Tag Archives: realtor

Realtor

What Your Real Estate Agent Should be Doing to Sell Your Home

March 29, 2017

How good is your realtor?

Smart home sellers know there’s a whole lot more needed from a realtor than putting a sign in the yard and waiting. (Click to Tweet) As a seller, you deserve a lot more than this.

Getting a real estate license is the easy part, selling homes is a completely different game. Let’s look at what your real estate should be doing if you want your home to sell.

Perfectly Pricing Your Home

Providing the correct price point is the most important thing that your real estate agent will do to make sure your home sells. The best real estate agents have built a reputation on accurately pricing homes, rather than telling you what you want to hear.

Creating A Killer Campaign

Your home needs great marketing so it appeals to as many people as possible. This should include great pictures of your home from numerous viewpoints, as well as a video walk through.

An outstanding marketing campaign will also have a floor plan and feature sheet, and do more than just utilise multiple listing services. Today’s buyer is likely to find their dream home online and your realtor needs to take advantage of the many online opportunities.

Bring Better Buyers

Anyone may be interested in purchasing your house, but not everyone will qualify for a mortgage.

A good real estate agent will ensure buyers are pre-approved for a mortgage. This way they aren’t wasting time on offers where the financing will not be forthcoming, and potentially losing another buyer.

Terrific Character Traits

If you want your house to sell, these are the traits you should look for in a real estate agent:

  • You need to be able to trust them, and so do potential buyers
  • Professional manners and presentation, because they’re representing you
  • You need a strong negotiator you will always keep your interests at heart
  • A creative marketer with has a comprehensive marketing plan
  • Knowledge of your area and experience with proven results

When you find a real estate agent with these characteristics, the likelihood of your house selling skyrockets! Did you know that 7% of real estate agents complete 93% of real estate transactions? You want one of the 7% working for you!

It can be stressful selling a home. So, find a top-notch real estate agent who can ease the burden and ensure you have a successful outcome.

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Realtor, Uncategorized

How to Pick the Best Realtor (So You Get The Best Price)

March 22, 2017

Selling your home isn’t easy.

It’s a lot of work and it’s critical you get it right. If not, you risk losing thousands of dollars.

And your choice of agent is critical to the process. That’s why we’ve put together this guide to choosing a great realtor – so you can make an informed decision.

That way you’re more likely to have an enjoyable experience, and a great outcome.

Here’s how to pick the best realtor, so you get a great price for your home.

 

1.               Make Them Work

Interview several agents before you decide. Not sure what to ask? We’ve got you covered!

Here are some questions to ask and information on what the agent should be doing to sell your home.

 

2.               Go Local

Make sure your agent knows the local area because people will ask them about the local facilities. Your agent should be able to give people good solid information on the area.

 

3.               Check Their Fees

Some agents may charge different rates to others and it’s useful to know what you’re getting into.

But don’t go for the cheapest deal. Cheap is not necessarily cheerful.

Look for VALUE. This is just like buying any other product or service in that you generally get what you pay for.

You want to be well looked after during this process, so be sure you get value for money. Aim to get the best service, a professional attitude, and you’ll get a better result.

 

4.               Get Comfortable

Make sure you’re comfortable with the person you ultimately choose. If you’re not comfortable selling with this person, you can’t expect people to be happy to buy from them.

 

5.               Check the Small Print

Read the contract and be clear on any cancellation clauses. If you have a contract with a conditional release and you want to change agents part way through the contract, you must wait until the end of that contract.

Opt for an agent who offers an unconditional release so you have the flexibility you need.

At Residencity, we will always offer an unconditional release because we’re confident we can get you great results. Unlike traditional real estate agents we aim to give you the best value for money.

We’re focused exclusively on selling your home and provide services that are designed to maximize your sale.

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Realtor

What Should My Real Estate Agent Do to Sell My Home?

March 15, 2017

Is your agent really looking after you?

When you’re selling your home in the Vancouver area, you need someone who specialises in selling homes. Why?

Because an agent who’s an expert in home sales will provide extra services that will help you get the most money out of your home. Here’s what to ask when you interview prospective agents:

Do You Conduct Pre-Market Home Inspections for Your Clients?

Many real estate agents advise clients to hire an inspector before they put their home on the market. But don’t perform the inspection themselves.

As a result, many clients shy away from a pre-inspection. They may be worried they’ll uncover a money trap or they may not want to pay to inspect a home they won’t live in any longer.

At Residencity, we provide a better solution. We pay for our clients’ home inspection even before their home goes on the market.

