Pat Kennedy - Your Washington, DC Real Estate Connection

Tomorrow night, little ghouls and goblins all over the country will be knocking on doors begging for candy.  Give it to them or risk having your house TP'd, soap on your windows, or whatever else they can think up. 

Now, one of my neighbors likes to give out as little candy as possible.  He's a little cheap.  Well, not cheap, just frugal.  And he achieves his goal by scaring the be-geezes out of the trick or treaters, answering the door with a plastic bloody stump over his arm, and he actually smears catsup on it for effect.  Sends the little guys screaming over to my house.  It's just not worth it to them for a tiny little Snickers bar!

And as I'm passing out little Heath Bars and mini Butterfingers, I had to ask myself, do agents have the equivalent of the catsup-smeared bloody stump to scare colleagues and their clients? 

• Bad smells?
• Realtor-eating dogs?
• Clutter?
• Toilet seats left up?
• Unmade beds?
• Dirty dishes in the sink?
• Sellers that help us show their house?
• Rodents that aren't squirrels in the basement?
• Suffocating dust bunnies?

Right now, I am blessed with three listings with no bloody stumps.

Well, one had a bad smell in the basement, but we got rid of it.

Another had rats in the basement, but we god Rat Doom there immediately, and now the little guys have moved on to the neighborhs'.

The third had a snake in the family room during the broker's open, but a contractor doing work down the street came to my rescue and escorted him out of the house and into the woods.

So if you're enjoying a little down time until the election removes one of the uncertainties plaguing this market, check your listings for bloddy stumps, especially the ones with catsup smeared on them.

The other day, I showed a house to some lovely people who I suspect just might be, um, Republicans.  And when we arrived, there it was, right in the front yard!  An Obama Biden sign.  Now, here in Washington there are a lot of them.  There are fewer McCain Palin signs.  I mean it's Washington, DC, with more Democrats per square foot than almost anyplace else on the planet.

But sorry.  When your house is For Sale, and if I (or any good Realtor) am your listing agent, I will suspend your First Amendment rights when it comes to political signs in your front yard.  Actually, that applies to any type of political decor involving you and any president or presidential wanna be after Harry Truman.

I made one set of clients purge their bookcases to neutralize them politically.  I made others lost the pictures on their refrigerator door that were taken with a president.  We may be more sensitive to this stuff here than people are in other parts of the counry, but real estate and politics just don't mix. 

So if you want to support your favorite candidate, send money.  Show up and vote on election day. 

But if your house is for sale, a yard sign ro any political advertising in your home, has to be taboo!

One of my favorite colleagues has been hospitalized since September 7th, when she was very seriously injured. She's been putting up a valient fight, and she might not make it.

It wasn't by an evil guy posing as a homebuyer or a creep who followed her into a vacant house and whacked her on the head. 

It was a stupid accident.  She was hit by a car - the driver was backing up and didn't see her. 

We are all pretty vigilant we're showing houses, and we should be.  But we are far more likely to be involved in a serious accident involving an automobile, and the only posts I've seen about auto safety are the ones I've written.

My car was struck by a driver talking on a cell phone.  Oddly enough, I had pulled over and legally parked to make a phone call.  He came roaring around a corner and rear ended me.   Luckily, I suffered only minor whiplash

Another colleague was seriously injured by an elderly woman who hit her while she was crossing the street.  The driver was making a left turn and didn't see my friend.  Her knee had to be pinned back together, and she was in intensive physical therapy for over a year. 

With cell phones, texting, food, cigarettes, makeup, crying children and all the other distractions people drive around with, I look at automobiles as a far bigger danger than prospective clients. 

And I'm careful about showing houses, but I'm especially careful about driving to my showing destinations.

This market is so quirky that even I, Little Patty Sunshine, have started to feel an occasional pinch in the pit of my stomach.  And yes, even I am being confronted by my demons, and I’m having to work really hard to beat then back and stay focused.

“Will I ever sell another house?  Who in their right mind would buy a house with the world in such chaos?”  

That’s my whiny side talking.  Yes, I do have one.  It’s being really intrusive and obnoxious right about now, and it’s pissing me off!  Of course, I’m having to suppress it around my office, where whining is not tolerated for even one split second!

This is not the first strange market I’ve encountered, and I think it’s important to remember the awful markets in the past, and that they didn’t last forever.

Right before the Gulf war began, the market came to a screeching halt.  But it came back to life once we started hurling missiles at the Iraqis. 

There was a really bad one locally when our citizens re-elected a mayor who had just been released from prison for possession of cocaine.  The schools fell apart, the trash didn’t get picked up regularly, and the streets were full of pot holes that got so big we started to call them cocaine holes.  Not knowing what would fall apart next, people fled the District for the suburbs in droves.  Then, Congress stepped in and appointed a caretaker.  And voila!  The market came back!

Then right after 911, things came to another standstill as we were wondering what Al-Qaeda were going to pull next.  That lasted until we went into Afghanistan, then the market picked up and went from red hot to white hot.

