you. I know I have a problem, and I’m ready to get help.”

“Anything you need, Jason,” Stephan offered on behalf of the group. “We’re here for you.”

“I know that, and I can’t tell you how much it means to me,” he acknowledged, taking a step towards the kitchen. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m parched. Can I get anyone a drink?”

Several requests for water followed him into the kitchen.

“Well, that went about as well as it could have,” Alexis suggested, hugging her children to her hips.

Stephan glanced at his watch.

“Five, four, three, two ..”

Heads turned sharply at the sound of a slamming door. Moments later, a massive engine springing to life preceded the squeal of tires as a vehicle careened down the driveway.

“Jason,” Alexis screamed, running after him.

“Let him go,” Stephan advised.

“What do you mean, let him go,” she demanded, stopping to stare at the weary appraiser.

“He’ll come back when he’s ready.”

“But he’s sick,” she protested. “He could hurt our equity!”

“Yes, he could,” the appraiser admitted. “But he has to make the choice voluntarily. All the comparable market analyses in the world won’t do a bit of good if he is not open to the possibility of change. Sometimes an FVA has to hit rock bottom before finding the strength to accept treatment.”

“FVA,” she asked.

“Former Value Addict.”

“And if he never comes around,” she posited.

“They always come around,” Stefan assured her.

“But if he doesn’t?”

“Then we move to phase two,” Stephan informed her.

“What’s phase two?”

“You don’t want to know,” he answered.

The appraiser removed a cell phone from the holster on his belt and made a call.

“Hi, Gloria, it’s Stephan,” he announced to the person on the other end. “I’m at the Steadfast residence.”

He took a deep breath and scanned the eager faces staring back at him before continuing.

“We’ve got a runner.”

Damon’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket as he stepped out of the stately house and into the warmth of late April in Scottsdale, Arizona. Checking the display, he recognized the number from the four previous calls he’d let roll to voicemail. Whoever it was, his mystery caller was pretty keen on speaking with him right now. He sighed as the door closed behind him, deciding to break his personal rule about taking calls while showing property.

“Excuse me for a moment,” Damon said to the young couple waiting on the porch, pointing to the phone.

“No problem,” the wife answered, running a hand over the lone straggler in her otherwise perfectly coiffed, auburn hair. “We’ll go ahead and get Maddux in his seat.”

Nodding, Damon pressed the “receive” button and put the phone to his ear.

“This is Damon,” he informed the caller in a slightly quizzical tone. Not for the first time, he wondered if he sounded helpful or confused.

“Yes, um, hi, this is Peggy Dragic. You showed my listing on Oak? Just curious what the buyers thought.”

The vein over Damon’s right eye throbbed with aggravation as his cobalt blue eyes narrowed to angry slits.

“You’re kidding, right,” he demanded, the sing-songy eagerness in his voice replaced with an icy baritone. “You’ve called five times in the past ten minutes for feedback?”

“I have a very eager seller,” she responded, by way of an apology.

“Look, Peggy, I’m right in the middle of an appointment. If you want to call back with the property address, you can leave it on my voicemail. I’ll review my notes when I’m done here and call you back,” he directed, willing his rigid jaw to relax. The last thing he needed was a trip to the dentist to fix another filling.

“Surely you remember it,” the agent pressed. “8423 North Oak – the beautifully remodeled Tudor with a split guest suite and stained glass clerestory windows in the foyer.”

He glanced at his black Yukon, where his clients were struggling to load their squirming nine month old. He couldn’t help but smile at their plight. Dylan had started reacting to his seat like a cat to an ice bath at about the same age. Damon suspected it was because he didn’t want to face backwards anymore. No longer content within his own little world, he was ready to join the big, forward-facing one.

“Hmm, doesn’t ring a bell,” he lied, deciding to play along. “What day did you say I showed it?”

“Today, between ten and eleven,” the incredulous agent informed him.

Damon pulled the phone away from his ear to check the time.

10:31 AM.

“Today? We must not have gotten to it yet. Nothing but overpriced dogs to this point,” he said. His mouth curved into a toothless grin.

“But I just got off the phone with the seller! She said you were just there!”

“Wait … did you say Oak,” he asked.

“Yes, Oak! There’s a koi pond in the front courtyard,” the agent clarified.

