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Sprucing up your home’s MLS report a good idea
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BONITA SPRINGS — Are you one of the home owners who has a home for sale that has coasted through the summer without selling? Inventory is slowly getting absorbed but competition is still fierce. With the return of our seasonal winter residents, we’ll see a little boost in listings added to the market and that means even more competition for your real estate.
The new listings that enter the system this fall will have a distinct advantage over your property. They’re fresh. They’re new to the market and to a buyer that has been tire kicking all summer. Most importantly, the new listings are priced well and maybe even better than your property.
Proper pricing is still king in the Southwest Florida real estate market. If your home has languished on the active real estate market and you’ve not had a recent comparative market analysis or appraisal, you owe it to yourself to get one.
Contrary to popular belief, real estate has actually been selling over the summer. Those recent sale prices are what you need to compare against for appraisal purposes. Pricing your home to what it was appraised at several months ago or what the neighbor’s home sold for last season isn’t going to cut it. It has to be priced for “right now.” Those homes that hit the market this fall will have “right now” pricing. Does yours?
Once your home is priced effectively for the market you might want to brush up your marketing materials. Start by getting a current, full print out of the Multiple Listing Service report, which provides detailed information about your home, the fees associated with it and more. Honest mistake or carelessness, you may be surprised to know that often, information is just plain wrong in the MLS.
Sellers, you need to defend yourselves. A simple review of the MLS might find an error or omission that needs to be corrected. You might discover that there are bad photos or worse, no photos of your home. Buyers like pictures. If they don’t find pictures of your home they skip to the next property on the list. If you do have pictures, it wouldn’t hurt to make sure they’re high quality and taken with a wide angle lens. Buyers like pictures but they especially like good pictures that give them a feel for your home.
If the exterior shot of your home has trash cans in the driveway, Christmas decorations or the side mirror from the agent’s car in the shot, you might want to update. You’d be surprised what can be seen out there while we’re researching properties. There are photos that are so bad that there are now Web sites dedicated to showing the images for entertainment purposes.
There is a little known fact about the MLS system, too. It is capable of carrying attachments. Important disclosures, addendums, community site plans and even the floor plan to your home can be attached to your home’s MLS report so that buyers and their agents have access to more data about your home. A valuable tool, no doubt.
It would be great to be able to pick up the phone and call you or drop a note in the mail, just to let you know that something is not right in your report, but I can’t. The rules preclude me or any other agent from interfering in your business relationship with your agent, even if it’s for your own good. It’s up to you to police your data and make sure accurate information is out there and able to be found.
There’s a bunch of agents that will show your home if they’re able to find it. Maybe you can make sure it’s fresh and get some pretty pictures up there to entice the buyers, too.
Chris Griffith is a real estate agent at Keller Williams Elite Realty in Bonita Springs. If you have a question about local real estate e-mail her at chris@bonitaspringsagent.com.
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Good article Chris!
The most common mistake that I find in the MLS is when agents insert the "homesteaded" property taxes which have nothing to do with what the new owner will be paying!
It can cause quite a shock at the closing table.
#1 Posted by Naplestango on September 5, 2008 at 10:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Tango, are you implying that realty salespeople might take advantage of a buyer's ignorance of Florida's property tax system?
#2 Posted by volochine on September 6, 2008 at 1:14 a.m. (Suggest removal)
No Volochine. I accord everyone the benefit of the doubt. I truly believe that those are mistakes made by rookie Realtors who:
1)Have never paid property taxes and don't understand them.
2)Were not properly mentored in this business where anyone passing the licensing test can be released onto the public in a "100% office" without the guidance everyone needs when starting a new career.
#3 Posted by Naplestango on September 6, 2008 at 10:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)
In addition to bad (or no) photos and inaccurate fees and such in the MLS, another pet peeve of mine is agents who take their own calls to set-up showings but don't answer the phone, don't call back or their voice mail is FULL when you call. And, when you call their office, you are told all showing go through the agent directly and they have no other information and cannot help you. The absolute topper is when the agent returns your call the day AFTER! And, like the article says, we cannot contact somene else's seller directly. There is nothing worst in this market than having someone trying to show your listing (and help you sell your property) but it is impossible to show it. You can't sell property that can't be shown. The article did not mention this but it actually happens more often that most seller's might actually realize. As to why an agent would take a listing and then make if difficult to show by not answering the phone is a complete mystery to me. They must not be committing a whole lot of their own time, money and energy to getting it sold and just hoping by some miracle that it sells by itself. If you figure out how to do that, please let us all know!
#4 Posted by naplesagent on September 7, 2008 at 9:12 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Naplesagent: The answer is that certain agents insist on selling their own listing for both side of the commission.
Why else would so many of them answer "NO" to target marketing?
(worse, not worst)
#5 Posted by Naplestango on September 7, 2008 at 1:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)
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