Listing Description One:

Three bedroom, two bath home on a cul-de-sac with private back yard.  This home boasts a beautiful master bedroom suite with private bath and Jacuzzi.  The kitchen offers lots of cabinet space and gorgeous granite countertops.  As if that’s not enough, there’s a finished basement that’s perfect for a kid’s playroom.  This home won’t last so call today for a private viewing.

Listing Description Two:

Sitting on the deck as the afternoon sun fades away, you enjoy the sound of crickets and Blue Jays calling from a distance as the smell of percolating coffee drifts over the granite counters and through the oversized French doors that lead to your favorite retreat, the sprawling back yard that drifts off into acres of woodlands.  Your husband, he’s in the two bay garage doing what he loves best, and the kids….one, fresh off the football field, is enjoying a relaxing Jacuzzi in the upstairs master bath while the other is enjoying the serenity of the closed in play area in the finished lower level basement.  If you are just looking for a house, this may not be for you, but if it’s a home you are after, you’ll want to call me soon for a viewing because this one has your name written all over it.

Which of these two listings descriptions causes you to want to go see the property?  According to studies, more than 90% of consumers are emotional buyers, meaning their buying decision is heaviliy dependant on their emotional state at the time of the buying decision.

Advertising agencies do it all the time when they market to consumers.  Where the purchase of a home is probably one of the most emotional decisions a consumer will ever make, do you agree that it’s best for a real estate agent to concentrate on finding a way to create an emotional bond with a consumer to motivate them to look at the property?  In fact, many agents at RE/MAX Prestige are doing this in their presentations and it continues to result in increased showing activity on our listings.  However, there is no denying the fact that in order to get a buyer to pull the trigger on a particular house, price matters more than emoti0nal marketing by the real estate agent and the firm.

We’d really love to hear your thoughts on this subject. Be honest, up front, and candid.  Should agents do more emotional selling in the marketing of their listings? Please share your thoughts.

Here is an interesting concept: Does having a Starbucks nearby increase a property’s value?  Recently I ran a Facebook poll where I asked “What most influences buyers to buy?” and I offered several options like price, town the property is located in, school systems, etc.  The poll also allowed respondents to add their own options if they felt there was some other overwhelming reason why buyers buy and one agent from Chicago weighed in by saying many of today’s buyers make their home buying decision based on whether there’s a Starbucks, movie theatre, and good restaurants nearby.  Interesting.  So, what was going to be a blog post about the importance of pricing (most of the respondents replied that price is the number one thing that influences a buyers decision) has instead turned into a post about The Starbucks Effect – How Real Estate Prices are Influenced By Starbucks.

After receiving the original poll response about Starbucks, I started polling people about The Starbucks Effect.   This was the question I asked on Facebook: “Would you pay $5000 more for a home if it had a Starbucks within a few miles, in comparison to a similar home where the closest Starbucks is 30 miles away?  Now, let me preface the article by saying, I did not receive hundreds of responses on this matter, but I did receive a handful, and 100% of respondents said they would pay $5000 more for a house if Starbucks was close by.  Again, interesting.

What came first, the chicken or the egg?  In other words, if you look at where Starbucks cafes are located throughout the country, they are located in cities and towns that are considered more affluent. In other words, there is no Starbucks in Lawrence, MA where the average household income is under $40,000.  Therefore, it may be possible that the people who said they would pay more for a house near Starbucks would have paid more to get into that community anyway.

None of this is that scientific.  I would say that the two biggest lessons to be learned from this are as follows.  First, there is something to be said for a consumer who is wiling to pay $5 to $7 for a cup of coffee.  To me, it indicates that the consumer one, has discretionary income and two, will pay more for the finer things in life.  Second, it says, as a real estate agent, if you’re taking the time to post your listings on Craigslist, Facebook, and the like….wouldn’t it also behoove you to print out some good, ole-fashion listing sheets and post them on the bulletin board at your local Starbucks.

We are a long way off from seeing a new box added to the residential appraisal report or MLS data sheets saying “Proximity to Starbucks” but as real estate agents it’s important to note that there are hundreds of indicators that influence the buying decisions of consumers. It’s a good idea to ask lots of questions, understand the wants and needs of buyers, and market the heck out of the ones that are most important.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see “Close to Starbucks and movie theater in many of your property descriptions someday.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUjfoMB0mok

Maragaret’s absolutely right.  We are seeing a lot of investors take advantage of home prices in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.  When investors jump back into the game it’s good sign that the market has bottomed.