“No koi ponds today, just a stagnant bog that someone is using to brew West Nile virus. Couldn’t have been your listing,” he assured her, looking down at the half dozen carp of varied brilliant colors loitering near his feet.

“She was home when you came through,” the agent insisted. “You were there for half an hour!”

Movement in the living room window caught Damon’s attention.  A wrinkled face disappeared behind the elegant taupe curtain when he turned to look.

“Tudor, you say? We did see one Tudor, but it needed a lot of work,” he replied.

“My listing has newer appliances and a tankless hot water system,” the agent corrected.

“Well the one I’m thinking of smelled like an old lady’s apothecary chest and had the most garish flooring I have ever seen. The husband called it the “La Vida Loca House.”

“I’ll have you know that is the finest terracotta tile money can buy, imported directly from an artisan in Pienza. Each piece is handmade, baked in the sun for seventy two hours and fired in a 16th century kiln,” she huffed.

“No kidding? It looked like something my kid made in art class,” Damon responded. “And not for nothing, but Michelangelo he is not.”

“Well, what did they think about the kitchen? Is that not a gourmet’s delight,” she asked.

“If you are into cherry wood and granite, I suppose,” Damon admitted. “My people are alderwood and corian people. The kitchen would be the first thing they’d have to gut.”

“You won’t find another piece of property like this,” she pressed. “Where else can you get an acre and a half backing to state trust land in Scottsdale?”

“Maintenance would be a killer,” Damon countered. “My people are relocating from a studio apartment in San Francisco. He doesn’t even own a lawnmower.”

“How about the price,” she asked, hesitating slightly.

Damon allowed an audible sigh to preface his reply.

“You already know you’re overpriced by two hundred thousand, Peggy. No sense belaboring the point. It’s out of their range, but we wanted to take a look just in case it was move-in ready and the seller was willing to deal a little bit.”

“She is open to all offers,” the agent replied.

Damon realized he was pacing and began walking towards the SUV, where his clients had finally wrestled their sobbing child into his seat. He made a mental note to stop for a snack, toy, bottle of methadone or any other anti-tantrum talisman one could purchase at a Circle K.

“I appreciate that, but I just don’t see this house working for my people, Peggy. They want a split master, need an extra half bath, hate stairs …”

“Any suggestions? She really needs out of that house,” the desperate agent interrupted. “Since her husband passed away last year, it’s become too much for her to handle. Her family is all waiting for her back in Toledo.”

“Just between me and you, as a professional courtesy, it’s not going to sell while she’s living there. Her stuff is all over the place, family pictures staring down at you from every wall. Didn’t help that she followed us through the entire house, pointing out where one of her kids bumped his head forty years ago and the laundry room baseboard that Daisy, the Golden Retriever, chewed up in the mid eighties. My people felt like intruders.”

“I know, I know,” the crestfallen agent confessed. “I keep telling her to take the dog for a walk during showings. It died ten years ago, but she doesn’t know that.”

“Put her on a plane to Toledo and crash the price. It’s too far gone for a mom and pop. Your buyer is an investor.”

Damon climbed behind the wheel and buckled his seat belt while pinning the phone between his ear and shoulder in a well-practiced maneuver. After checking his passengers to ensure that everyone was secure, he started the car.

“Well, not what I wanted to hear, but I appreciate your candor,” the agent said, partially obscured by the throaty engine roaring to life.

“No sweat, hope it helps,” Damon offered.

“It does, thanks for taking the time.”

“Sure thing, Peggy. Best of luck,” Damon concluded, terminating the call and dropping the phone into the grey cup holder in the console. He looked in the rearview at the young woman in the back seat, beaming despite the now shrieking child next to her.

“So what do you think, guys? Still feeling it,” he asked.

“Absolutely, it’s everything we’ve ever wanted,” the computer programmer with the prematurely salt and pepper flecked buzz cut sitting next to him gushed, breaking from his usual recalcitrance to answer for them both.

“Terrific, let’s go back to the office and write it up. One thing, though,” Damon teased.

“What,” both spouses asked in unison.

“We’re gonna offer a hundred grand less than we discussed.”

All three smiled as they pulled away from the curb, leaving 8423 N. Oak Drive in their wake.

“List with me because I dominate page 1 of Google for Scottsdale Real Estate, as well as Neighborhoods X, Y and Z!”