And I guess there were two things all of these situations had in common that were even more of an influence that whatever set off the market slowdown.  First, there was a period of uncertainty about what was impacting either the DC area or the world at large, and as soon as the uncertainty lifted, and it looked like someone was going to start to take care of things, we got back to normal.

The slow markets ended.  Things got back to normal.  That old law “what goes down must come up” took over.

So do you see any uncertainty in your world right now?  Are you ready to blow up your TV?  Throw away the paper? 

And while I love this profession, I must admit that in uncertain times, it’s a pretty scary way to make a living.

I don't know about you, but getting listings sold isn't the piece of cake it was a couple of years ago.  So when I've tried everything, and when everything isn't working, it's time to bring in my special Realtor helpers.

The first is Saint Joseph.  He was the father in the Holy Family, married to the Virgin Mary who was, of course, Jesus' mother.  St Joseph is the patron saint of hearth and home and is considered to be the guy you turn to for help in selling listings.  When you take one of his statues and bury it upside down somewhere near the "For Sale" sign, he is supposed to help get it sold.  He is very, very busy these days.

Then there is the favorite among my family, especially on my mother's side.  My grandmother took me aside at my cousin Colleen's wedding.  It was a few months after I'd gotten my real estate license.  "So," she said, "has your mother told you about the family secret to selling houses?"  Gee, no!  Then she explained that most people did the Saint Joseph thing.  But our family prayed to Saint Anthony, the patron saint of things that are lost.  When you have an unsold listing, the buyer is merely lost, she explained.  And a Saint Anthony statue someplace in the front yard keeps his eyes open for those lost buyers, guiding them to your Open House sign.  As a kid, we always prayed to St. Anthony when my mom couldn't find her car keys, and she always found them.  This was worth a try!  And he's done some really good work for me over the years.

The third saint is Saint Jude, the patron saint of desperate - even impossible - cases.  So going to Saint Jude is like pulling out the really big guns.  People pray to him for cures for very sick children, cures for a very sick economy, peace in the Middle East - stuff like that!  I've decided to bring him in on my just-extended listing so I won't have to ask for yet another extension a few months from now! 

Now, you can't expect these guys to do it for you.  They'll help, but you still have to give it your very best!  And if, like me, you're thinking it'll take a miracle to get that listing sold, it might.  And with your best efforts and,  a little help from your favorite saints, you just might be able to create one.

You're smart.  You love your country.  You've had a career, maybe even a distinguished one, in public service that you think qualifies you to run for the big one.  You're going to make your mother proud by proving that in America, anyone can grow up to become the President.

Then, as you go through the grueling primaries, you become satire bait.  Your mother gets to watch people playing you on Saturday Night Live making you sound like a lunatic and a fool.  The barracudas in the press corps make sure that, if Mom doesn't stay up late enough to watch you on SNL, she can watch you being ridiculed throughout the day on the with the 24-hour news cycle. 

And when you win that elusive nomination from your party, the scrutiny will intensify.  You will be expected to be articulate and brilliant while suffering from exhaustion and total sleep deprivation.  And the news guys will regale the nation by playing every one of your bloopers over and over and over again. 

Then if you actually win the election in November, you can look forward to 4 or, if you're unlucky, 8 years of intense attention to your every move.  And not just your every move.  Your wife (or husband), your marriage and everyone you've ever looked at will be subject to speculation.  And if you have children, they'd better be attractive and perfectly behaved!  God forbid your teenage daughter drinks beer at a party or gets her tongue pierced.  It'll be on the front page of the Washington Post the next day.  And heaven help the Secret Service agent assigned to babysit!

Then, anything that goes wrong on any part of the globe will be your fault, even after you've been out of office for 10 years or more! 

And they'll still keep picking on you during Saturday Night Live!

Since Willie the hyperactive-Labrodoodle-puppy joined my household a couple of years ago, I have been trying to think up ways to wear him out.  The idea is to find some form of exercise that will wear him out so he won't have the energy to chew up my favorite shoes.

Now, my friend and neighbor, Beth, has a new addition to her household- an energetic standard poodle puppy named Mr. Darcy - the heartthrob of all of my friends who are Pride and Prejudice fans.

So today, we took them to the yard of the building that served for years at the Latvian Mission, then the Latvian Embassy when they became a real country.  Recently they moved out into fancier digs. 

So we brought Mr. Willie and Mr. Darcy there for an hour or so of heavy physical exercise.  

Willie Chased Mr. Darcy.

Then, Mr. Darcy chased Willie.

They chased each other around like lunatics and then Mr. Darcy went home and took a very long nap.  Mr. Willie came home and ran around the house. 

Is he too tired to chew my shoes?  He's eying a pair right now that I'd better scoop up off the floor.  Right now they are dog bait!

So now I'm wondering what the Latvians are going to do with ths piece of property that is pretty vacant and forlorn looking down the street from me!  Maybe Willie and I should make a few phone calls!  It's time that dog started to earn his dog chow!

Yes, that's the kind of block I live on!  And he was in luck - I just happened to have a bottle of the best of Barbados that I was only too happy to share with him. 

But I was not as lucky!

