How would you like a copy of Free listing agent interview, questions every seller should ask before signing a listing agreement?  Today we will cover some of the important questions you should ask and provide access to get this free report.

Sellers realize time on the market is going up, prices are coming down, and there aren’t as many pending sales as there used to be. Time on the market is not your friend when selling a home. The longer a home sits, the less it typically sells for.

Listing Agent Interview Questions Brochure

We have a full listing agent interview questions brochure we can email that will help you ask the right questions. #2 on the list deals with time on the market. The agent should be able to demonstrate a specific plan that will get your home sold so it doesn’t sit. Every agent will have their own marketing plan, but is it designed to influence buyers’ decisions?  Is it active marketing or passive marketing?

Passive marketing is throwing the home on MLS, portal sites like Zillow and Realtor.com and waiting for buyers to make an offer.  What if there was a way to identify the best buyers for your home and actively market it to them? Most agents don’t know how to do this, so they do the only thing they can do, which is reduce your price. Don’t get me wrong, proper pricing is important. Pricing is no substitute against actively marketing the home to the best buyers.  These are two different strategies.

10 Step Process

The Ellis Team has a 10-step process for getting your home sold quickly and for top dollar. Some of these processes have several steps themselves, such as our 7-step showing process.

Our program not only identifies the best buyers for your home quickly, we can often tell you how much they will pay over their asking bid. Having a program that creates urgency from the buyer is important. Studies have shown that when buyers see a home and delay making an offer, their eventual offer goes down by the day. Our program helps streamline this process so our sellers net more, and the buyer gets their first choice of home.

If you would like a full copy of these interview questions, simply email Brett@topagent.com with Interview Questions as the subject line. I will email you this handy brochure that will help you make a better decision when hiring an agent. Of course, we’d love to be one of the agents you interview.  Either way, the report is Free and will help you make a better decision.

Hope Isn’t a Strategy

We have a short video that explains our program. Visit www.MyHomeSoldin8Days.com to find out more. If you’d like more information, we have a complete video on our 10 steps to Higher Prices we can send you, or Brett and Sande would be happy to see your home, give you your price, and explain the program.

Sellers who utilize the program average 9.4%-12.1% higher than other sellers in MLS, according to 6 different studies utilizing thousands of home sales.

Most sellers not only want a fair price for their home, they also don’t like the process of showing it for weeks or months on end. This program reduces the time you must keep your home “Show Ready” and inconvenience to your family.

Sande and Brett Ellis are here to answer your questions. Call us at 239-310-6500 We can schedule a time to meet at your home, or a Zoom call to talk about the process and your needs. If you’d like us to send you the 2^nd video, we can do that too.

We are here to help. Our program works all year long, so whenever you decide to sell, we can help you. And remember, the full report is Free, so email us and we’ll send it to you.

Good luck, and Happy Selling!

SW Florida home price decreases help sellers adjust to the changing market. Typically, sellers look at past sales when deciding what price to put their home on the market for. This system works well, unless the market shifts.

When the market shifts and inventory grows, past sales may not be the best indicator. We look at the totality of the market. By analyzing statistics, we can determine if past sales will be the best guide, or if another method is better.

Think Like a Buyer

Buyers don’t look at past sales, because they don’t have access to it.  What buyers do have access to are competing listings, so they look. And they look, and they look.  Buyers know the competition better than the sellers do. Seller’s hold onto past sales, and buyers look at current listings. These are two different things, and this is why some homes sit on the market and do not sell.

Home Price Decreases Help

11% is the number of homes on the market right now that have reduced their price in the last 7 days.  This number has been remarkably consistent, ranging from 9.12% to 11.12% lately. 11% of sellers each week realize they overshot the market, and they wish to sell. They are doing something about it. Between 2-5.7% of the homes that reduced their price sell the week they reduce the price.  This tells us that they either didn’t reduce enough, or it will go pending soon and just didn’t have enough time during the last 7 days.

Special Form

 Our team has a special form that helps sellers identify if their home is priced correctly on the market. Nobody wants to underprice their home and sell it too cheap.  Conversely, we know the longer a home sits on the market, the less it eventually sells for.  Time on the market is no good for the seller, because it means buyers have rejected it, and other buyers lose motivation when they see it sitting on the market for so long.