A familiar refrain.

Firmly entrenched in the Internet Age of Real Estate marketing, it would be reasonable for a consumer to expect his chosen agent to propagate every nook and cranny of the online world with the homes he has listed for sale. Actually, it should be a pre-requisite. If your home is not readily found by web surfing consumers, you might as well pull the sign from the yard and go stew in the cone of silence for the next six months. You may eventually find a suitor the old fashioned way, but demand falls off the map if your home does not frequent the same haunts as the consuming public. In other words, best case scenario is to expect a lower sales price and longer stint on the market if you are invisible to the online home shopper.

Your listing should appear on the major power player sites, such as Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow, etc.  Your home should be visible on every competitor’s site via IDX listing (brokers have the ability to opt in or out of the IDX agreement, thus can choose whether to keep company listings close to the vest or allow their properties to be displayed in the search results on competing home search sites).  Your home should be marketed with scores of high quality digital pictures and/or virtual tours to stand out from the din.

What is not necessarily a “must” however is that your chosen listing agent dominate the first ten spots of Google for major home search terms.  Sacrilege, I know.

As one who partakes in the daily struggle for online supremacy, why would I acknowledge such a thing?  Because it simply doesn’t hold water to argue that I am all of that and a bag of Real Estate chips by my positioning at the top of the search engines for select key words.  It certainly helps me cultivate leads, but whether your ultimate buyer finds your home on my site or a competitor’s is of little consequence to you.  As long as the buyer finds you, who cares if your agent stands to double dip the commission or has to co-broke with a buyer’s agent?

Though I aspire to gain keyword dominance for a few juicy sequences that I covet, and guard those I have already conquered with a zeal seldom seen this side of the Spanish Inquisition, do not misinterpret search engine dominance for the be all and end all of internet marketing.  It is merely one arm of the octopus.  The one that gloms onto wayward buyers for the agent’s new business generation at that.

To a certain extent, a well-ranked website is the modern incarnation of the open house.  The odds of the buyer walking into my domain on a broad Scottsdale Real Estate keyword search and fitting your property are just as long as with its old school predecessor.  It’s great when it happens, but if website placement comprises the entirety of an online marketing campaign … good luck, Chuck.  Google placement is a valuable assistant to a productive agent, but it is not a home selling panacea.

While I may rank higher than some of my competitors, and lower than a few others, they all benefit my clients.  As each listing I take is displayed on all major search engine across the web, my properties are splashed across virtually every website that pertain to Scottsdale Real Estate.

In that regard, I guess you could say that my listings dominate the first 50 pages of Google. And really, my lead generation aspirations aside, what else matters?

How are you supposed to differentiate between prospective agents if website ranking is less important than you were led to believe? Assuming your candidates are equally adept at proliferating their listings across the web (a big assumption), you separate the wheat from the chaff the old fashioned way: knowledge, ability and experience. There are no shortcuts to the head of that line, whiz bang website or no.

And now, to reap the SEO benefits that will vault me to the top of the rankings, but do little to improve my ability to sell your home, I repeat today’s keyword phrase: Scottsdale Real Estate.

Page 1, here we come!

Thanks, but no thanks.  Therein lie my in-depth feelings regarding buyer agent bonus compensation.

It’s a tricky business, this whole trust-building endeavor.  From the initial consultation with a prospective client, to the signing of the closing documents and all stops in between, a certain rapport and mutual belief in the positive intentions of each party must be developed to produce the desired outcome: namely, the purchase of the most appropriate property at the most advantageous terms.  With ample opportunity for an agent to unintentionally spit the bit along the way, warding off the encroachment of countless variables that would undermine the health of the relationship is an undisclosed facet of the job.  And what, pray tell, is the swiftest and surest endangerment of one’s relationship with the client?  Money.  More specifically, the belief, whether founded or not, that the agent is twisting his fiduciary obligation by putting his financial interests before those of the client.  That’s a relationship killer.  Once any doubt creeps into the mind of the client as to the motivation of his representative, you might as well go ahead and split the sheets.

I don’t want a bonus to sell your listing.

