Tag Archives: National Association of Realtors

Ellis Team Smashes Industry Standard Online Advertising Conversion Rates

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Agents around the office often ask us how the Ellis Team sells so much real estate each month.  The answer is, it’s marketing.  It’s not about the dollars you spend each month, although we do spend more on advertising than just about anybody out there.  It’s about spending smart, understanding how and where to find your customers, and converting. The Ellis Team smashes industry standard online advertising conversion rates.

The industry standard for online display ads back in 2016 was .35%.  Many say it’s below that now.  The Ellis Team converts 26 times that rate with an average in October at 9.13%.  Some of our ads convert at 20%.  The industry standard for a search ad is 1.91%.  Again, the Ellis Team smashes industry standard online advertising conversion rates in every category.

Ellis Team Smashes Industry Standard Online Advertising Conversion Rates

So how do we do this?  We’re not going to divulge that but suffice it to say we know a thing or two about online advertising, and it works.  In fact, the Ellis Team was the first team in the country to put the MLS on our website.  That first year we sold over 100 homes, and Realtors everywhere wondered what was going on.

NAR (National Association of Realtors) called us to Chicago to talk about this.  They said the info was in the MLS books and couldn’t be made public to everyone on our website.  After meeting with the president of NAR and NAR general counsel, they realized what we were doing was legal and met the bylaws of NAR.  And this is how VOW (Virtual Office Websites) was born.  SW Florida, you received it first.  It later transitioned to IDX (Internet Data Exchange) and now Realtors across the country, along with Realtor.com, Zillow, and others are displaying agent’s listing data.  I was always against Realtors letting 3rd party companies display our data.  I felt it should be reserved for agents displaying each other’s data, but somebody up at NAR decided otherwise.

Since those early days, we’ve been perfecting the art of online registrations and conversions.  First, you must give people what they want.  Your website must be fast, easy to use, and provide the most accurate and up to date data out there.  Our website is real-time, so it’s fast, has all the listings including sold data, and it’s easy to use.  Consumers like that they can see a photo gallery of all pictures instead of clicking one by one.

Buyers and sellers like that they can get neighborhood data in real-time and emailed to them weekly or monthly.  This informs them of new listings, pending sales, and closed sales in a community.  This is helpful when you’re keeping an eye on one or more communities.

Secondly, it helps to target the correct people.  This is where the magic happens.  It does no good to target the universe, because the universe will not all buy property, and certainly not in SW Florida.  We target people who have an interest in SW Florida, even if they live out of the country.  We find them from anywhere, and everywhere.

In the last month, www.LeeCountyOnline.com received 291 users from overseas.  Our agents are working with several of them, and some are in a nice price point.  Let’s not forget that we received 4,240 users last month from inside the US.  And of those users, 82.5% are new users, so we’re advertising to and attracting thousands of new users each month.

Ellis Team Overseas Online Visitors

It’s no wonder why Ellis Team at Keller Williams Realty agents are so busy and selling so much.  We know how to find the buyers, no matter where they are.

If you’re looking to buy, you should talk with our experienced agents.  If you’re looking to sell, speak with Sande or Brett Ellis 239-489-4042 Ext 4.  Brett and Sande handle the listings.  We know how to get Top Dollar for our sellers.  Let us sit down with you and show you how we market.  Nobody else does what we do, and the results speak for themselves.  Find out what your home is worth at www.SWFLhomevalues.com

Good luck and Happy Selling!

November SW Florida Real Estate Update

Ellis Team Weekend Open Houses

Open House Sunday 1-3 PM

12760 Seaside Key CT, North Fort Myers Moody River Estates

Weekend Garage Sale

Saturday 8 AM-1 PM

2153 Treehaven Cir North

 

Appraisals an Issue Once Again

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Real estate agents have been complaining that appraisers have been under-valuing property again. Recently the National Association of Realtors listed the Cape Coral – Fort Myers real estate market as the #3 fastest rising home price markets in the country. Appraisals an Issue Once Again!

Appraisals an Issue Once Again

Appraisals are one person’s opinion of value based upon recent sold data.  The problem is in an upward rising market, past sales are yesterday’s news and today’s values are higher then a few months ago.

In a declining market appraisers are quick to make a time value adjustment as sales from 3-4 months ago would be worth more than today’s market.  Appraisers aren’t as quick in a rising market if you ask many real estate agents, and therein lay the problem.

Buyers and sellers quite often sweat out the appraisal which unfortunately doesn’t always occur right after the contract.  Many sellers are requiring the appraisal number to come in within 15 days of contract acceptance to remove this obstacle.

Typically a buyer gets pre-qualified for a loan and then goes out shopping for a home.  With inventory so limited in SW Florida it’s getting hard to find suitable homes in a buyer’s price range, and when you do find a home for the buyer the buyer isn’t holding all the cards.  The sellers are pretty much able to dictate certain terms as there are several buyers looking at the limited inventory in some price ranges.

The banks usually order the appraisal from an appraisal management company who hires the appraiser.  The management company serves as a middle man to keep the lender from influencing values.  A problem is if the appraiser is not local or is unfamiliar with the area, or simply chooses bad comparables, there isn’t a good way to fix a bad appraisal.  The bank is typically stuck with that number, so the buyer is stuck, unless they’re willing to switch lenders.

We work with one local lender who has access to 3 appraisal management companies, so if we get a bad appraisal from one company they can seek another opinion without being stuck.  This does add time to the process though and isn’t ideal.

This forces sellers to take the best possible buyer, and price isn’t always the most important issue.  True enough, in a tight supply market, all buyers are going to be at a high price, but what really makes a buyer stand out from another buyer are the “Other” terms, like closing date, and amount in escrow.

