Preparing Your Sellers for Home Showings

Introduce sellers to the realities of showing their home

You've already talked with your sellers about the physical work involved to get a home ready to show, but have you mentioned other events that may take place while the house is on the market? Giving home sellers a basic education in Buyers 101 will help prepare them for the realities of showing their house.

Be Ready to Show at All Times

Sellers should be aware that same-day and even last-minute requests for showings are common, so a seller with a '24 hour notice to show' stipulation often cuts himself out of a good chunk of the buying market. The only standard hefty lag time that should be necessary is when you must give ample notice to a tenant.

Once a house gets tagged difficult to show by agents, you won't receive as many calls to show it. If sellers choose to make showings difficult, be sure to tell them now that it will cut down on showings--and fewer showings equals fewer potential buyers.

Keep it Flexible

Explain to your home sellers that most agents do try to arrive within the scheduled showing time, but sometimes it isn't possible. They may get stuck in traffic, or the house they saw prior to your showing took longer than expected. It happens, and sometimes it happens too late to be fixed by a phone call.

Encourage sellers to stay away from home a little longer than they think is necessary, just to make sure they don't interrupt a showing.

Sellers Who Want to Be Present

This is nearly always a bad idea. Sellers think agents and buyers won't be able to find everything, that they must be there to point out important features. Truthfully, most just want to be present to see buyer reaction firsthand.

Sellers should be aware that at the very least buyers feel uncomfortable when they are present, and that it can actually kill a sale. Buyers often won't even open closet or cabinet doors when the seller is home, and when they cannot view a house comfortably, they'll hurry up and move on to the next one.

Sellers want to talk, and not just about the house. You never know when a buyer will be turned off by the mood of the seller, or by a statement the seller makes. Buyers are there to look at the house, not chit chat about hobbies or the weather or worse--politics and other controversial topics.

If sellers must be home during a showing, counsel them to go outside or stay put in one location, not wander around with the agent and buyers.

Sellers Who Want YOU To Be Present for All Showings

If you're selling a large estate or complicated property, it might be the norm to plan on being present for all showings, but it's not necessary or smart for the typical house.

Explain that other agents generally feel uncomfortable with the selling agent hanging around, listening to and participating in conversations with potential buyers. If the other agent is representing the buyers as a buyer's agent, she won't be free to have open discussions about the house in front of you.

There's another negative that may be more important: busy agents don't have time to work around your schedule. Requiring the listing agent to be present for all showings is another way to give the house that difficult to show reputation.

If your sellers are worried about theft of small items, they should store them away. Packing up collections and small personal items is part of the process they should have already gone through to prepare the house for showings.

Pets Must Be Controlled

Pets should be out of the house during showings, especially large dogs, since many people are afraid of them. A gruff bark coming from inside the house is enough to make some home buyers turn around at the front door.

If there are pet odors, talking with your seller about the subject can be tricky, because most people are not aware of odors in their own home. You may need to conjure up your best be-tactful mode to deal with that subject, but it must be dealt with. Your sellers don't want buyers to remember the home as the house that smells.

Gaining Seller Cooperation

Share showing information in a 'did you know this about buyers' tone, rather than simply telling a seller what he must do. Explaining why these steps are important helps sellers realize that it's in their best interests to comply.

1. Consider putting showing advice on paper in an easy-to-read format. Give the seller a day or so to digest the information, then ask if he has any questions about the information.
2. Show that you respect the seller's opinions by asking what he thinks are the home's best features, then spotlight those features in a flyer or brochure that can be left on a table for prospective buyers.

Sellers usually just want to help. It's up to you to figure out a way to give them a role in the sales process, one that is truly helpful and that won't have a negative impact on showings.

NAR & CREDAI Join Hands to Bring Transparency and Ethics in Real Estate Sector

National Association of Realtors India (NAR-India) and Confederation of Real Estate Developers Associations of India (Credai) have come together to bring transparency and ethics in property sales and other service offerings to customers. The two associations signed an agreement of cooperation to this effect on the sidelines of NAR-India’s third annual convention here.