If your listing fits my client’s criteria, and you are offering me fair compensation for services rendered, I will show the property.  If you are offering compensation that does not meet my minimum standards, I will show the property if my client agrees to make me whole. Mind you, that’s a terrible disincentive to buyers and buyer’s agents alike, but run your business however you see fit.  What I do not require is any kind of additional spiff over and above suitable compensation.  An extra percent if the transaction closes in the next 30 days, a co-broke that is double the normal range of compensation, a week aboard the listing agent’s yacht after the close of escrow … all such supposed motivators are liable to call my judgment into question.

Am I really pushing property “x” because it represents that best value proposition for the client, or am I mentally slathering SPF 15 over my epidermis in preparation of the promised week in the Bahamas?

I’m not real keen on trying to explain to my client why I am grossing 20k on a $200,000 transaction while we are sitting around the closing table.

So while I appreciate the extra incentive a listing agent and/or seller may try to stoke via a buyer’s agent bonus, it calls my credibility into question.  Matter of fact, I will typically apply any such bonus (if monetary value can be readily affixed) to my client’s closing costs.  I maintain my reputation and my client gets an unexpected perk.  In fact, I would be in breach of my personal ethics, if not my fiduciary obligation, if I didn’t carve out such extraneous allotments for my client’s benefit.  If I am being compensated fairly for my role in the transaction, it is my duty to corral any additional nickels that fall out of the seller’s pockets for the buyer.

Want to expedite your Scottsdale home sale?  Put the agent bonus back in your shorts. Repackage the offering as a reduced price or concession towards the buyer’s closing costs. Make the terms more appealing to my client and you will produce the desired result. The seller gets his fast sale, the buyer gets more attractive terms and both agents get happy, referral-prone clients. Everybody wins.

If I want to go play Dread Pirate Roberts in the Caymans, I’ll do it on my own dime.

“You mean, it’s ours? It’s really ours?”

They were so excited. Even after I handed them the keys, they were slow to believe that the modest Spanish bungalow was now in their adoptive custody. Over the course of four exasperating months, we must have seen and dismissed close to a hundred homes. This one needed too much work. That one had a poor kitchen layout. Yet another sat on the “t” of a subdivision’s entrance: bad feng shui, or so I was told. Before the market skies parted and yielded the seventeen hundred square foot, clay tile miracle that appeared to have met extinction in their price range, our flagging spirits were all but ready to pack it in. The May 5th, 2005 discovery saved them from another year of apartment living. A challenge, at best, with a ten year old daughter, let alone with a half-baked bun in the oven.

“Can we go in,” the wife asked in a small, cautious voice.

“Of course,” I responded. “It’s your house, Liz, you can do whatever you please.”

She ignored my extended hand and engulfed me in a fierce hug. Her husband clasped my shoulder in a vice grip which betrayed an adolescence spent laboring on the family farm in Iowa. His curt nod spoke volumes.

“You’re welcome, Mel,” I replied.

“Thank you both for hanging in there with me. I know it hasn’t been easy, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the patience and trust you’ve shown. It’s been a long, tough slog, but I think we got it right.”

“Yes, we did,” Mel said, breaking his silence for the first and only time that morning.

“We would like to have you and your wife over as soon as we get settled,” Liz added.

“I’d like that,” I told her.

I meant it, too. I like just about every client I take on, but felt a special kinship with this couple for reasons that surpassed the extended time spent in each other’s company. After bidding the happy couple farewell, I glanced in the rearview as I navigated my way down the tree-lined street. Instead of going inside, they remained rooted in place, holding hands and staring at their new home.

I received a phone call from Liz this morning. Turns out that Mel has been out of work for some time now, and they cannot afford to keep the house. Might have to move back to the Midwest and look for a position on the farm. See just what kind of life is left in those gnarled, old leather hands.

I hate this job sometimes.

So you have 20% to put down for a single family home in Scottsdale AZ.  Your FICO scores are higher than Willie Nelson on Bob Marley Day in Montego Bay.  You have been gainfully employed in the same W2 position with the same company for years.  The American Express card with a $124 balance and the $112 payment on your 2002 Honda Accord make up the sum total of your earthly debt.  Congratulations, you are one of the few buyers in today’s market in a position to call your own shots.

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.

