Archive for June, 2010
Now Is The Time For Action
“We are always getting ready to live, but never living.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
How much time do you spend each day planning. We have 5 year plans, yearly plans, monthly plans and daily plans. If you go by the books you have thoroughly scheduled and planned out ever move you make. You hold meetings to plan when you will hold the next meeting. You schedule time to plan your schedules.
It all reminds me of an old saying: “You don’t call a meeting to kill a rattlesnake – JUST KILL IT!”
Your life should be a verb not a noun. Life is active and changing constantly. To stop changing and being active, going from a verb to a noun, is to start dying. Life is not a spectator sport where you spend all your time sitting on the bench watching the game go by. It is a participative sport which needs your input. Whether it is coaching, encouraging or actively playing you have to be a part of a game. When you go to a sporting event you may not be playing on the field but you are an active participant if you are cheering and encouraging your team on.
Planning is important but it is not the end all, it is only the first step in the process. You have to put your plans to work and evaluate their successes or failures. Then adjust your plans and try again. Far too often we develop a plan and put in on the shelf in case we have to justify something in the future and never dust it off.
There comes a time in every plan and schedule where you have to take action.
NOW IS THAT TIME!
Listing vs. Selling Your Property
“Do you want to List your property or do you want to Sell your property?” This has become one of the first questions I ask on a Listing Interview. It is surprising how many people, in this market, just want to list their property and if it sells, great.
This type of seller is hard to work with and can be very frustrating to our buyers and to the agent. One of the dead give always to this type of seller is when the seller says “I know the price is too high, but bring me offers.” If the price is too high you may not get offers. Buyers have too many choices and will not waste time making offers on property that is ridiculously over price. If they do make an offer it will be so low that the only purpose it serves is to insult the seller who will only blame you for being a poor agent.
The seller may not be motivated to lower his price during the listing and continually argue with you about it. It can be extremely frustrating and time consuming to to the agent and the seller to attempt to get the price lowered. The opening price should be close to what the comparatives say it will sell for. Again, the agent will be blamed for being a poor agent only interest in a quick sell.
Remember it is not a “Listing Appointment” but a “Listing Interview”. As an agent I am interviewing the seller just as much as the seller is interviewing me. ASK QUESTIONS! In order to make an informed decision on listing the property I need to understand your motivation for selling it. If either of us do not like the answers it is better to walk away now than after we have invested time and money in a “Property that is Listed” verses a “Property that is For Sell.”