“This initiative will help us in streamlining the brokerage process and to scale up the brokerage industry. We want to create a common language of fair and ethical practices among the realtor community to give a better service to customers,” PSN Rao, chairman of NAR-India, said. Brokers and builders are the two key stakeholders of the real estate industry and it is imperative that a synergy is cultivated between the two, according to him. The association represents about 14,000 brokers across the country. Credai president Lalit Kumar Jain said the collaboration between the two associations would also help reduce property prices.

The 12th Plan envisages a requirement to build 27 million dwellings even as the rapid growth in urbanisation is expected to add another 60 million people in the cities and towns by 2020, according to him. “Policy makers have to think of taking steps, including reducing the approval time lines, to make housing affordable to all sections. We need to create a decent accommodation for every person in the city and avoid mushrooming of urban slums,” Jain said.  

Double-digit pay hikes, robust hiring on the cards in India, says Mercer

Double-digit salary increases and creation of new jobs will continue in the Indian economy, says a survey conducted by the consulting firm, Mercer. According to the Mercer India Monitor, a study of 90 companies released last week, India Inc is expected to provide an average salary hike of 12.7%, with the automobiles sector providing an estimated 14% hike, with IT & Telecom at the lower end of the spectrum, with 11.8%.

Salary hikes across sectors, however , remain higher than last year, with the exception of pharmaceuticals , where the increase is estimated to be about 12.8% in 2011, down from 13% last year. Other sectors like chemicals may see a 13.4% salary increment, while consumer durables , financial services & insurance and manufacturing are likely to dole out hikes of 13.8%, 12.6% and 13.4% respectively.

Salary increments have, however, not touched the high of 2006-07 , when the average increments were close to 15% across industry, but may eventually do so. “If the current trend continues, salary increases could go back to the levels of 2006-07 ,” says Shamita Chatterjee, market business leader (information product services) at Mercer India. “Because of a significant churn in the market and recruitment of fresh graduates, as well as early promotions as a retention measure, the overall wage movements are no more than 8%.”

Actual salary increases for 2010 stood at 11.8% Companies appear to have factored in inflation when planning increments and drawing up business plans. “About 42% of the companies surveyed have already implemented measures to fight inflation,” says Chatterjee. “Like increasing travel and fuel allowances. About 38% of the companies say they will provide an additional 5% salary increase to combat inflationary depletion of income, while another 1% say they will provide for 2-3 % additional increase.”

At the same time, some companies are also cutting down on travel (especially for training) and allowing employees more work-from-home options, Chatterjee adds. Hiring is also likely to continue, as two-thirds (67%) of employers said they would conduct both fresh and replacement hiring. About 80-83 % of respondents, in chemicals, consumer and IT & telecom, echoed the same thought, as did 67% of employers in pharma and 72% in manufacturing .

According to the India Monitor , most jobs are expected to be created in functions such as sales, marketing and technical and engineering , with at least half of the respondents expecting to increase their employee headcount in these areas, from 2010 levels. Also, about one-third of employers surveyed said they will hire in other functions such as HR, finance and accounting and information technology. “Hiring decisions do not seem to be affected by the economic upheavals that we are witnessing in the current scenario,” says Chatterjee.

Article Courtesy – Economic Times

The Right Technology to Enhance Your Real Estate Business

In today’s world, controlling your personal and professional relationship is the key to success. Infact success in real estate business starts with relationships.

However, with the advent of social and professional networking sites such as facebook, twitter, linkedin etc. though staying in touch with more number of people from your network has become easier, the process itself has become complex. This is because of the sheer number of friends or colleagues who are in your network or group. On the other hand, however large network you have, you can’t take risk of ignoring anybody in your network because may be it is one of your former colleague who introduces you to a potential customer who gives you a landmark deal. Or a classmate in your network, working in another organization, may help you secure a key partnership. Therefore you need to stay in touch with your network more effectively to create new opportunities.

In other words, with the increasing importance of social and professional networking sites, you need a tool that can help you maximize the potential of your relationships by helping you build rapport with new people, stay in touch with people in your network, and find the right person for the task at hand.

While looking for an application with these features, I stumbled upon ConnectedHQ. Though, some improvements may be required in this application, overall it seems perfect for real estate professionals. It offers the benefits of:

• real estate contact & prospect management
• social network integration
• e-mail integration with contacts and prospects
• calendar appointments scheduling
• task management
• extensive notes management synced with contacts & easy to enter & search notes

Cost of the application seems reasonable compared to other such applications available in the market. But before using this application, you yourself find out more about ConnectedHQ to see its usability for your specific needs.

