On Tour . . . Sometime in March

Huge Tour Day: January 11, 2010

Due to a screwy 2010 Holiday calendar, the next Tuesday with a sizable Broker Tour will be January 11, 2011.

Given that it will have been almost one month since the last well-attended Tour, December 14, there's likely to be a sizable backlog of new listings -- and an especially active Tour that day.

Including my new listing at 11213 Minnetonka Blvd.

"Hobby Farm in the City"

Located at the southwest corner of Hopkins Crossroad and Minnetonka Blvd, this 2 BR/1 Bath rambler has gorgeous, newly finished hardwood floors (shown off above), newer windows throughout, and an updated Kitchen.

It sits on a nearly one acre lot, with a huge, detached garage to go with the two-car tuckunder garage.

This is a great property for someone who wants country-style elbow room in the middle of the city!

P.S.: Pent-up demand also explains what typically is the busiest Sunday for open houses all year: the Sunday following Easter ("Open Houses on Easter Sunday").

"Th-th-th-that's All Folks!"

See you in 2011!
Even before today's snow, I was wavering about holding a Broker Open tomorrow for my new listing in Minnetonka.

According to my Office Administrator ("OA"), I would have been the only Realtor in the Edina Realty-City Lakes office on tour (vs. the average 4-6 new listings -- and as many as 10 -- on a busier day).

And that was on the heels of my very sparsely attended Open House in Golden Valley yesterday.

So, that's it for Open House and Broker Tours for 2010!

Don't worry, I'm not done for the year, though.

I'm still working with 3 Buyers, and getting new listings ready for after the first.

Broker Open Today 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

One Block to Cedar Lake!

Where: 2705 France Ave. South, in Minneapolis' Sunset Gables neighborhood
What: 3 BR/2 Bath Cape Cod with almost 2,200 FSF, including a huge first-floor Family Room.
How much: $439,900
Who: listed by Ross Kaplan, Edina Realty City Lakes
When: on market yesterday (Nov. 15).

If you're anywhere Cedar Lake over lunch hour today, please feel free to stop by my Broker Open at 2705 France (even if you're not a Realtor).

You'll be impressed by this home's fine construction, period details like cove moldings and a Dining Room arch, and the spacious, eat-in Kitchen.

Oh . . . . and there's a 600 square foot, 2 1/2 car garage (detached) in back to go with the one car attached -- not something you commonly find with 1938 Cape Cod's in such a great location.

P.S.: in keeping with the "man plans, God laughs" theme a few posts back, my gorgeous Fall shots (including the one above) turned out to have a shelf life of 48 hours: taken last Thursday, the Twin Cities almost immediately turned white with the arrival of the season's first big storm Friday.

What's Selling: Hopkins

Days on Market: 12

Where: 301 13th Ave. North, near downtown Hopkins

What: 3 BR/2 Bath stucco bungalow with over 1,800 finished square feet; nicely updated.

When: listed 10/29; off market yesterday (11/10)

How much: asking $250k

Who: listing agents -- Stacy and Christina Cranbrook (Edina Realty); selling agent -- Nancy Bourland (Edina Realty)

"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

--Benjamin Franklin

The secret to this sale?

The price, location, condition, and curb appeal all helped.

But my educated guess is that the key was the "mini-Broker tour" on Nov. 2 (a week ago Tuesday).

That's when 20 agents with "Active" Hopkins listings -- myself included -- collaborated to all hold our listings open between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., complete with drawings and catered lunches at many locations.

All that publicity generated lots of traffic, which raised everyone's exposure and resulted in at least two other deals that I'm aware of.

The home is officially "Pending" until it is scheduled to close Dec. 10.

Get Ready for Thursday Tour (Thursday??)

You Read it Here First

In the course of helping clients find a rental property the last 2 weeks, it's become abundantly clear that the rental market is much more fragmented and chaotic than the For Sale market.

And pricing is much sloppier (what you get for, say, $2,500/mth runs the gamut from properties worth high $300k's to low $600k's).

While Craig's List seems to dominate, there are another 6-8 sites that have rental properties that aren't listed elsewhere.

And coming this week, rental properties will now be on MLS.

Step 2

Once you've defined the appropriate universe of rental candidates for your client, step #2 is to go look at them.

Some owners and rental brokers are quite responsive, and showings are easy to set up.

However, others take repeated efforts to reach, and have very little time available for showings ("How about after work next Monday?").

For Realtors generally accustomed to getting access during business hours, with a few hours notice, that doesn't cut it.

Proposal: Rental Tour

Once upon at time, For Sale properties suffered from a similar lack of exposure.

At least in the Twin Cities, the solution was to hold open houses every Tuesday, between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., when Realtors can see all the new inventory.

Here's betting $100 that there'll be something similar for rental properties within the next year (at least ones whose rent justifies the marketing effort).

P.S.: my proposed time is 1 to 3 p.m Thursdays.

Dear Neighbor: 'about those Open House signs . . '

(That's) One Way to Cut Your Property Taxes

To: the anonymous neighbor(?) who toppled all my "Open House" signs the other morning
From: your friendly neighborhood Realtor (me)
Date: 7/30/2010
Re: my Open House signs

Dear Neighbor:

I'm sure you thought you thought you were striking a blow against obnoxious advertising the other morning when you toppled all my "Open House" signs and left them in a jumbled heap.