We think that your real estate agent should do so, too. After all, knowing your home’s best points, as well as its flaws, can help your agent sell your home more effectively.

Do You Give Clients Tips to Maximise Their Home’s Selling Price?

After the pre-listing inspection, your real estate agent should provide several suggestions to help you get the most out of your home. For example, if the inspector found your gutters clogged, you can make your home more attractive to buyers by paying a few dollars to have them cleaned.

If a few floorboards are loose, tighten them so prospective buyers won’t be turned off by the squeak. You get the idea.

You may not want to pour a lot of money into your home but you can do several things to entice buyers to consider your home over the one down the street. Your real estate agent should give you a list of home improvement tips that can maximise your home’s selling price before it goes on the market.

Do You Stage and Photograph Your Clients’ Homes?

Buyers are more willing to plunk down a good chunk of change when they can imagine their own furniture fitting well into the home. That’s why a staging a home can make or break a sale.

A professional real estate agent should be able to advise you on how to best stage your home, using your existing furniture. They’ll tell you how to position your furniture in a more inviting way, and suggest you store your personal items (like your Canucks banner and your wedding picture).

This way prospective buyers can picture their own photographs and belongings in the home.

After staging, a quality real estate agent will bring a professional photographer to your home to show your home’s best face to the world. Since you’re paying the commission the real estate agent should include these services.

Never let an agent take home photographs with their smart phone. The results will be vastly inferior and your home won’t do well compared to others. (Click to Tweet)

Do You Provide Floor Plans and Specification Sheets to Prospective Buyers?

You wouldn’t buy a car that didn’t have an owner’s manual would you? It’s the same with real estate.

You need to know where to find various amenities, how large the place is, and what condition it’s in. A great real estate agent will provide those things so potential buyers will know everything they need to before they buy.

Yours agent should, too.

Here at Residencity, we provide three things to our clients before we put their homes on the market: a floor plan, a manual, and a specification sheet.

When buyers know that the former owners have taken care of every detail for them, they will be more likely to purchase the home with no worries. Less to stress about, more reasons to buy.

After you find a few real estate agents who will go the extra mile to sell your home, it’s time to narrow down your choices to find the very best one for your needs.

If you live in the Vancouver area and want an agent who will look after you and do what’s necessary to maximise the selling price for your home, contact Residencity today.

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Marketing

3 Common Mistakes First-Time Home Sellers Make

February 22, 2017

Selling your first home can be daunting.

It often feels as though there is an incentive to getting your home sold as quickly as possible. But like any rush-job, this can open up a bunch of mistakes that can end up costing you a lot of money.

You don’t want that.

Here are three of the most common mistakes that people make when selling their homes and what you can do to avoid them:

Avoiding the Professionals

Many people believe that they can save money when selling their homes by doing it themselves. Big mistake. (Click to Tweet)

Without the assistance of a real estate professional, you avoid paying real estate agent commissions. But you may also end up paying a lot more to find a buyer.

When you don’t have the power of an experienced real estate agency behind you, you can have difficulty letting prospective buyers know that your property is for sale. This results in less competition to buy your property.

So you end up with less negotiating power and may have to settle for a lower price than you had hoped for.

Pricing Incorrectly

Too high or too low – either one has problems.

Some people believe that setting a low sale price for their home can help it to sell quickly, but people often wonder what’s wrong with it.

Of course, if you set a low price you also end up reducing the amount you receive for one of your biggest assets.

If you over-price your home you risk pushing buyers away and making it more difficult to sell. Frustrating isn’t it?

This is why it’s best to have a professional set the value for your home. Homeowners usually have sentimental attachments to their properties and tend to fall into the trap of over-pricing.

Prospective buyers are more clinical and consider the merits of the property itself, not the fact that your three children grew up in those rooms.

Skipping the Inspection

Foregoing the inspection seems like an easy way to save a few hundred dollars during the sales process, but it could potentially cost you thousands down the line. A thorough property inspection before you list your home for sale alerts you to any potential problems.

Buyers will always conduct an inspection and often use the results to drive down the offer you’ve accepted. So it’s better to know beforehand what that inspection will reveal.

Then your agent has the opportunity to price accordingly, depending on whether you choose to address the issues before listing.

These are just a few of the many potential pitfalls you may run into when selling your home. Let the experts at Residencity guide you through the process to minimize your risk and maximize your profits.

When it comes to selling your home, you want to do everything in your power to get the highest selling price you can for it. It’s likely to be your most valuable asset, and you’ve worked for it.

