St. Louis, MO 314.726.3174
Illinois618.222.1360
1. Why is it important to be in the MLS?
2. Why does the Johnson Realty Plan work?
3. How do Buyer's Really Shop in Today's Market?
4. Do you show my house if I am not there?
5. I hear discount agencies just put you in the MLS and leave you alone, is this true?
6. What if I sell my house to a friend or neighbor?
7. Can I use you as a Buyer's Agent for my next house?
8. How important are open houses?
9. So what about agent open houses? Don't they work?
10. What don't you do that a full commission agent would do?
Will your program work on expensive houses, too?
Do you have a certain territory?
How did you come up with this concept?
1. Why is it important to be in the MLS?
The MLS is bar none the most important tool in marketing your home for two very important reasons. The MLS, which stands for (Multiple Listing Service) is a central database where nearly all listed homes are available for viewing. There are many MLS's across the country, but here in the St. Louis area we use MARIS for St. Louis and Metro East, Illinois and Bagnell Dam for the Lake Ozark area.
Once you are in the MLS, agents can see your listing in real time and pass it along to the clients they have. When you call an agent and tell them you are looking for a house, the first thing they will do is log into the MLS, and do a search based on your wants and desires. The MLS gives them many tools like being able to search in certain areas, with certain price ranges, in certain school districts, etc. They can even look up the history of a home to see who bought or sold it last. Only licensed Real Estate Agents can log onto their local MLS, and they have to pay a monthly fee for the access.
What a lot of people don't know about the MLS is that is also a direct feed to most real estate sites commonly visited by Buyers researching their own homes. The listings appear automatically on such as realtor.com and housevalues.com and all brokerage and agents websites such as johnsonrealty.com, cbgundaker.com, remax.com, prudential.com, century21.com, etc.
This is all great news because no matter who you list your home with it will show up on the sites just listed. It's also very positive because nearly ALL buyers research and view pictures of their home prior to seeing the property in person.
***As a side note- you can't just be on the MLS. You have to look stunning. Your pictures must be flawless. Take your pictures with a wide angle digital camera, on a sunny day with an overly clean, pristine, and de-cluttered home. Johnson Realty has a wide angle lens and drone photography and will be happy to assist you with your photographs or conversely has a professional photographer on call to help you.
2. Why does the Johnson Realty Plan work?
Johnson Realty works because we help the public see through the smoke and mirrors that has been the real estate industry.
For Sellers: The first thing we do is help change your perspective. We encourage all of our sellers to stop thinking like sellers and start thinking like buyers. First, if you were selling your home, where would you search? Chances are Johnson Realty is going to put you there and more.
Also, who is your target buyer? Is it an investor or a retail end user? How much do they make? What would make them choose your home over others? Johnson Realty can help you sell your home through our understanding of who the buyer is most likely to be and how they are going to find you.
Once the buyers locate you, do you look good? Johnson Realty will help you stage your home and advise you on how to show your home to be the most attractive to the widest range of buyers within your given price range and geographical area. We cover everything from your curb appeal to the smell of your home. We remind you what it was like to be a buyer and what you found attractive when you purchased your home.
Once we receive an offer, we negotiate the contract fully with the other agent or with the buyer themselves. We handle all the paperwork and make sure you have everything you need for a seamless transaction.
We also handle all the closing paperwork. Johnson Realty happily uses Integrity Title. We use one title company that is very familiar with our strict closing procedures.
*I think it's also important to note that Johnson Realty does not have a financial interest in Integrity Title and the referral is purely based on consistently stellar performance. If you are referred to a title company or mortgage lender for any reason, make certain your agent or agent's broker doesn't own the company or isn't receiving a financial incentive for their referral.
Lastly, but surely not least our fee structure is great. We ask our seller to pay for the services they use. Charging for you're the services you use when you use them allows us to keep our prices low and our customer's bank accounts high.
For Buyers: Because I cover buyers extensively in another topic, I will be brief for this one. Click here to be transferred to How do Buyer's Really Shop in Today's Market?.
Although this may seem simplistic, we have had several hundred listings over the last several years all handled by one agent. Because we work so much with sellers, we take our knowledge and apply it to getting what they buyer feels is most important to them. We then guide you through the sales process and bring the home to a close.