But what you really did was make it more difficult for my Realtor colleagues to find me at your neighbor's house last Tuesday, when I was there holding it open for Broker Tour (when Realtors check out all the new listings, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. each Tuesday).

Because the house is in a cul-de-sac and easy to miss, I set out several signs to provide directions.

I set out the signs at 10:55 a.m., and -- had you not toppled them -- would have retrieved them a little after 1 p.m.

With no signs to direct people, my traffic was low, and as a result of that your neighbor's house will take that much longer to sell, and likely fetch a correspondingly lower price (sales price invariably declines as a function of market time).

So, not only will you get to see more, not less, of me while I work hard to sell your neighbor's home over the coming weeks (months?), the value of you and your neighbors' homes will be pegged to whatever (lower) price I'm able to fetch for your neighbor's.

On the other hand, maybe you were just trying to reduce your property taxes??

Sincerely,

Your Neighbor's Realtor

Getting Something Read Into the (Real Estate) Record

"Funny, I Didn't See Him at the Meeting"

Politico's know that a Congressman who never actually delivered a speech in the Senate or House chambers can nevertheless have their remarks "written into the record," or transcript, of that body's deliberations.

Real estate has something similar.

After each local real estate office holds its weekly Tuesday meeting, the Office Administrator ("OA") assembles and circulates a list of their office's Pre-List's, Price Reductions, Buyer Needs, etc.

Can't make the meeting (because you're prepping for Tuesday tour)?

Just email the OA.

Super-sized Tour Today?

As "civilians" (non-Realtors) may or may not know, Tuesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. is when local Realtors -- at least in the Twin Cities -- go look at all the new listings.

To facilitate that, Brokers print and distribute "tour sheets" with the addresses of the homes on tour, along with short blurbs summarizing the highlights of each property.

With last Tuesday off because of Memorial Day weekend, I was expecting today's tour to be especially big.

But I was still surprised when I got the especially thick print-out, which was more than double the usual length.

The explanation?

Instead of printing out the tour on the usual double-sided paper, my OA ("Office Administrator") used single-sided paper.

Post-July 4 Lull

Slow Day for Broker Tour

It's not very scientific, but a quick way to gauge how busy the local housing market is any particular week is to pick up the list of homes on Broker tour each Tuesday (sort of like the thickness of newspapers and magazines used to indicate how strong advertising was -- and by implication, the broader economy).

Broker tour is when all the new listings are available for Realtors to check out. Usually, the printout for Minneapolis and the west suburbs is 30-40 pages; today, it was just 17.

If you have a home about to go on the market, you probably want to wait till everyone's back from vacation and actively looking . .

Price as a Function of Time

"For Sale" Homes, Wine, & First-Run Movies

Some things become richer and more valuable with time. Fine wine. Love. Collectibles like antique cars or rare paintings.

A home for sale isn't one of those things.

Rather, a home on the market is like a newly released movie.

The most fanfare accompanies the "premiere," when the stars, director, and other VIP's gather at an invitation-only event. For a home, the equivalent event is the Broker open -- or Tuesday tour -- when Realtors check out the new inventory.

Next comes the first few weeks on the market, when the most motivated fans pay top dollar to see the movie at first-run theatres. For a home, the first few weeks on the market are also typically the period when it commands the highest price.

Eventually, the first wave of demand is exhausted, and the movie is released on DVD, where it reaches a second, less price-sensitive audience. Ditto for homes after 40-60 days on the market, when the first price reduction is in order (if not before).

Finally, movies show up on TV, where the general public can watch it for "free" (networks make money on the ads).

Thankfully, for-sale homes never reach that stage. However, after six months or so of market time, their initial asking price is usually just a dream . .

Performing "Listing CPR"

Resuscitating a Cold Listing

Clients may not always appreciate it (or even know), but there's a big difference between what an attentive, skillful Realtor does in the course of marketing a home (a "listing" in Realtor-speak), and what someone less capable or motivated does.

To take just one example, consider what happens when a home fails to sell after an appropriate amount of market exposure (the more expensive the home, the longer the market time you'd realistically expect).

A Realtor doing the minimum will simply let market time mount, and hope a decent offer materializes before the listing expires.

A more engaged realtor will suggest that the client cancel and re-list, to re-attract the market's attention.

"Reintroducing" a Property

By contrast, a Realtor offering the highest level of service will formally "re-introduce" the property to the market.

That means not just going through the motions to cancel and re-list, but also:

--Putting the home back on Broker Tour (Tues.) and doing a Sunday open house.
--Networking the price reduction to other Realtors via email, office meetings, and the Internet.
--"Freshening up" the photos and literature.
--Tweaking the marketing language on MLS.
--Addressing any easily corrected showing objections.
--Revisiting the "comp's" ("comparable sold properties") and recent activity to determine the likely selling price (monitoring the market is really an ongoing task).

Coordinated and done well, all of those things collectively act like a listing "booster shot," and dramatically raise the odds of the home selling.

Of course, one might argue that the very highest level of service would be not having to do any of those things . . . because the home sold quickly in the first place!

However, whether or not that happens is ultimately more in the hands of the homeowner -- and the listing price they choose, the amount of fix-up and staging they do, etc. -- than the Realtor.