A Griffith Listing

Real Estate Services by Jon Griffith

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Experience the Third Advantage

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Experience the Advantages of working with a Realty Executives agent.

No. 3:  Powerful Marketing

With me as your “Executive,” you’ll personally benefit from my strong, united marketing efforts designed to bring potential buyers and sellers together to meet your needs.  Our international, regional and local marketing programs including TV, Radio, Print, outdoor and internet advertising will help you buy or sell real estate fast, easily and at your desired price.

There is a difference between a typical agent and an “Executive,” and it shows in every single transaction.  Put these advantages at work for you today by calling!

Presenting Your Home: Photos

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80% of all buyers use the internet to shop for a home.  It takes an average of 12 to 18 months for them to actually purchase a home, from the initial thoughts of selling their home to the process of purchasing yours.  Since those people start on the internet, listing your home without photographs would be as effective as driving a car without gas.

Think about how many products you’ve been sold on because of the marketing that goes into it.  How much of that marketing contained images of people, places, the actual product?

If your house does not have a photo, people will not look at it.  They will not show it, they will not even think about it.  It’s gone, and getting them back will be difficult if the image is added too late, and here’s one reason why.  When I look for new homes on the market, I skip the properties without photos at first, then I go back to look at the ones without if I think my client would like it, based on my knowledge of the area.  If I go back at a later date and a picture has been added, it actually has a greater chance of being skipped because at that point, I’m looking for the results that don’t have photos.

The new FlexMLS allows us to search for listings based on whether or not they have photos.  This basically eliminates properties from my search if it doesn’t have a photo.

Part of my marketing plan, which is by no means an added benefit, is that I take lots of photos.  I say that it’s not an added benefit because no property should be listed without photos, period.  I don’t just take photos, I publish a property website for each listing, publicize it to as many places on the internet as I possibly can, and I create my own custom slide show for your home.

ARMLS used to offer photography services for us.  They would take a shot of the front of the property for us and we wouldn’t have to do anything, but it would only be one mediocre photo.

ARMLS announced today that they would be discontinuing this service and they offered the following reasons for the change:

  • Over half of the listings currently in TEMPO were marked “do not photograph” when they were entered into the system.
  • 80% of the half that WAS photographed by PhotoReal had their exterior photo replaced with one supplied by the listing agent within two weeks of the listing going active.
  • 90% of the current listing database has photos provided by agents rather than the PhotoReal photography service.

What’s the most important thing to note in these three points?  “WITHIN TWO WEEKS OF THE LISTING GOING ACTIVE.”

The fact that agents enter listings AT ALL WITHOUT PHOTOS is hurting the potential sale of your property.  List with me and I’ll make sure you don’t experience those gaps in service.

For an example of a website that I created for one of my listings, click here.

How do Real Estate Agents Get Paid

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…and who pays them?

Before I was a REALTOR, I was a consumer, and I bought a house. Fortunately for me, or maybe it wasn’t so fortunate, my REALTOR was my father. He also owned the house that I purchased. This worked both for and against me, but we won’t go into that now. The point is, I had no idea how REALTORS made a living prior to diving into the business myself, and you may also have questions about how we get money on our european wallets.

Real estate agents are 100% commission based jobs. That means, we don’t get a paycheck unless we do business. Makes sense. Open up shop, provide a service, get paid, or sit on the couch all day wondering what to do.

Real estate agents also work as sales agents under a real estate Broker. That broker typically collects a percentage of what we make to cover the costs of running the company. At Realty Executives, we pay a premium to use the name while we conduct business according to their standards and the standards of the Arizona Department of Real Estate and the National Association of Realtors.

If we don’t sell a home, we still pay our broker, mortgage, utilities, etc. So we’re always in a position where cash is flowing out, but not always in a position where cash is flowing in. We’re also in a business where we need to be available when most of the rest of the world is not. This means that we sometimes have to work on the holidays that you get to spend having fun. On the other hand, we have the freedom to “take a lunch” whenever we want.

What does having a Realtor cost the Buyer? Answer: Nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada.

When you meet me for the first time and express an interest in purchasing a home, I assess how serious you are about purchasing, and then I begin to spend money on you to help you find that home. Searching for a home with a REALTOR costs you only time. You will spend nothing out of pocket, but we will commit a large portion of our business day(s) and marketing budget to provide you with the most pleasant showings as we possibly can. We fill our tanks, fill your stomachs, and become your city tour guide for the duration of your search. If you purchase a home without using us after spending all that time, we don’t get paid, but we also don’t hold it against you, because you may not have known, which is why I’m writing about it. 🙂

When the seller hires a broker to sell their home, the broker charges them a commission to do so. When that broker lists the property on the MLS, they indicate how much of that commission will be paid to the agent who brings YOU (the buyer) to the table to purchase the home.

The buyer won’t have to open their wallets until an offer is accepted, at which point a series of events begin that justify why the selling broker is willing to pay us in most cases half of the agreed upon commission.

What does having a Realtor cost the Seller?

The seller is the one who has the highest expense. From fixing up their property to staging it, the seller will bear the majority burden of cost in selling a home.

When the seller strikes an employment agreement with the broker, they typically agree to a set commission of the final sales price of the home and they offer a portion of that to anyone who brings a buyer. When the property closes escrow, the funds owed the listing brokerage are distributed according to the agreement between the two brokerages and each real estate agent is paid accordingly.

Jack Of All Trades, Master of None

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A pilot flies the plane.  He doesn’t fix the engine.  The technician installs the indicator lights, but the pilot needs only to know one thing.  What does it mean when it’s on, what does it mean when it’s off…

Finding yourself wasting time on tasks that you, to be frank, suck at?  Quit doing those tasks.  When you’re building your business, there’s something to be said for knowing what the indicators are, but that doesn’t mean you need to know how to take them apart and put them back together again.

In the world of blogging, which is basically marketing through copy editing, it’s critical that you find your place and pursue it.  Some of us design templates, some of us program features, some of us can do a little bit of everything.  While it’s nice to be able to say, “I know how to do that,” it can very easily become your downfall.

There are only so many days in a week, and so many hours in a day.  Spending your time working on a wider variety of tasks will make you a well rounded individual with an average compensation.  Why?  Because the more you show you know, the more they’ll demand, and likely without increased return on your invested time…and then you lose one important opportunity, the opportunity to strive for excellence in one area.

People who focus on one thing develop their craft to a much higher degree than those of us who attempt to do it all, and therefore are worth more.  In the search for purpose in this life, it’s fun to explore many different ideas.  It’s exciting to apply your talents to more than one area, but it will be even more rewarding if you become an expert in your field.  You might even find that focusing on one path opens up doors you thought would never appear.

The key to financial wealth and freedom in this economy is developing a support network and farming out the tasks that you just plain suck at.  Anyone who has built a successful business can tell you that.  Don’t spend your time doing what you don’t know how to do.  Evaluate your processes, make sure you understand how they work to help your business, but find the right person who is an expert at that task…or machine :).  Robots never talk back! Please read the stockpair review for more info.