Home buyers that live outside of the United States accounted for more than $900 billion in home buying activity in 2010.  International buyers came from a total of 53 countries, with the top four being Canada, Mexico, China, and India (which accounted for 46% of the international buyer transactions) so it’s surprising that more agents are not finding a way to capture this important segment of the market.  In fact, where Massachusetts is a metropolitan hub of schools, hospitals, and jobs, we are seeing an even greater number of buyers coming into the state – and many of them are not from this country.   What’s great about these buyers is that more than 50% of them are paying cash.  Why would a person from Canada, China, or another country want to buy here?  There are many reasons.  Many are in the medical field and they come here for schooling or internships.  As well, many are purchasing homes for their children who intend to come here for school.  Is it possible for a real estate agent to advertise a property in other MLS services in other countries?  YES!  In fact, this is becoming even more prevalent as our home buying market becomes more global.  The agents at RE/MAX Prestige will be attending a one hour program on April 20th with the head of The International Real Estate Specialists Institute, Olivier Mevellic.  He will demonstrate the legalities and opportunities of marketing real estate across the globe.  If you are interested in attending this free event please email Maureen Hoffmann at MHoffmann@remaxprestige.com to RSVP.  It will be held at the DCU Center in Worcester from 10am to Noon on April 20th.  We would enjoy having you there.

In today’s real estate market we are seeing agents get super crafty when it comes to generating open house traffic. Agents, like Shirley Cunico, pictured left, make sure that nobody driving by misses the house.  She says she doesn’t do this on every listing, but sometimes, especially small side streets, you have to bring attention to drivers from the main road.  Another RE/MAX agent schedules his open houses around the mass schedules at the local church.  During the mass he puts flyers on the cars notifying people they can stop by his open house for coffee and donuts after the mass. The point here is that RE/MAX agents believe in being pro-active when it comes to doing open houses.  Stacey Alcorn, owner of RE/MAX Prestige says “we teach our agents to be pro-active rather than reactive when it comes to open houses.  It’s not about sticking an Open House sign on the front lawn and waiting for traffic.  Agents must work on generating buzz and creating traffic the previous week in order to generate the best results.”  Says Alcorn, “You never know who will end up buying that house so the more traffic, the better.”  In fact, the market optimization team at RE/MAX Prestige studies nuances, like open house traffic, on a regular basis.  They look for patterns to figure out what type of business activities must agents do to generate the best results for their clients.  For example, on a recent Facebook poll, RE/MAX Prestige asked agents, “Are sunny days or rainy days better for open house traffic?”  Contrary to what you might think, the consensus was that sunny days make for better traffic.  However, RE/MAX All Star Ned Mahoney said it best, “When the homes priced right, it doesn’t matter if it’s raining or beautiful out, people will come in droves to see the home.”  Please share your comments and ideas on open house traffic.  We appreciate your feedback!

When selling a house, especially in Massachusetts or New Hampshire, the photos of the home make a big difference. Why? First, 87% of buyers are shopping online for their next home according to the National Association of Realtors. In the days before online MLS search capabilities, the only way a consumer could get a feel for a home was to drive around all day with their agent looking at properties. Today, the consumer hops online and can look at twenty or thirty homes in a matter of minutes just by sorting through the online photos. If you don’t have great photos of the interior, exterior, and even street views of the property, you may be a severe disadvantage. The more photos, the more opportunity for a consumer to find something they like about the property. If there’s only one photo of the property….well, that’s about the same as having NO photo on an online dating sight. What are the chances the love of your life is going to find you on Match.com if you don’t post your photo? It’s possible he or she will find you, but not likely. The same is true in real estate. It’s hard for the consumer to find the home they like if they can’t go through photos. The other point about photos is that in New England, the photo says a lot about how long the house has been on the market. Let me illustrate. Let’s say in the middle of June and you originally listed your home on December 1st. Maybe you’ve been aggressive with price reductions and you are priced to sell BUT all of the photos of the property have three feet of snow in the yard. With so much inventory on the market right now, buyers are sifting through the online data sheets on these listings at rapid pace. If they see a photo with snow that screams HELLO BUYER I’VE BEEN ON THE MARKET FOR A LONG LONG LONG TIME. Do you think most consumers will then click through the photos to see if they might like the house? In fact most will not. Many consumers will think…if nobody else has liked the house since the last time we had three feet of snow, I probably won’t either….NEXT.

We are excited to announce that today marks the unveiling of our brand new, state of the art website.  The goal of our new site is to offer a streamlined approach for consumers to search market and community information.  This is a site that will be updated every day with new, rich, content about our organization and about the market.  This, combined with our social networking initiative with Twitter, LinkedIn, Four Square, and Facebook will take our organization into 2011, poised to capture market share, add additional great agents, and grow through technology, appreciation initiatives, and ongoing education.  Check back often…we have a lot to share.