Call us on 604.288.9166 today to learn more about our services and to get your home sale started.

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Realtor

The importance of real estate awards: not as important as you think

November 01, 2016

You pick up an agent’s real estate brochure. On the back of the 6 page brochure there are 5 awards.  

real-estate-awards

What do all these even mean? They’re not there for you to understand, they’re just there to tell you that the agent can do the job for you. Each brokerage has their own awards and standards and by no means are these indicators of how well they do their job, as there is almost an award for every agent out there.

At this day and age, it is almost difficult to come across an agent without a real estate award. From Rookie of the Year, to Award of Excellence, and the list goes on.. So what sets one agent above the rest? We’re not here to tell you how to distinguish one award from another, but rather to advise you on how not to let awards get in the way of choice in hiring a real estate agent that is right for you.

Or hire Residencity. We don’t present real estate awards to cloud our seller’s judgement, the proof is in the care and pride we take in our work. Listing with Residencity means a standard and an unbiased marketing plan which includes enhanced MLS listings, extended open houses, pre-inspection and professional grade marketing materials. Call us at 604.288.9166 or email us to list with Residencity and see what else we can do for you.

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Uncategorized

Why do most buyers use a real estate agent?

October 11, 2016

Buyers use real estate agents because purchasing a property is a big commitment and similar to buying a car, you probably want to have someone assist with the process and help you make informed decisions. The real estate industry is designed in such a way and has evolved to the point where most people nowadays will not even think of purchasing a property without proper consultation with a real estate agent.

It is especially important to have the guidance of a real estate agent in this day an age with the lack of structure and standard of quality for how things are done. Let’s take a look at the app by realtor.ca, the biggest real estate website out there run by Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA).

Over 3000 users have rated the app 1 star and over 55% of all the users have rated the app below 2 stars
realtor.ca app

Results as of Monday, October 3rd 2016, 12:23 PM via Google Play Android App Store 

Now if you look at the first three reviews on the Apple iTunes Store, you can see that Apple users are just as dissatisfied with the app, leaving 1 star reviews.

realtor.ca app itunes
Results as of Monday, October 3rd 2016, 12:23 PM via iTunes Store

Once you do manage to find a website or an app to search for properties the secondary problem kicks in: small photos, inadequate details and basic filter (eg. houses with basement) do not exist. It’s no wonder that people turn to real estate agents when looking to invest in a property.

The industry is designed to make people depend on real estate agents when buying a property, but this does not necessarily mean that working with one is a bad idea.  It just means that you need to find an agent who can dig through the poorly listed properties and help you find the right one.

Residencity has the goal of having the seller work with a real estate agent whose best asset is their quality of service and will sell your house with your best interests in mind. Interested in what we do? Call us at 604.288.9166 or email us for a pre-inspection for your home and see what else we do differently compared to other agents.

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Uncategorized

BMW vs Honda: Which agent is working harder?

October 04, 2016

Real estate agents are walking advertisements. The way they conduct themselves in public is considered a representation of how they work and is usually the first impression that a potential client receives from them.

Let’s talk about the cars of real estate agents. We have two well-dressed real estate agents and at first glance, the individual driving the BMW seems like an agent who has many clients and has closed many successful deals. The fellow with the Honda, may be an individual who is starting out in the real estate field and is not as experienced yet.

Although we know that this may not necessarily be the case, our subconscious makes these assumptions for us whether we realize it or not and oftentimes it plays into our decision making. In reality, the individual driving the Honda may have purchased and paid the car off in full whereas the agent driving the BMW may be leasing it, paying several hundred dollars per month.

What we’re NOT trying to say here is that the agent driving a Honda is the better agent. What we’re TRYING to say here is that the brand of car your agent drives is a tool they use to market themselves, and not so much a representation of how hard hard of a worker or successful they are as an agent. Although this goes against our assumptions, it would simply be incorrect to label that one agent is working harder than the other simply by the car they drive.

When choosing a real estate agent, evaluate the agent’s marketing plan by seeing what they have done in past. Not everything in the marketing plan benefits you. Head on over here for our cheat sheet to on how to interpret real estate agent marketing plans, or even simpler, call us at 604.288.9166 or email us to list your home.

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Uncategorized

Common problems with brand new homes: should you worry?

September 22, 2016

You just finished moving and decorating your new home. It is everything you have ever wanted and the location is perfect. 8 months later you discover hairline cracks in the corners of the drywall, minor cracks in the tiles in the basement, small protrusions in your walls due to nails rising and your own anxiety level rising as well.