I was happy to share rum, and he wanted to share his view of what a total mess the whole entire world is at this moment, and how much worse it's going to get in the immediate future.  And not only did he predict that I would not sell another house in the foreseeable future, but that my pending transactions would never be funded by my favorite lender.

NOOOOOOO!

No wonder the poor guy needs a cup of rum!  And he's one of my favorite people, so it's hard to shoo him out of my house.

A few years ago, a dear friend gave me a refrigerator magnet that read:

"Where am I going?  And why am I in this hand-basket?"

Is this something that is becoming the current motto of the whole entire world? 

Well, perhaps. But there will still be people who have to buy houses.  The trick is to make them buy them from me!

We read a lot of stuff on Active Rain about how important it is to adjust our business strategies to work in this tricky, changing market.  Geez!  I write a lot of it!  And this week, I've made a huge adjustment.

Perhaps I shouldn't admit it, but listings have never been my favorite thing.  When I take a listing, I work hard and do a good job.  But they're almost never as much fun (for me, at least) as working with  buyers, especially in this market.  Still, in this area if properties are priced reasonably, well located and show well, they normally sold within about three months.  Now, all of a sudden, I'm seeing much longer days on the market and even my listings come up for extensions.

Earlier this week, I wrote about having to go for a second extension.  I agonized about it.  It took all I could do to pick up the phone and make an appointment with the sellers (absolutely lovely people) and give them more bad news about their neighborhood market activity and what it was going to take to get their house sold quickly.

I hate bad news!  It's my worst thing!  I like to give great news and make my clients smile!  No fun!  Yikes!

Now, part of my problem is that, if I were in their situation, I would take the house off the market and rent it out.  The rental market here is not bad, and next month it could get a boost from the elections, as political types tend to rent first when they come to the DC area.  I'd wait the market out.  But that's me, and we've had this conversation a few times already.  The reality of the situation for them is they want it sold, and don't want the hassle of being landlords.

We we met, I went over the market activity.  There are two competitng houses that haven't sold.  I explained what we were doing to expose their house and position it in the market, using a combination of Internet marketing and old fashioned stuff.  I had feedback from the showings, and plans for future marketing efforts.  I found myself getting excited. 

I think I can!  I think I can!

So after getting a $50,000 price reduction last week, I now have a four month extension to the listing agreement. 

I've always been impressed by agents who could hold onto unsold listings for months and months.  And this week I learned that, to thrive in this goofy market, I have to turn myself into one of them.  And it's not all that difficult!

Now, I'm off to the gift shop at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.  I'm out of St. Anthony statues.  And when I go to buy some new ones, I think I'll at St Jude (the patron saint of very difficult cases) to this one!  More on that market strategy later!

As new agents, most of us did a huge amount of prospecting.  We took floor duty, did Open Houses, started a geographic farm, put together our Centers of Influence, harassed reluctant FSBO's and went after expired listings.  Some of us even, shudder gasp, did cold calls!  Brrrrr! And we spent money on advertising, from personalized "forget me not" seed packets, to web sites to putting our faces on grocery carts.  It was work intensive and expensive.

And the idea was to work hard, give good service and turn each new hard won client into a huge fan who would refer us business in the future. 

There are clearly benefits to getting new clients from our old clients. 

• They come to us with rave reviews and expect us to be terrific.  That makes it easier to hang the moon for them.
  
• We don't have to spend a whole lot of money on printing, postage or advertising to attract clients, reducing our overhead.
• People who are referred to us tend to be higher quality leads than those we get from other sources. 
  
• Friends of clients you enjoyed working with are very likely to pass the "Fun Test" than

In order to attract quality referrals, there are a few ground rules:

You have to have a clear idea what high quality service looks like, then deliver it!  So many brokers and agents are so focused on numbers that quality eludes them!  Look at the elements of service that you provide, and look for ways of doing it better.  Don't just beat he competition.  Try to beat yourself!

Whether you are working with buyers or sellers, look at the way you provide information.  Some of it should be in writing, like maybe a written piece you give on the basics of buying and selling in your area.  And you should include a list of web sites with information about local schools, amenities, farmers markets, transportation - like the Active Rain Localism pages!  And I also include maps and some neighborhood information as well.  I'm convinced that one way our clients rate our performance is by how good a job we do in educating them throughout the process.

Stay in touch with your clients after the deal is done.  I try to make several schmooze calls a day during what would otherwise be down time.  This would be while waiting for people to show up, idling in gridlock traffic (using hands-free, of course), or walking the dog.

When one of your fans does send you a referral, treat the referral like a king - or queen.  Whichever is appropriate.  The way you treat the referral is a reflection on the fan who sent him your way.  He'll want his buddy to receive the same fabulous service he got, and will be happy that his friend will love you - and will love him for making the introduction.  And stay in touch with the referring fan to thank him and let him know how it is going.  

Take the money that you'd be spending on putting your face on a grocery cart at the local Safeway, and do something fun for your clients.  Throw a huge party for no reason.  Deliver pumpkins to their kids for Halloween.  Send really funny birthday cards instead sending junk mail to FSBO's. 

And always be saying "Thank you!"  Really mean it.