$50,000 For You and your Portland Oregon Home?

Been looking for that perfect home in Portland Oregon but don’t quite have enough money to swing it? Perhaps you do have a bit of money for the down but there are just too many repairs to make it work?

Well this could be your day! Thanks to the Portland Development Commission and Uncle Sam under the Neighborhood Stabilzation Program $50,000 secondary loans will soon be availlable.

For more information about What it is and How can you get your Share stop by my web site at www.portlandrealproperty.com/50000foryou  for the details.

While your there be sure to check out all of the links. This truly is one stop shopping. Got a link idea you don’t see covered on my site? Drop me a line and tell me all about it. h.hamilton@remax.net

Top Ten Must Ask Questions Before Listing With an Agent

The one thing that most Attorneys , Medical Dr.’s and Real Estate Brokers have in common is expertise in their fields with very little Star Power.  I am talking about the type of Star Power that gives you instant recognition and authority. Certainly yourTitle presumes you have the knowledge and ability to carry out the work. How many of us though have been terribly disappointed in the performance of someone we had hired and presumed that they would perform the way we anticipated?

Of the many questions you could ask while interviewing a Real Estate Agent to List and Sell your home, these TOP TEN are a must have for your list.

1. How long have you been in the business? This speaks to experience. Although everyone needs to get their start and experience some where. Do you really want someone practicing on you?
2. Do you work with Buyer’s and Seller’s or both, what percentage? Showing property to Buyer’s is very time consuming. I want to know my Agent will have the time to market my home.
3.  How many Listings do you have. Having other listings can be a good thing as it allows the agent to rotate advertisements from listing to listing so as to not give your home that over advertised feel. Buyer’s can recognize ads that they have called on before. An Agent having to  many listings can cause the Agent to become lazy and concentrate marketing only the easiest of the listings. ( Tip : be sure to call the Agent about a listing they are currently marketing. The length of time and how they respond will tell you allot about how they will market your home ).
4. Will you reduce your commission. Beware of a yes response. An Agent that is willing to reduce commission may be saying to you that they do not believe in the value of their service. How well do you think this Agent will fight for you when negotiating any offers made on your home, especially low-ball offers or those with special conditions attached.
5. What methods will you use to market my home? What is the track record of success for each of those methods? Putting 1 ad in a paper that gets 50 calls and 10 showings is far better than 100 ads in a publication that gets no results. It is definitely not the Cost of advertising but the Results of advertising that matters.
6. Do you have a Web Site and or a Blog Site ? A personal Blog or Web Site is not the same as a generic Web Site owned by the company where the agent works. With 75 to 85 % of all Buyer’s begining their home search on the Web today it is imperative the Agent has a strong web site with the ability to capture Buyer prospects. ( Tip : Log on to the Agent’s site and try it out. How many clicks until you can see a property for sale. Are there lead capture forms on the site asking you to leave your information. Or is the site just a brag sheet and personal promo for the Agent? )
7. What is the Agent’s Sale to Fail ratio, also known as expired listings. Just because the Agent is capable of filling out a form to list the property, does not mean they have done their job. One of the most important factors governing the potential marketing of your home is to get the Listing/offered sales price right.
8. What is the Agent’s Sale to List price ratio? Did they ask you to reduce the sales price during the term of the listing? A good Agent will stick with their convictions and not take over priced listings ( called buying the listing ). That technique ( Tell the Seller anything to get the Listing ) is still taught throughout the industry. It does not stay true to the agents obligations to you their future potential client that of telling you the truth.  Remember this, Buyer’s are not stupid, they are willing to pay a fair price and they have the tools to verify it.
9. How far do you Live from my Home. It is important to get a sense of the Agent’s ability to show your property on a moments notice should the occasion arise. An Agent having to drive over 45 minutes to your home may be less inclined than an Agent living within 20 minutes or so. ( Tip : It is not however, important at all where the Agent’s office is located. Buyer’s are concerned about the location of the house not the Agent’s office. Most of the Top Producers today will not be spending significant amounts of time in their Principal Broker’s office.  Many Agent’s today work from a home office. )
10. Herb, what time can you come out today to list my home? If you are going to choose to work with the best you should check my schedule first for I am always out marketing my listings for Sold.

www.househuntportland.com  Let your next home find you!

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Whats the Purpose of Advertising

Sometimes I have been called “ The King of Cheap Advertising “. My competitors often remark how Spartan my ads seem. (They are normally not more than 3 or 5 lines in length.)  In fact a Large ad for me would be a whole 6 lines. I have even written many ads that were only 2 lines long. How do you keep your Seller’s happy with ads like that, they ask?. If only they new. Do you know?

                                            What’s the Purpose of Advertising ?

The Old man had worked for the OREGONIAN Newspaper in the real estate advertising department for most of his life. He went on to say “ I recognize many of you who have signed up for this class in advance by the poor examples you have submitted to the paper for us to publish. You guys and gals just don’t get it. ” That was soon to change.

The Old man went on to explain how we should look at advertising as if we were looking through the eyes of an unemployed worker who half heartedly is searching through the help wanted section.

You first must thing like the consumer. Contrary to popular belief they are not there to find anything. In fact just the opposite is true. Let me demonstrate how the average consumer reads the classifieds. ” Nope I aint no brain Surgeon so I cant do that, I don’t have a college degree so I cant do that, I sure don’t have over 10 years of experience so that wont work for me either. ” And so it goes with those many Buyers who are afraid of finding the right house as well. ” Nope not enough bedrooms, Nope to small of garage. Nope not my kind of neighborhood.”

You need to stop giving your Buyers the ammunition to shoot your AD down. “So what kind of ad will work you say?” I’m glad you asked he answered before anyone could say a thing. Try something like this.

Caption :  ” Owners Sad.”

Body : Their Loss can be your gain. Be sure to call Herb today for this Charming home with Spacious rooms and a Great yard. ( Add the Price and Contact info and your done.

Here are some additional Captions ;

• Big Ugly House   ( for fixers )
• Call Now or Kick Yourself In the Morning
• Anthony Renaldo Smithe once Slept Here ( use any name of a previous owner )

“Obviously”, the Old man said “ the Caption is there to draw attention.“ You cant sell anyone anything who wont stop long enough to hear your message.

When it comes to the Body be a little vague. Build a story or emotion. Stop telling all of the details. Use descriptive phrases to make your point. Let’s say your listing is a Bungalow home with hardwood floors and French Doors  etc.

Here is an example for the body :

The moment you step into the sun-filled room you can feel the warmth sweep over you. Your pace quickens as you pass over gleaming hardwood floors, past the shimmering glass panels of the French doors until your standing on the edge of a SECRET GARDEN.

I left the seminar Full of ideas. I couldn’t wait to get back and employ my new found techniques. That weekend my first ad debuted. I went with the Owner’s Sad headline.  I had tried on multiple occasions to sell this house without success. My previous ad attempts had pulled in about the normal response rate, 3-5 calls.

The ad was set for Sunday. I received my first call on Friday afternoon from the Typesetter at the Newspaper who was placing my ad. By Monday Morning I had received over 75 calls. By Wednesday I had a backlog of 125 Buyer’s who had responded to the Owners Sad ad.

What truly amazed me then and still amazes me today is that People will make up the Story if you don’t tell them. In my Owners Sad ad people were sharing there sympathy’s with the Seller for their Catastrophic Illness, or loss of a Loved one. Some people even were wondering about the Divorce. How they ever come up with those ideas from my little ad I will never know. What I do know is, What’s The Purpose of Advertising!

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