186 homes came off the market in the last week. They either expired, were withdrawn, or terminated their listing. Typically, this means they do not like the current market and have decided not to sell.  For some, maybe it’s a temporary situation for the moment. For others, perhaps they tested the market and were unhappy with the results.

Pays to Know the Market

For us it’s easy, because we study the market.  Our team has more data than anyone else because we track it. The MLS gives data at certain points in time, sort of like a photo. By creating spreadsheets and tracking key data points, we can see movement, like a movie. A picture can be deceiving, but a series of pictures, or movie, can tell a clearer story. Ellis Team clients have the benefit of the movie, so they can make better decisions, especially when there is a market shift.

Thinking of Selling?

If you’re thinking of selling, or perhaps tried before and weren’t successful, you should give us a call. We can go over exactly what is happening in the market, and how your home relates. Not every neighborhood is affected the same way. Computers aren’t very good at offering accurate home values because they don’t consider costs like homeowners insurance, flood insurance, HOA fees, and age of certain items. Brett and Sande can help you decide what your home should really sell for and devise a marketing strategy to get it sold before it becomes stale on the market and buyers lose their motivation.  Give us a call at 239-310-6500. We’re easy to talk to and we can answer your questions, and help you move on your time frame.

Sell Your Home in 8 Days

We have a program to sell your home for Top Dollar in only 8 days.  Watch our video to find out how we do it.

We look forward to speaking with you. Good luck, and Happy House Hunting!

oday let’s talk about some creative real estate marketing strategies for homeowners you might not think of. These strategies may sound counterintuitive, but they work.

Less is Better

I remember years ago marketing experts would say white space is your friend. Back then agents would use display ads in the paper.  Some agents would cram as many words as possible into that space trying to sell the home. The truth is the ad is more likely to be read if there is white space, or blank space. It makes the ad stand out and compels the reader to check it out.

Back in the days when Realtors used property flyers the same concept applied. The more you put on the flyer, the more likely a buyer will find one item that eliminates the home. That’s a shame, because if they ever made it inside, the home could have wowed them. Today agents use open house flyers. At least with an open house flyer, the buyer has been in the home, so we design that so they remember the home against all others they might see that day.

Fewer Better Photos

It only takes one photo to turn off a buyer. This is why we use better photos, but not necessarily more. We accentuate a few key features. In doing so, we entice a buyer to want to see more, or call and ask about something they couldn’t see online. You must remember, there are over 4,000 single family homes on the market in Lee County. Buyers do not want to see 4,000 homes. They must eliminate homes to get it down to a manageable number. Buyers are not experts. They do not know the market like a full-time Realtor even though they think they might by having access to all the listings. Instinctively they seek to narrow and eliminate. We do not want your home to be eliminated.

Creative Ad Copy

We write our ads and captions such that a buyer would want to call or click to find out more. When you just blurt out features, you look and sound like every other ad. We want your home to stand out. This is why our ads receive more calls or clicks than other agents.

Targeted Marketing. We can target buyers looking to buy homes rather than shot gun marketing to the world. Your advertising dollar doesn’t go as far you advertise to the world rather than people looking to buy right here, right now. Call us to find out how we’re able to do this.

Hidden Features

Each home has some hidden features the buyer wouldn’t know about unless they lived in the home. These are different than home features like counter tops and pools. We sell the hidden features a different way, and it helps our sellers get more money for their home with our trademarked home showing process.

Showing Process

The Ellis Team has a showing process that maximizes your home’s value and separates you from the competition. There are 7 steps to this process, and when you see the 7 steps, you’ll know why they are critical to getting your home sold faster and for more money.

Of course we have several more tips for our sellers to get top dollar, and not enough room to share them all here. We have a brochure that explains the entire system we use to sell your home. We can go over the system when we meet.  Identifying the two price depressing problems that plague most sellers and how to overcome them to achieve top dollar is critical.  Simply call Brett or Sande Ellis at 239-310-6500 or visit www.MyHomeSoldin8days.com for a short video that explains part of the program.

Sande and Brett look forward to hearing from you and answering your real estate questions.

Why sell the traditional way when you could sell your home for thousands more? That is the question many home sellers are asking.