There is nothing the Real Estate industry loves more than a good cliche.  The more hackneyed the slogan, the more likely we are to roll it into our marketing campaigns.  Take the expressions which appear on an old industry stalwart, the sign rider, with frightening regularity.  Intended to separate a listed house from the herd, many of the verbal gutterballs instead relegate their hapless charges to the back of the pack.  You’ve seen the repeat offenders and mocked not only their stunning lack of originality, but more to the point, their inability to inspire … well … anything within your consumptive little heart.

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.

Picture a bowl of primordial soup.  No, really picture it.  What does it look like?  I see a gelatinous, gray gumbo of sorts.  The contents within completely impervious to the light of the sun underneath an opaque, spoon-devouring outer layer.  I don’t need to make out the individual invertebrates that I sense roiling about the porcelain confines to intuit that a wayward finger would disappear into tiny, prehistoric mandibles within moments of straying into the land of the culinary lost.

Of course, I am talking about bank owned property sales.  If the creepy crawlies in the walls don’t get you, the asset managers will.

About a year and a half ago, I, like many of my Real Estate brethren, was forced to take stock of the focus of my career.  Having long relied on the nearly continuous repeat and referral business that I cultivated through years of diligent service, I was forced to ponder the unponderable when the Great Market Implosion of 2008 (c)  threatened to sabotage my business model.  If you could even call it a business model, that is.  I subscribe to the notion that if you do right by the clients that you have now, you will never want for clients in the future.  Good business practice begets good client retention.

And yet, there I was.  Looking around for the vine upon which my new business had died amidst the economic crop dusting that was rendering entire markets fallow.  My hedgerow bustled only with concern.  So what to do?  With credit markets drying up and loans increasingly difficult to come by, the resale market became a stagnant bog.  The only sign of life would be Nessie popping her head above the surface of the foreclosure loch on occasion to swallow another hapless homeowner.  Against this stark backdrop, many of my respected colleagues turned to the very institutions that led us down this path to housing oblivion for their salvation.  Sensing that resale properties could not compete with the dirt cheap foreclosures, and that finding loans for buyers had become vastly more difficult than finding properties, I was tempted to follow suit.

The lure of pursuing bank-owned property listings was … gulp … quite tantalizing.  I saw REO agents handling more properties at a given time than they ordinarily handled over the course of an entire year while I banged my head against the resale wall.  Heeding the siren’s song, I went so far as to solicit lists of banks with whom I could apply to handle their overflowing inventories.  Hat in hand, it struck me that this was the 21st century version of standing in line for hours on end amidst scores of other able-bodied candidates for a factory job circa 1930.  A funny thing happened en route to the head of the line, however.  An epiphany, if you will.

In the current market, we all work for the banks in one manner or another.  You either list their houses, or you bring them buyers.  Only one side of that equation will bring you repeat business down the line, however.  I realized that I could not take on the workload that REO specialists enjoy tolerate without alienating the loyal client base that had propelled me to heights I had never really thought possible in my career.  Knowing there are only so many hours in the day, I made the conscious decision to forgo the possibility of immediate gratification with the banks to continue to serve real people.  It’s not an entirely altruistic choice either, but a pragmatic one.  The foreclosure market will dry up eventually, leaving the few remaining morsels to the established denizens of the deep who have waded through that knee-deep filth for the last two decades.  Those Johnny Come Latelys whose bank-owned property experience extends back a year or two will be in the unenviable position of having to redefine their expertise yet again.  Their neglected mom and pop clients will have moved on.

I do not want to watch my business wash up on the rocks along with the myriad other souls aimlessly following the tide on a makeshift raft of sticks and desperation when the winds finally change.  I’ll continue to take my chances with my own internal compass and weather-battered crew.

So, here you sit.  Spoon in hand, ready to dive into that noxious looking soup.  It may not be the most appetizing dish you have ever seen, but it’s the house special and the price is right.  The maitre d’ has already slipped back into the kitchen, hurriedly gathering the same ladled gruel for the next table.

No fear, your royal tester is still here.  Pass that gnarly bowl on over and I’ll help you determine its edibility.

I was sitting on your side of the table when we were eating steak and lobster, and I’m not looking for the check now that my dinner guests can only afford spam.  It may bring a little indigestion on this particular evening, but there are plenty of four star evenings ahead.

If you are buying or selling a home in Scottsdale, Arizona, and you are not an amorphous, soul crushing financial institution, it would be my great privilege to represent you in your pursuits.