If you have a buyer putting 20% down but only putting $1,000 in escrow it looks suspicious to a seller.  The escrow money is counted towards the down payment money anyway, and it is refundable if the buyer cannot get their financing assuming the contract is written properly, so sellers ask themselves, “Why isn’t this buyer putting more money down upfront?”

If a seller has 2 or more offers and one has $10,000 in escrow and one only has $1,000 down, which offer sounds better?  Even if there isn’t another offer Yet it still screams weak offer and throws up a red flag.  In a competitive market where a buyer isn’t in competition with the seller but rather with others buyers, it pays to make your offer look strong anyway you can.  If you’re financing there is a limit to how high you can go because it has to appraise.  Do the other things to make your offer stand out.

Listening to your agent will help.  If you don’t make your offer stand out, you’ll be on your 4th or 5th favorite home instead of your 1st, and in this market many times there aren’t more than 3 to choose from.

If you do run into an appraisal problem, there are things you can do.  Perhaps the seller may consider pre-paying the mortgage insurance which might eliminate the need for the property to appraise.  Speak with your agent and lender about these options.  Don’t let a bad appraisal Kill your sale.

Good luck and Happy House Hunting!!!!

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Current Market Index Predicts the Future of SW Florida Real Estate

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About 8 years ago the Ellis Team created a market index that accurately predicts the SW Florida real estate market. It helped us in 2005 warn the public that the local real estate market was about to turn.  Later in the fourth quarter and on into 2006 people began to realize the train had run out of steam.  We named it the Ellis Team SW Florida Current Market Index.  Since unveiling this index, the National Association of realtors came out with a similiar index called the NAR Pending Home Sales Index, which also predicts future closing activity, but it doesn’t measure the overall health of the market.  

Current Market Index SW Florida Real Estate by the Ellis Team
Current Market Index SW Florida Real Estate by the Ellis Team

 Our local index measures pending sales, but also takes into account listing inventory and measures the overall health of one against the other.  It tells us if properties are moving relative to overall supply.  This is important because in a good market, it may actually be more of a seller’s market than people realize.  In a hot market, sales are held back by the supply, meaning if there were more supply, chances are, there would have been more sales. 

 

The CMI Index numbers peaked out in January of 2008, and back then we started telling the public sales were about to pick up and inventory would start declining.  Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened throughout 2008 and into 2009.  Our Index was at it’s lowest in April of 2005 and at it’s highest in January of 2008.  The higher the index number, the more of a buyer’s market it is and the lower the number, the more of a seller’s market we have.  Back in July of 2005, the overall Lee County Index stood at only 1.07.  As we know all too well, that was about to change drastically.  The numbers shot up to 2.11 by September 2005, and 3.44 by October.   

So what do the numbers tell us today?  Our index hit 3.72 in April and stands at 3.80 in July of 2009.  This tells us inventory levels have been decreasing as predicted and pending sales have been increasing, as predicted.  In fact, last month we sounded the alarm that June sales could reach record levels, and they did.  July’s numbers when released should be strong as well.  Don’t confuse this with rising prices just yet.  The market is strong in sales volume, but we’re in a new market that has reset, and prices aren’t going back to 2005 levels.  We are starting all over from scratch and 2009 is the new baseline, and as the market heals, the baseline will have room for future price appreciation, with moderation. 

We update this graph each month on our Blog, blog.topagent.com and we look forward to providing this insight to News Press readers in the months to come.  Its one thing to have a Feeling about what the market is doing, however really studying the actual facts and charting trends helps to better understand what the market is actually doing, and where it may be headed.  Nobody can know with absolute certainty what will happen in the future, so we look to statistics to give us our best guidance.  Statistics are our radar so to speak.   

We really try to look at the data with an unbiased eye, meaning we’ll let the data speak for itself and tell the story, as opposed to hypothesizing what the story should be and trying to prove it.  We’ve been right, and we’ve been wrong, and the point is we’re not attached to the outcome of our predictions.  We simply lay it out there and let you decide based upon the best facts we have at the time. 

We’ll be running a new batch of numbers soon, but the July Index appears to show a strong market going forward for the next few months.  It looks like July and August sales numbers should be in good, and we look forward to the release of official numbers on August 21.  We won’t be surprised if July’s numbers are big, perhaps up as much as 100% or so, but down slightly from June’s record numbers.

As printed in the Fort Myers News Press August 15, 2009

 

 

 

 

 

Ellis Team SW Florida Real Estate June 2008 Current Market Index Improves For a Fifth Straight Month

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The Ellis Team SW Florida real estate Current Market Index improved for the 5th straight month.  The index moved down to 7.23 for the Fort Myers, Cape Coral area.  For the entire Lee County Florida area the Current Market Index fell to 9.21, down from 9.57 the previous month.

Ellis Team SW Florida Real Estate Current Market Index

Single family listings in Lee County rose to 15,634, up from 15,340 the month prior, but Pending sales increased to 1,697, up from 1,603 in May.  We’ve already predicted May sales numbers should be about 57-60% higher over last year, while average prices should be down about 25% from last year.  We used the mean average and the official numbers use the median average, so there could be some slight variations when numbers are released.

We look at closed sale data in addition to using the Current Market Index to get a direction of where the market is headed.  This index has been so successful in its accuracy that the National Association of Realtors have adopted a similiar but more simple formula to predict the future market called the Pending Home Sales Index.

Next week we’ll report official numbers for May, but suffice it to say that not only will May numbers look stellar but June numbers should also look stellar once the month is completed.