3. How do Buyer's Really Shop in Today's Market?
Buyers first research with three criteria in mind. First: Location. Second: Price. Third: Beds and Bath Combinations and square footage. They can search and search using one of any combination of these ways to search: Internet (Realtor.com, Zillow.com and other brokers' websites, public MLS sites), Realtors, Drive-bys, Word of Mouth; and Print Advertising and many more.
Most buyers use a combination of their own research and using a Realtor for access. They spend countless hours online looking for the perfect home and usually end up narrowing down to about 10 properties. The buyers then forward their choices to their Realtor of choice. The Realtor then schedules the appointments to show the homes ot the prospective buyer.
The next step is undisputed magic. When the buyer walks in the door they will make their decision to purchase one of the largest investments of their life in 30-60 seconds. The buyer will then submit an offer to the seller and the two parties will then negotiate the contract, go through the inspection process and close on the home.
There are many other variables in this process like financing, the inspection, but the purchase is largely emotional for the Buyers. The buyers of your house are most likely going to find the home in the same way you did. Remember what it took for you to replicate that feeling and apply it to either the purchase of your new home or the sale of your current one.
4. Do you show my house if I am not there?
We absolutely do. As Broker and Owner of Johnson Realty, I feel it is absolutely essential for us to show the home to unrepresented buyers. We will always find a mutually agreeable time with the buyer to show your home.
5. I hear discount agencies just put you in the MLS and leave you alone, is this true?
That is true for some agencies, not for Johnson Realty. First, we aren't a discount agency. We are a hybrid, which means we take the best of the best of the best from every angle of real estate. We give all the marketing power (usually more) and the essential guidance and advice of full commission agencies; the pricing of the discount brokerages, and the ability to sell your home by yourself without paying a buyer's agency commission.
Secondly, I am finding nearly all discount real estate broker have at least a few programs to choose from. One tends to be just MLS service while the other includes the MLS and some contract assistance.
Since I own the company and am involved in nearly every single transaction here, there is no way I am going to see a client make a mistake and just let them make it because they aren't paying me enough. I have serious ethical objections with that and my company won't be taking that direction.
6. What if I sell my house to a friend or neighbor?
Congrats! You don't have to pay a buyer's agency commission. We will help you negotiate the contract and bring it to a close for just our .5%.
Full commission agents would charge you the full 6% REGARDLESS of who procures the buyer- even if it was you. That's not fair and if you go that route, it's going to cost you 5.5% more, less the $500 listing fee. Ouch.
7. Can I use you as a Buyer's Agent for my next house?
Yes! The personal relationship we have with you when selling your home will help us to find just the right home for you as a buyer. We can help find a home for you and setup seamless closing dates so you only have to move once.
8. How important are open houses?
Open Houses are responsible for about 1-2% of home sales, which is not a very good return on the time, expense and security risk that they pose to the homeowner. Why are they pushed so much by real estate agents? Well, they are a large source of income for many real estate professionals, because agents use your house to scout unrepresented buyers looking for a home.
If you think about who attends open houses, they tend to be buyers interested in purchasing a home. Most likely, these potential buyers aren't working with a real estate agent and that is the perfect time for the agent to pick them up as a client. Think about the last time you were at an open house. Did the agent ask you if you were working with an agent? Check out this attached article to learn more about how effective open houses really are.
http://realestate.msn.com/selling/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=510890
Open houses can be more effective, though still accounting for a very small percentage of sales, during weekday evenings when serious buyers are looking for homes and when you have a large subdivision with a lot of homes for sale. This way, buyers can jump from home to home in a very short period of time.
9. So what about agent open houses? Don't they work?
No. They have even a less effective rate than traditional open houses. Buyers now search online and have nearly comparable access as agents, the open houses become even less effective because most of the weeding out happens online. If an out of town or unavailable buyer likes a home, chances are the agent will schedule a private preview to make sure it fits their buyer's specific criteria.
A funny story I tell about agent open houses comes from an agent that was trying to work with our company. At the interview, she told me if I ever wanted a free lunch to go to agent open houses on Tuesdays. (We didn't hire her, by the way.) Basically, what it comes down to is if you are a successful agent working with enough buyers and sellers, you don't have the time to snipe free lunches.
I did have clients who desperately wanted an agent open house so I decided to do one for them. The first thing the agents said when they walked in was, "Is this catered or what?"