This is a brand new house so why is this happening? New homes are subject to settling due to the forces of nature which makes these problems inevitable and not because your home inspector did not do a good job. These are not structural problems but minor cosmetic damages that can be easily fixed.

Below are some examples of the most common problems with new homes.

  1. Hairline cracks in the drywall. Moisture content in the air varies as the seasons change, which causes materials to expand and contract. The expansion and compaction of materials are constantly happening, but the effects are most prominent in the 1st year.
  2. Nail pops. Similar to hairline cracks in the drywall, nails popping out are also the result of changes in moisture content in wood causing the wood to push out the nail when expanding and compressing.
  3. Minor cracks in basement tiles and foundation of basement walls. These problems are usually due to soil compaction. Soil compaction is taken into consideration before construction workers start building the house, but slight settling still occurs after the finished product.

If you see any of these problems happening in your new home, we advise you to wait a year, see what else needs to be fixed, then contact the builder. Your new home is insured by a 2-5-10 warranty and offers complete coverage on labor and materials for the first 2 years.

What is a 2-5-10 Warranty? Here’s a quick explanation: 

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Realtor

What are the 2 most valuable things to real estate agents?

September 20, 2016
  1. Listing Contract – Where the agents signs the listing with the seller
  2. Sale/Purchase Contract – Where the agents helps facilitate the transaction

 

Everything else in between the two becomes an obligation. This mentality is not limited to real estate but is present in every business that is backed by a commission based structure.

 

The real estate agent’s efforts on marketing, open houses, taking phone calls, setting up and being present at showings are not directly related to their commission, but directly impacts the sale price of your home.As the real estate industry is

 

As the real estate industry is commission based, it’s natural for people to think like this when you relate every task to a dollar.  Everything has bestowed a value and tasks become an obligation when there is little to no value behind it.

 

This is not to say that people are purposely neglecting steps in between, but that it is just in human nature to want to go for things that provide you with the most value.


So how can you prevent yourself?  Ask your Real Estate agent for a marketing plan and clearly, ask them what are investments will they be doing in terms of services and products to sell your house OR call us at the Residencity Real Estate Team.


The true value of your property is closely intertwined with the steps that your real estate agent takes to market your property and your listing price is directly impacted when components are missed.

 

Contact us at 604.288.9166 for a free consultation as well as a pre-inspection and to work with a team that truly values the marketing aspect and the ‘steps in between’ of the real estate industry.

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Uncategorized

3 major flaws of the real estate industry

September 13, 2016

If you carefully analyze the workings of the real estate industries, you will notice that there are 3 major flaws. We believe if these were to be fixed, this would highly revolutionize how the industry currently works.

  1. The procedure of receiving offers. Let’s say an agent receives 6 offers for a property they’re selling and at this point, each offer is confidential between the selling agent and the buyer’s agent. Although it is not legal to do so, the seller’s agent has the ability to hide offers from the owner of the property who is selling- they have no idea what each and all of the offers are until their agent shares it with them.Agents have been fined by the Real Estate Council of British Columbia in the past for mishandling offers. The council is only aware of an issue if it has been reported and most of time, things go by unnoticed.
  2. Lack of knowledge on how to market a property. Nowhere in the real estate agent’s education or training whether it be the books or the office they work with, equips them with skills on real estate marketing. They are only exposed to skills on legalities, lead generations and how to grow their business. Not having the skill on how to properly market a home directly impacts the selling price of your home.
  3. Industry driven on transactions than service. If you carefully analyze the steps in the real estate industry, you will notice that they are designed to speed up transactions and not really service.  Have a look at public listing websites and you will notice that over 90% of properties have poor photos usually taken by the real estate agent on their phone.  Professional photography would be a minimum requirement for even selling a lip balm, but not in real estate.  Their priority goes to is getting it listed over photographing a property.

Residencity has solutions for all of these problems. All offers are sent through the office before being dispatched to the agent responsible for your listing, so you will see all of the offers that are being made on your property. We are a team of marketing professionals where the transaction comes secondary to promotion. Our team ensures your listing gets professional photography, video tours, feature sheets, floor plans- all the tools that get a property sold. If you’re interested in listing with Residencity, call 604.288.9166 or email us to see what we’re all about.

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You might also like:

What Your Real Estate Agent Should be Doing to Sell Your Home

How to Pick the Best Realtor (So You Get The Best Price)

What Should My Real Estate Agent Do to Sell My Home?