How To Price Your Listing So It Sells For Top Dollar and In A Timely Fashion from Ken Brand on Vimeo.

I’m sharing the why’s and what’s and how’s of creating a useful CMA (Competitive Market Analysis) for pricing your property. The goal is to sell it for the highest possible price, in your desired time frame.

Experience has shown that Qualified Home Buyers comparison shop. Typically, they will define a price range and an area or areas that they are interested in, the style and design, desired amenities, etc., and they go shopping, looking at pre-owned homes and New Homes.

After viewing all of the available homes that meet their criteria, a buyer will narrow their choices down to a short list of one or two homes.

In this day and age of Buyer Representation, the buyer’s representative will prepare a Competitive Market Analysis (CMA) to assist the buyer in the decision making process and offering price. At this point the buyer…having viewed all of the available homes (competition) will want to know..what similar homes have actually SOLD for, average number of Days on Market, Price Per Square Foot and List Price to Sales Price ratio.

This research is used to help determine their offering price and ultimately their own limits to what they feel a home should sell for relative to it’s competition.

Also, once the Buyer and Seller agree on a price and the buyer’s mortgage is being processed, the lender will send an appraiser out and they conduct the same research.

What we provide is the research on homes that a buyer interested in viewing your home may also consider and data the appraiser will also look at also.

By reviewing this market data we can select a price that will position your home competitively in the market place so we can meet your goals.

If there’s anything we can do for you, give me a call:  Ken Brand 832-797-1779

To: Gary Greene Team Members

From: Ken Brand

Date: 3/17/2010

Re: Succeed-Now Workshop Schedule

Tuesday Afternoon – March 23rd @ 1:07 p.m. – Presenting The CMA – How to avoid confrontation, friction and conflict.  How to build trust with a conversational and educationally informative approach, presentation and conversation, We’ll discuss strategy, psychology and effective communication models and role play a CMA presentation.  KB

Tuesday Afternoon – April 6th @ 1:07 p.m. – Features and Benefits Included With Our Home-Selling Proposal – What our services include, why they work, how they work and how to share it smartly.  KB

Tuesday Afternoon – April 13th @ 1:07 p.m. – Pre Appointment Listing and Buyer Information Packages – How to create value, trust and WOW before the first appointment with a prospect.  KB

Tuesday Afternoon – April 20^th @ 1:07 p.m. – Launching A Successful Open House Event and How To Prosper On Opportunity Time – Preparation, presentation, dialogue, tips, how, what, when and why.  KB

Tuesday Afternoon – April 27^th @ 1:07 p.m. – Networking, Connecting, Sharing, Prospecting and Loyalizing – The new rules for in-person and online business development.  Facebook, Youtube, Flickr and other In-Person and On-Purpose activities.

Tuesday Afternoon – May 11^th @ 1:07 p.m. – Pre Listing Appointment Preparation – Research tips and strategies for preparing a powerfully compelling CMA presentation using our exclusive GG On-Line CMA software. KB

Tuesday Afternoon – May 18^th @ 1:07 p.m. – Live Listing Presentation Demonstration…from hello to Good-Bye. KB

Tuesday Afternoon – May 25^th @1:07 p.m. – Working With Buyers – Explaining your services, building value, needs determination, pre-qualification, Buyer’s Rep Agreement presentation & more. KB

Tuesday Afternoon – June 1st @1:07 p.m. – Responding Conversationally To Value/Commission Concerns – Avoid confrontation, awkward conflict and defensiveness when presented with an objection and asked for commission discounts. KB

We’ll hold these workshops in my office.  Thanks.

The Average American Spent 7 Hours Connecting, Posting, Lurking, Commenting and Voyering on Facebook in January.

What?  Seriously, 7 hours?  Yes.  According to a study by the Nielson Company, it’s true.  People spend more time on Facebook than they do Yahoo.com.

There’s More!

Amy Porterfield, a gifted writer, shares a detailed, easy to read and interesting collection of sources and perspective titled, 5 New Studies Show Facebook A Marketing Powerhouse.

If your business success is married to people and personalities and conversation and trust, take a few minutes to read Amy’s article, it’s worth every second of your time.

PS.  For my Realtor Icon friends, if you’re wondering how all this Social Media stuff impacts your future, read my article titled: Are You Wagging Your Tail.  Begin Now.  Here’s How.

Cheers.

Woo-Whoo!

You’re about to begin your new adventure. A career in the real estate business is jam packed with challenge, rewards and surprise. Your next BIG step is to partner with a real estate team that can help you achieve your wildest ambitions, conquer industry challenges and surprise to the upside.

At Prudential Gary Greene, Realtors, we take the success of our agents, our buyers and our sellers seriously. But not so seriously that we don’t know how to have fun and celebration.

Are You Open Minded And The Cat-Curious Type?

If so, and you’re interviewing brokers, take a look at us.

If you like what you see, contact me and we’ll schedule a convenient time to visit. I’m happy to answer all your questions about the real estate business, market conditions, trends, training, education, expenses, commission splits, profit potential, social media and any and everything you can think of. If you like what you hear and things click, maybe we can work together. At the very least, when we part, we’ll both be the wiser for it.

