Aggressive Pricing to Move Short Sales

I talked to a colleague who relies on the RedX Real Estate Lead System the other day and he told me that in general he expects, and gets an offer within 30 days of listing a short sale. In fact he is so confident in those results that he makes it part of his listing presentation. So after hearing that statement, I had to learn more.

Here is how he does it…

First and foremost he explains that because the owner is taking a bath on the property and that the bank will do their due diligence when an offer is received, it is best practice to price the property at and just below market comps.

After getting the owners agreement, he goes about listing the property on numerous online sites. He posts the property on Zillow, Trulia and even lists issues a dedicated URL through Listing Producer. The benefit of the dedicated URL is that he minimizes the nosy neighbors who generally can just go online to snoop. Here is an example of one of his recent listings: http://www.1059greenway.com/

Next he schedules an open house, always a great way to farm an area and expand your listing base. I think he has added six listings in that neighborhood in the past month.

Finally, as part of his approach, if after the first three weeks there has been no activity, he convinces the homeowner to reduce the listing price by $10,000. This is done every two to three weeks until a magic price and buyer is found.

Obviously with a short sale getting the offer is just the beginning of the process. However you can’t argue with getting an offer that may be accepted by the banks within 30 days of every short sale listing.

Mobile Optimize For More and Better Leads

I was working with a colleague the other day and he showed me one of his new flyers. What was weird was that he had a two dimensional bar code printed next to his name. Being the technophile that I am, I grabbed my Iphone and scanned the code. Where I ended up was a great video of him introducing his services, the benefits that he offers and an exclusive invitation to join in one of his weekly conference calls. The video was an apple compatible .mov file so it was compatible with my phone.

Well, I have to tell you that I was blown away. What a great way to instantly create a personal relationship with prospective customers. Not only that, but by inviting them to call into an exclusive weekly event, prospects get engaged without feeling pressured to list or sell.

Apparently I was not the only one that was impressed. My colleague mentioned that his listings have doubled since he started putting this bar code on his cards and flyers.

This approach leverages new and novel technology to get prospective customers engaged with a REALTOR’s personal brand. Although the technology is relatively new, it is becoming more and more widely used which means more and more customers are turning to use it.

It will likely never replace real time listing lead services such as the RedX FSBO and Expired service, but it may be a great marketing tool to increase your reach and grow your number of active listings.