Indian Angel Network invests in GrOffr.com: a Real Estate group buying pioneer

Indian Angel Network, India's first and largest business angel investor group, invested in a real estate group buying pioneer, GrOffr.com to help them expand their reach in India. GrOffr.com, co-founded by management school classmates and colleagues at a large financial services firm Sandeep Reddy and Vikhyat Srivastava in 2010, helps customers in getting attractive rates for their planned purchases of Real Estate, Cars and other high value assets. By leveraging the power of group buying, GrOffr allows customers get lucrative deals from builders in the primary real estate market. IAN invested under US$1 million.

IAN member Mr. Krishna Jha, who serves on the board of the company believes that GrOffr is a differentiated business idea in the real estate asset category with large potential for savings for end customers.

Indian Angel Network, operating nationally, with over 170 investors from across the globe, brings together successful Indian entrepreneurs and CEOs who share a passion to enable more early stage businesses to create scale and value. By focusing on startups, the Network addresses the current acute lack of funds available to early stage companies. IAN also seeks to provide mentoring, strategic thought leadership and leverage the Network's network for the investee companies.

IAN investors invest in ventures that have uniquely differentiated propositions, high quality execution teams and large markets. What began as an initiative "for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs", has now grown into the most complete early stage angel investing network covering range of activities--right from incubation, mentoring and of course investing in differentiated ideas.

Real Estate Education enhances transparency, professionalism & business volume

by S.K.Jha*

Real estate broking profession lacks credibility and is always looked at with suspicion. However, the credibility of this profession can be enhanced through real estate education. A thoroughly planned system of real estate education can not only improve the credibility of property professionals by inculcating numerous changes in the profession but also enhance the business volume of educated and certified professionals. Suitably planned real estate courses, targeted at different functional areas in real estate, can teach property professionals the much better, profitable and convenient way of doing real estate business. Few of the key changes that education system can bring into real estate business and property market are as follows:

Transparency in transaction and business professionalism: Knowledge enhances transparency and professionalism and this is true for real estate market also. Today, several property brokers are active in the market without any structured knowledge of property sales and transaction process and therefore they are forced to provide wrong and partial information to their clients. They are not able to close the deal properly, mostly at the cost of prospective home buyers, because they have not studied how property ownership is verified, acquired, transferred and leased. In the Indian real estate market, there is a sub set of property advisors, who want to upgrade their knowledge and skill but are unable to do so in the absence of a system of real estate education in which they can study as well as run their business.

In this scenario, a proper system of real estate education consisting of a network of real estate institutes offering full time, part time, evening, week end, distance and online real estate courses could have improved the subject knowledge of professionals and in turn would have improved transparency in property transactions and professionalism in the property business, especially property consulting business. A point to be mentioned here is the initiative of EduMark realty education services which offers courses for those looking for real estate jobs as well as for existing property professionals looking for professional development. EduMark is the first and only institute in India that offers full time, part time, week end, evening, distance and online courses.

Customer Service Efficiency: A knowledgeable and informed property advisor can serve his clients effectively and efficiently which in turn increases his demands in the market. Such demands increase his overall volume of business because one satisfied customer can create ten new customers. However, structured knowledge and information come only through structured system of education.

Real estate subject knowledge and business volume: It is an established fact that buyers tend to prefer a knowledgeable advisor (knowledge displayed through his educational qualification) more than that of an advisor who is not well informed and knowledgeable. However, in the absence of real education system, real estate courses and real estate institutes, property brokers can’t display their knowledge because they can’t acquire any suitable real estate qualification and therefore potential home buyers can’t identify the best suited advisor.

Business ethics and business volume: By offering fraudulent advice, one can derive benefits in short term but it is a net loss in long term. This is very true for property brokers also. This is because, as mentioned above, one satisfied customer can create ten new customers but one dis-satisfied customer can dissuade hundreds of potential clients, so the losses are many folds. However, this fact can be explained to these property consultants only if they are inclined towards learning and there is sufficient opportunity for such learning. 