What’s The Real Estate Market Like?

You’ve heard real estate sales is a hyper competitive business. It’s true. Especially in The Woodlands Area market place. Why? Because The Woodlands Area real estate market is rich with opportunity. Especially for savvy hardworking real estate agents. With the right support, leadership, skills and mind set, you can out hustle, out savvy and outperform the average and ordinary.

If you’d like to study historical trends, look at these market statistics – click here for an updated version of our online Market Report Generator. This is a free tool for our agents and their clientele.

As you can see, opportunities in The Woodlands Area Market are powerfully positive. Our goal is to help our agents earn more business by impressing and delighting their clients. If you want to chat about how we can help you make a big splash, let’s meet.

Are You An Adventure Seeker?

Want to test drive a day in the life of a Top Performer? Grab the wheel and take a run through our On-Line Real Estate Simulator. Our Simulator will give you a feel for the things a successful agent experiences during their busy day. Plus, our Simulator will create a free assessment detailing your current strengths and opportunities for growth. It’s a cool tool. Check it out, click on the red hotrod. When you’re finished, we’ll send your report pronto.

Wondering What The Secret To Success Is?

The secret to success is so simple it sounds stupid.

“Knowing what others don’t and doing what others won’t”

At Prudential Gary Greene, we’ll share the Simple Steps To Creating Swift and Lasting Success. We’ve deconstructed the step-by-simple-step methods that top performers use to click and connect with qualified buyers, motivated sellers, friends and family. In our evergreen educational programs, we share:

• What Works.
• Why It Works.
• What To Do.
• When To Do It.
• What Tools and Materials Do You Need.
• What Information and Resource Materials Do You Need.
• How To Professionally Point The Power Of Social Media.
• More, more, more.

The thing is, the business roils with change and opportunity, we make sure our team members are plugged into the present and prepared for the future. Our educational opportunities span the spectrum; one-on-one coaching, class room style, webinar, seminar, workshops and on-line. What I’m trying to say is, we know what works. If you marry a smart plan and the best tools with hard work and your unique talents, you’ll succeed. We’ve helped legions of bright eyed achievers soar and we can do the same for you too.

More Details…

For Real Estate Agents, Facebook is a Destiny Accelerator.

What I mean is, the broadcast power of Facebook to influence, entertain, educate, converse, share and connect with friends will accelerate your destiny.

If you do stupid things, you face-plant failure will happen faster.  If you’re cool, interesting and trustworthy, your success will fast forward.

Professional ~vs~ Casual

I believe you can do both on Facebook. Bottom line, be yourself and beam trustworthy.  That doesn’t mean that there are some things you’ll want to post that might not be perceived as “cool” with some of your friends.

No problem, Lincoln told us a long time ago, “You can please some of the people all of the time, and all the people some of the time, but, you can’t please all the people all the time.”  Crackerjacks at Facebook understand the concept and have some super-easy to implement privacy settings.  Well, at least they’re easy if you know about them.

I found this great blog post, written by Greg Finn.  The title is How To Keep Your Facebook Wall Posts (&Info) Private. In his article Greg shares  simple step by step instructions, plus screen shot examples of how to do it.  Now we both know about them.

In Finn’s post he shares why you might want privacy:

• Keep your work & industry related posts from your friends.
• Block specific users (or lists of users) from ever seeing a post.  This can be great when looking to block competitive companies or workers from seeing your posts.
• Deliver more targeted messaging to your segmented groups of friends.  You could write a social media oriented wall post and send to a social media list, and dial the copy down when just posting to a general internet marketing list.  Having targeted posts can help boost click-throughs by increasing relevancy.
• Block personal posts (and content) from co-workers and other colleagues in your industry

Here’s what he covers:

1. How To Apply Privacy To Your Wall Posts
2. How To Apply Privacy Setting To Other Facebook Info

To read Greg’s Article, CLICK HERE.

Good luck friends.

PS.  I you’re thinking you want to a make move this Spring, Google Can Help Find Your Dream Home in The Woodlands TX. – CLICK HERE.

This is my Monday Morning Blog Post for AgentGenius.com

Social Media Doesn’t Work As Well As You Thought?

For real estate agents, it’s even better or worse! Read on to find out who’s doomed and who’s charmed.

Ad Age Headline

In The Age Of Friending, Consumers Trust Their Friends Less

Edelman Study Shows That Only 25% of People Find Peers Credible, Flying in Face of Social-Media Wisdom

Ad Age Article pull quotes…

“If consumers stop believing what their friends and the “average Joes” appearing in testimonials say about a product or company, the implications could be significant not just for marketers but for the social networks and word-of-mouth platforms selling themselves as solutions to communicating in a jaded world.

Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have allowed people to maintain larger circles of casual associates, which may be diluting the credibility of peer-to-peer networks. In short, the more acquaintances a person has, the harder it can be to trust him or her. Mr. Edelman believes the Facebook component has “absolutely” played a role in diluting trust levels.”

“Richard Edelman, President and CEO of Edelman, believes it’s a sign of the times — and the lesson for marketers is consumers have to see and hear things in five different places before they believe it.”