Most Realtors use passive marketing.  They list a home, put a sign up, place it in MLS, and wait for people to respond. A few will even take out ads, but they are not targeted.  It is a lot like placing bait in the water and waiting to see if a fish comes along and bites. The worst thing is, they’re not 100% sure the fish are even there, or if they’re biting today.

Breakthrough Technology

 The Ellis Team has a system to identify and target almost all the potential buyers for your home within 3-4 days. By doing so, the home doesn’t have to sit on the market week after week while buyers begin to wonder what is wrong with the home. Buyers know that other buyers have seen the home and rejected it, so something must be wrong.

Our system eliminates the two price depressing problems facing sellers today. As inventory grows and homes linger on the market, this strategy becomes more important.

Studies have shown that this new program sells homes from 8.4 to 12% higher than the MLS median price, as confirmed by 6 independent studies.

How Does it Work?

So how does the program work?  Essentially everything you thought you knew about selling is thrown out the window. There is a reason big companies like Apple sell out new products instantly. It is because they understand how consumers think, and they bring products to market accordingly. Their products are not designed to sit on store shelves for months hoping a consumer will come along and choose to buy it.

The Ellis Team has been selling homes this new way for a while, and the results have been amazing. Sure, our team did very well selling homes the traditional way because we out worked, out marketed, and hustled our way to the top. We didn’t consider ourselves traditional because our results stood for themselves, and we did things nobody else did.

Why Sell The Traditional Way When There is a Better Way?

When we looked at this new system, we realized there were some things we could do to improve, and if we did that, our sellers would benefit even more. Since implementing the system our sellers have sold even faster and for more money. The system works.

Not only does the system sell homes for more money, but it also saves money later in the inspection process. Buyers are glad they were able to get a nice home and the sellers are happy that they didn’t leave money on the table. And everyone is happy because the process goes fast.

Real World Example

Earlier this year we had a seller who bought another home out of state. They had 30 days to sell their home to come up with the down payment and financing to complete that other sale. Their out of state agent referred them to us and said I know this is almost impossible, but they just bought a home, and they need their sold fast. Can you help?

I said no problem, our system is designed to sell homes fast and for top dollar. We priced the home higher than the comparables and we sold it for cash quickly. It closed on time and the sellers had days to spare in their new home. Our system identified multiple qualified and motivated buyers for their home. The other Realtor was truly amazed as well.

Fishing

Wouldn’t it be easier to fish if you knew exactly where the fish were, at what depth to place the bait, and what time of day they would be hungry? Of course it would. This new breakthrough technology and home selling system helps with all of this, and the results are amazing.

If you have a home to sell, call Brett or Sande Ellis at 239-310-6500 or visit My Home Sold in 8 Days and we’ll be glad to meet with you and help you with your situation. We love helping people and seeing the smile on their faces when we pleasantly surprise them with results.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

We have fresh residential SW Florida residential inventory supply numbers to report for April 2023. The overall single family inventory supply stands at 3.03 months, up from 2.81 months in February.

Each week we evaluate inventory supply numbers, and we’ve reported how they have been going up since last year. For instance, on April 12^th of 2022 Lee County had 1,337 single family homes on the market. In 2023 we have 3,740. That is a 179.73% increase in inventory in one year.

SW Florida Residential Inventory Supply Gains by Price Range

We like to break it down by price range. Where we see the most inventory gains are in the higher price ranges. The $400-$600k price range increased from 2.82 months in February to 3.38 months currently. Even more gains can be seen in the $600k-$1 million price range which increased from 3.27 months in February to 4.20 months now. That is almost a one-month gain in inventory.

The $1 million + market did gain a full month in inventory going from 5.35 months in February to 6.35 months now. The $200k-$300k markets lost inventory in the past two months, while the $100k-$200k markets gained slightly.

Rising inventory underscores the need to do two things to achieve success when selling. A home should be properly priced to attract all the buyers for a home, and it should be marketed to all those potential buyers.  Let me explain further.

When a home is overpriced, it is not reaching the true buyers for that home. The home attracts higher priced buyers whom after investigating the home are disappointed because the home does not measure up to other similarly priced homes they are looking at. The higher priced buyers balk at the home and make offers on other homes that offer more of what they are looking for.