10. What don't you do that a full commission agent would do?
We don't call you everyday to tell you why your house didn't sell because it was sunny and everyone was out playing or that it was raining and no one was showing homes. We give you the advice and tools you need when you need it. We are always available for you if you need us and will only contact you if we have an offer, problem, question or showing request. But to really answer the question, the only thing we don't do that most full commission agents do is attend the actual closing. I will have personally reviewed your settlement statements, and made sure everything will be perfectly planned out for your scheduled closing. The main reason full commission agents attend the closing is because that's when they get their big check.
11. Will your program work on expensive houses, too?
I absolutely love this question. Yes! It does. It's important to understand at the root of all buyers is the want to have the best home in their desired location, in the price range they feel the most financially comfortable and in the bed, bath and square footage combinations that fit their lifestyles. Everyone, no matter how much or little money they have is still trying to afford themselves- it's just someone's obtainable dream might be $3,000,000 million instead of $200,000.
I have to tell a story about my in-laws (whom I love to death). They had a 2 million dollar home in Town and Country they were trying to sell (WELL before I was in town). It was a big decision for them to make of what brokerage they were going to use to sell their home. They chose a local firm and negotiated a 5% rate. (3% to the Listing agent and 2% to the Buyer's Agent) They chose this firm because they were touted as networking with a lot of high end buyers and they "knew the million dollar market."
The agent hosted an agent open house and networked within her office about my in-laws home. About 75 days later the new president of Sara Lee was being transferred to St. Louis and he needed to find a home in the three days he was in town. His agent ended up looking in the MLS, showing it to the buyers and scheduling the showing. It took about 30-60 seconds for the buyers to decide that was their home. They put an offer on the home and my father-in-law did the majority of the negotiations himself- not because the agent wasn't capable but because that's just what he does.
The agent who sold the home did NOT go to the agent open house and only found it because it was on the MLS. They ended up paying $92,500 in commissions for MLS access. If Johnson Realty was around at the time, they could have spent $43,290 for the same meaningful service and the same results.
The rule rule rather than the exception is that nearly all homes sold are as the result of MLS exposure and typical advertising and NOT through what agency you use and the "networking" they claim to bring. When buyers look and purchase a place to live, they purchase the property and NOT the Listing Agent.
But to answer the question if Johnson Realty works on expensive homes, the answer is an emphatic, "YES!"
12. Do you have a certain territory?
Our territories are:
Missouri:
St. Louis County
St. Louis City
St. Charles
Jefferson County
Washington County
Lincoln County
Lake of the Ozarks
Illinois:
St. Clair County
Madison County
Monroe County
Jersey County
Calhoun County
13. What if my house is vacant?
Right now there are a few of vacant homes in the area since so many people have been purchasing home in fears of not wanting to lose out on their dream home due to a contingency or they have been transferred.
A vacant home can be a plus or a minus, depending on the buyer. If your house is vacant, it shows the buyer that you are probably in position to close quickly, and the new home owner can move in soon. On the flip side, a vacant home might give the buyer the idea that you need to sell the house because you are paying two mortgages, so you might get a lower offer.
Either way, we sell a lot of vacant homes, and I think most of our clients appreciate Johnson Realty because we will show your home to prospective buyers when you are unavailable. The best thing you can do however is to go for the emotional appeal of the buyer, and that could mean staging. Every house we have staged has sold in less than 30 days because the potential buyers were able to see themselves in the house, and at the end of the day, that's what you want.
14. How did you come up with this concept?
When Mike and I were living in Atlanta, I was actually a licensed Broker in the state of Colorado, and there was no way I was going to pay 6% to sell my own house. I googled MLS Listing Atlanta and Duffy Realty of Atlanta popped up, so I called the owner and she came over to list the house later that night. Mike was at home at the time, and was so impressed with the concept, basically asked her how we could be involved in what she was doing. At the time, they were just starting, and were in no position to teach anyone what they were doing. We sold our first house with Duffy, and paid no buyer's agent commission since we sold it ourselves and saved about $11,000
Two years later, I was still unlicensed in the state of Georgia working for a real estate investment firm, when we had our son Connor. Since Mike was traveling so much with his race team, we decided to move back to St. Louis so we could be closer to family since Mike grew up here. I am from Chicago, so it was great timing. Anyway, we now had another house to sell, so I called Rhonda Duffy again and listed our house, but this time we were ready to partner up and bring the concept to St. Louis. I worked with Rhonda in her home office for about 2 weeks, and we incorporated in Missouri in the fall of 2005 after the birth of my son.