What’s Really Going On?

The 2010 Edleman Trust Barometer reports that people who trust their friends and peers as the source for trustworthy source of information about companies has swooned from 45% in 2008 to 25% in 2010.

Oddly, the publicly released report does not have the chart above, but, there is lots of interesting information in the report. It’s worth reading.

The survey reports that people like you and me, we’ve lost trust in just about everything; companies, politicians, banks, etc. In times of trouble, we look for safety, leadership, certainty and expertise.

Here’s a quote from Mr. Edelman…

“The events of the last 18 months have scarred people,” Mr. Edelman said. “People have to see messages in different places and from different people. That means experts as well as peers or company employees. It’s a more-skeptical time. So if companies are looking at peer-to-peer marketing as another arrow in the quiver, that’s good, but they need to understand it’s not a single-source solution. It’s a piece of the solution”

“Consumers are a distrustful bunch in general — the credibility of TV dropped 23 points and radio news and newspapers were down 20 points between 2008 and 2010.”

I believe it’s true! Recent cataclysms cause us to trust less in general. Specifically, we trust companies, government and corporations less than ever. But (Behold the Underlying Truth), I believe these troubled times make social media more important than ever, for real estate agents. Here’s why, in the yellow box above Edelman shares…

Click HERE for the rest of the article and the 7 Destiny Accelerators.

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Photo Credit.

Bonus: Edleman’s Digital Visions – 10 New Ideas For The New Decade (These may be new to some, perhaps you know this already.)

Yea!  Yet Another Social Media Shiny Object – Behold Google Buzz

If you have Gmail, you’ve notice the new Google Buzz offering.  I’m up to my ears in Social Media communities, I’m not sure I need another one.  I could ignore it.  But I won’t.

Why?

The world’s moving fast, people need help and answers, the more I know the more valuable I am.   Especially if I know more than my competitors.  Plus, what if it turns out that Buzz is the next Facebook or Holy Grail?

The thing is, it’s difficult to predict what a new toys tool will juice your business, serve your clients, make you smile, help you connect and broadcast.  Besides, it’s Google, they have some smart people whipping up cool free stuff.

Here’s a great post on how to everything on Buzz

What I’ve discovered so far is that the Google Buzz mobile App is way cooler than the PC version.  The mobil version has location and layers.  To get a feel  for what I’m talking about you can read this imformative article from Brad Coy – Google releases a Buzz which may be a BuzzKill for others.

As with anything new, it takes some time to figure the in’s and out’s, here’s some information about security and privacy you might want to know.

I write a weekly article for AgentGenius. com. Here’s this weeks.

Wise Words

“What ever is happening to YOU now, YOU either created it, YOU allow it or YOU promote it.” ~Unknown

Reread that. It’s stark truth and reality for 97% of what is going on with our real estate careers. Success and challenges alike.

Setting things right is simple…take personal responsibility and embrace The Fix It or Fire It Method.

Fix It or Fire It

Current Listing Inventory Not Selling? Fix It or Fire It?

1. Fix how the property shows compared to the competition. Sellers won’t help themselves? Fire them.
2. Adjust the price to a competitive level. Sellers won’t help themselves? Fire them.
3. ReEvalute your marketing and promotional competitiveness. If you are unwilling or unable to compete and deliver as promised, do yourself and you seller(s) a favor – release them and Fire Yourself.

To READ 5 more simple Fix It or Fire It’s – CLICK HERE

Thanks for reading.

Good News! Your Raise Is Effective As Soon As YOU Are.

No Brown-Nosing, glass ceilings, boot licking, politics, nepotism, seniority, annual performance reviews or begging for a raise.

In our real estate world, YOU are your own boss. That’s good news for hard persistent faithful smart committed motivated workers, bad news for slackers.

Why?

Because the real estate business is pure pay-for-performance. Want a raise?

“Your raise is effective as soon as you are.” Marilyn Eiland

3 Questions You Have To Ask Yourself:

1. When do you want it?
2. What do you need to do differently? Doing nothing is not an option.
3. When will you start? Today?

Stuck In Stupid

Intellectually, it’s seems simple. If we’ve created success in the past, in the present, if we do what we’ve always done, won’t we always get what we’ve always gotten? Nope!

Why?

Because in my world, and maybe yours, everything that surrounds me is changing. ReInvention, obsolesce, options, upgrades, choices, knowledge, value, creation, young-guns, expectations, cannibalism and Black Swans — boom, echo and ricochet — hourly. If I stand still and things around me are vibrating with change, my comfortable position will wobble out of orbit and any success I’m currently enjoying will inevitably vanish. It’s real estate entropy in action.

To create break away impact, the first thing I need to do is make sure I’m not “Stuck In Stupid”. In reality, if I always do what I’ve always done, I’ll get less and less and eventually nothing.

What To Do Now

There’s a constellation of small and large changes you can make and actions you take. The main thing is action. We have to start…TODAY.

Behold, 15 Anti-Stuck-In Stupid, simple and mostly free or inexpensive things you can immediately do to create the raise you deserve.

CLICK HERE to read the rest of the AgentGenius.com blog post.