The true buyer for the home never sees the home because it isn’t on their radar. It is over their price range, so they do not even see the home on their search. It might as well be invisible.

TV Guide

Think of it like a TV Guide. You can choose to see all channels, or just the ones you are subscribed to. Let’s say Comcast or DirectTv offer 1,200 channels but you subscribe to 140. Most people don’t want to waste time searching through channels they can never watch. It is not only frustrating but time consuming to do over and over every time you want to see something. The same is true when searching for homes. It is frustrating to see homes you can never afford when you are seriously looking to purchase. The serious buyers do not want to waste their time. The casual lookers don’t mind wasting their time, or yours. They aren’t going to buy anyway, they’re just looking to see what’s out there killing time.

Market to Every Buyer

Secondly, once you’ve identified true buyers for your home, you must market to them. Fortunately, our company has developed a new form of marketing that leverages online technology to identify the best potential buyers for any home in America in just 72 hours. Once we’ve identified the best buyers for your home, we can create a competitive environment which validates your home’s desirability. Identifying buyers quickly keeps your home from sitting on the market for months causing buyers to think it’s overpriced.

Sell in 8 Days

Sellers love the program because we can sell most homes in 8 days or less. It’s no fun having your home on the market for months, keeping your home clean everyday for showings, and reducing your price while your neighbors sell their home. Our program sells homes for thousands more than the traditional way of selling, and it’s fast. To learn more, simply call 239-444-8150 or visit www.MyHomeSoldin8Days.com

We have a program to sell your home in 8 days for thousands more than the traditional way. Local agents didn’t understand the program, and neither did we until we researched it.

72SOLD is a company in Arizona that changed how real estate was sold in that state. The program was so successful that other companies started noticing. And yet, they couldn’t quite understand how they were doing it.

The Ellis Team are Regional Directors with 72SOLD

We were elated when we found out Keller Williams partnered with 72Sold to bring the program national. Immediately we signed up for the training, and we were blown away at the potential. We spoke with many of our Arizona agent friends who personally witnessed the amazing results.

After training for several months, the Ellis Team began using the program. I personally have used the program 7 times. 6 of the 7 homes sold within 2 weeks, and most within 8 days. One listing did take a little longer. The sellers were amazed at how much we got for their home, and how quickly it sold.

Sellers really appreciated the process. Many didn’t want to show the home for months on end, and they appreciated getting Top Dollar while selling quickly. When we sit down and show the program to sellers, they wonder why everyone doesn’t sell their home this way. The 72SOLD program really changes the way real estate is sold. The Ellis Team is grateful we can offer this program.

We still have the option to sell your home the traditional way. In most cases, sellers choose the new way. We knew the results in Arizona were good, but would this work in Florida? After using the system, we can say we love the results.

What the Program is Not

Can we tell you what the program is not? It is not a guarantee that if you list your home it will sell in 8 days for double or triple what the market will pay. There are selling techniques we as agents must follow, and of course there are market conditions we must consider.  The program is filled with probability increasers, so using each technique increases your chances of selling. If we use all of them, the results speak for themselves. In fact, three independent studies have shown that homes using this program sell for 8.4%-12% higher than the MLS average and faster.

Unsatisfied in the Past

Perhaps you’ve sold homes in the past and you weren’t entirely satisfied with the process. Maybe you tried to sell your current home and failed. Perhaps you’d like to sell your current home but don’t want to pay high fees and get the same results everyone else in the neighborhood has gotten.

If you’d like to make a move, we should talk. We may be able to shorten the process of selling your home for you, and get you Top Dollar too. We have several local home sellers that have tried it and wouldn’t sell any other way. Let’s have a conversation and see if we can help you too.

Give Sande Ellis or Brett Ellis a call at 239-310-6500 and find out what we can sell your home for. Or visit www.MyHomeSoldin8Days.com We can sell your home now or wait for a time that’s better for you. The program works in all markets, good and bad. The program was built before the multiple offer market and has evolved since then. Each week we meet 3 times per week on a national call and implement new proven changes to the program. We are learning based and continue to tweak the program, and having thousands of transactions each quarter helps us learn and improve together.

Put the power of Keller Williams, the Ellis Team, and the 72SOLD program to work for you! We look forward to having a conversation with you.

Good luck, and Happy Selling!