Thursday, June 29, 2006

Why didn't I get an Offer???

A seller puts their home on the market and then waits for the offers. BUT - they don't come. In fact 40 or 50 people look at their home and nothing happens. No one has any NEGATIVE feedback, everyone says "it's a nice house", but no one makes an offer.
What's wrong?
Simple - the home is competeing against other homes that offer more for the same money. People are looking at this home and then looking at other homes and saying, "the other homes are a better buy". There is only one way to fix this problem...
Lower the price. Once YOUR home is the best buy among a group of similarly priced homes, you'll get an offer. Just because you want to get more, doesn't mean someone will pay more.

Another Day in Real Estate Class

It's Mike again and I have just completed the ninth day of the Alabama Pre-License class for a class of 18 students. The last day is tomorrow and they all take their Pre-License Test. Once passing the test, they will go and take the state exam.

I have to admit, being a real estate instructor is fun. I simply LOVE doing it. I am always amazed at how much information the human brain can learn and retain in a period of just 2 weeks. But I digress... I should start at the beginning...

You see, when I first started real estate instructing, I was in Louisiana and I was working for a small real estate company with 10 agents. I talked the broker into doing what I called FULL TIME real estate classes for full time agents. I figured that if we did the classes part time, we would end up with part time agents. After a year, the company had tripled in size.

Fast forward 5 years. I had met a girl, gotten married, and moved to Alabama. I started my own real estate company, Access Realty in Birmingham in 1998. Over the next few years, besides doing regular real estate business, I started getting the points necessary for my intructors license. It took 5 years but I finally got them.

Once I was an instructor - I knew what I had to do. I hadn't forgotten the successes we had had with the small company in Louisiana. I started doing the pre-license class and marketing the classes as we scheduled them. In January of 2003, we had 3 agents. I have done the classes now for 3 years and now we have 60 agents and 2 offices in Birmingham.

I have also put together a Fast Start Training program that takes 2 weeks to complete. There is a minimal charge for this class. The new agent learns exactly what they have to do to get business fast. And - it works. Every agent that has followed the steps has made over $25,000 in their first 6 months in the business. This is an amazing statistic. Most agents do NO business.

I guess if I could, I would figure out more ways to make people pay and listen to me talk. But for the time being, I'm happy doing what I'm doing. Besides, Access Realty is on track to be the fastest growing company in Alabama.