Real estate jobs and cost of recruitment and training: One of the most important impacts of real estate education is on real estate jobs; While real estate courses offer a platform to potential candidates to start their career in real estate by taking up suitable real estate jobs, it reduces the cost that employers make on the training of new employees. Those candidates who have done a real estate course are already trained and ready for real estate jobs and therefore employers do not need to arrange fresh training of the such employees, which saves time and money both.

Overall, a proper system of real estate education enhances not only the transparency in transaction and business professionalism but also the business volume of the market players. Another advantage is the reduction in training and employee orientation cost.
* S.K.Jha is CEO of EduMark Realty Education Services

A Better Approach Towards Training ‘Fresh-Out-Of-College Grads’

It was about 65°F when we walked into the large auditorium at the west end of the college campus. Since it was late autumn, the leaves were turning yellow and the evening was turning dark earlier. You could see the street lights from the top-end of the glass enclosures of the room. It was the start of our winter quarter.

He shuffled slightly first and then picked up his pace as he made his way to the lectern. But it was not the fleece that he wore over his pale yellow shirt that struck me as odd; it was more his shoes, or lack of them. They seem out of place in the nippy air, I thought.

As Dr Lomanoco made his way to the podium, it was clear that he intended to waste little time introducing either himself or the course, to 29 eager computer science graduates. After distributing the course schedule, his office hours (times and days) and grading system, he proceeded to outline the homework for the next week. What, I thought, homework? Even before we were taught anything? What kind of a system is that?

It was the ‘learn on your own’ system, aka ‘figure it out yourself.’

Having finished my undergrad from India, I thought it would be customary for specific topics to be covered in the class by the professor, and then we’d proceed to review the same at home, do a homework piece and finally, prepare for exams. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

Nope. That was not the case either for us at UMBC at the Master’s or for the undergrads in the Bachelor of Sciences programme.

You were to read and learn on your own. If you had questions, you’d either ask them during the professor’s ‘office hours’ or ask the teaching assistant during their sessions.

The thing that it teaches is the ‘way to learn’ on your own. By searching for it on your own, or researching with your study group. By digging for more information, either online or hitting the books at the library.

So when I joined Cisco after graduating, it was second nature to research practically everything yourself to get things done. Sometimes we’d RTFM. Most times we’d try, fail and learn. I never went to a Perl programming course, neither did I attend an Apache configuration class. We just tried stuff, broke stuff, learnt stuff.

But that’s not what I find with the folks being hired from many good colleges and schools in India. It is mandatory to go through 3-6 months of training. What? I thought they did just that for the last four years. I had five candidates whom we interviewed a year ago and they wanted to know what our start-up’s “training programmes for PHP and Java” were. Code and learn – was my answer. They looked at me with disbelief. One young lady’s parents (who came for the interview to ensure we are a legitimate company) asked us how we could expect fresh graduates to do any work without training them. If we wanted to train graduates, we’d be running a college, was my reply. Wrong answer. She did not join us.

I am hoping there are colleges which are trying to teach students how to learn, where to find stuff to learn and how to research topics. I would love to think this style of learning is limited to engineering programmes. No, that’s not the case. My chartered accountant spends 2-3 hours daily with the intern teaching him some of the most basic things in accounting. He’s a commerce graduate from a very good college.

There has to be a better approach than the hand-holding we do in most undergraduate programmes. Even if we undertake a single class on teaching folks ‘how to learn,’ we’d be doing an enormous service to them. So, this is an appeal to college professors in any college. Please teach your students ‘how to learn.’

So how do people ‘learn to learn?’

1. By example: I believe this is the number 1 way to learn anything. Looking at lots of examples. Sample code. Example blueprints. Creating balance sheets of real companies without looking at their details.

2. By trying: Sharad Sharma calls it ‘being a hobbyist.’ Try stuff. Break stuff. That’s when you learn stuff.

3. By teaching: If you learn something, I would encourage you to share it with your team in a small lunch-and-learn session. It is not for them to learn. It is for you to reinforce your learning.

Now, did you figure out how to learn?

P.S. As you can see from the first paragraph, I was hoping I’d be a best-selling novelist. I’m glad I took up working with technology instead.

Source: VCCircle