I know there’s a large number of salespeople, from many industries including real estate, insurance, various MLM companies and more, who read this blog so I wanted to tell you about a great new tool I am using.

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Did you know that as much as 70% of the time you spend on the phone is wasted time? You dial the number, wait while the machine picks up, listen to the outgoing message, and then leave your message, all the while eating into your valuable time.

What if you could upload your call list, have your calls dialed, and when a voice mail clicks in, your pre-recorded message is left automatically while the next number in your list is being dialed?

This system has proven that 100, or more, calls an hour is completely attainable.

Check it out at http://REAgentDialer.com – there’s a completely FREE, no-hassle 15-day trial.

What have you got to lose?

In my recent update on the Milton Ontario real estate market, I made a comment that eluded to the thought that perhaps a house is sold too quickly when it is sold with multiple offers within 24 hours of it coming onto the market. I’m now going to elaborate on that thought for you.

As a Realtor, when working with a client, I have what is known as a fiduciary responsibility to my clients. The definition of fiduciary, as found on Wiki is:

“A fiduciary duty is the highest standard of care at either equity or law. A fiduciary (abbreviation fid) is expected to be extremely loyal to the person to whom he owes the duty (the “principal”): he must not put his personal interests before the duty, and must not profit from his position as a fiduciary, unless the principal consents. The word itself comes originally from the Latin fides, meaning faith, and fiducia, trust.”

One of the reasons that homeowners hire Realtors to sell their home is so that they can get fair market value for their home. According to the Ontario Real Estate Association, fair market value is determined when a willing, informed buyer and a willing, informed seller come to agreement after the property has been reasonably exposed to the marketplace. Yes, this is not an exact quote, however, this is the essence of the definition as drummed into every Realtor who is licensed in Ontario. Another thing that I am convinced that most Realtors never consider is that there is usually more than one buyer for a home, and it is the Realtor’s job to attract and negotiate an offer with the best buyer for that home.

I gotta ask you, how can 6 or 12 or 24 hours possibly be considered to be ‘reasonable exposure’ to the marketplace? I challenge any one of my colleagues to convince me, or a judge for that matter, that this is even remotely close to reasonable exposure! After all, people work, they go away on weekends, etc.

Don’t get me wrong, I know there are times when a seller wants the process finished immediately, however, they are few and far between. I have to believe that if the vast majority of sellers were advised that it would be good for their home to have 3, 4, or 5 days exposure to the market, they could still get multiple offers AND get more money. Realistically, how many people are going to turn away $5,000, $10,000 or more in exchange for keeping their home ‘showings-ready’ for an extra couple of days? Would you?

I’ve been saying for most of my career as a Realtor that one day, somewhere, sometime, some smart lawyer will launch a class action suit against the real estate industry over this matter, and I have to say that I would be fully supportive of such a suit.

I’m not naive, I know that waiting a couple of days for offers could cause some people to walk away; it could, but it’s not likely when there is a drastic shortage of inventory. Heck, this is the perfect time for sellers to wait and get more money; there just aren’t another 3 houses for them to choose from!

There have been a few articles in the Toronto Star recently, talking about multiple offers – here’s a snippet from those pieces:

• For sellers, bidding wars or multiple offers from buyers are a dream come true. Numerous bidding wars took place in the United States and in many parts of Canada before the economic meltdown of 2008, but for the most part, such widespread buying frenzies are no longer taking place. Yet even in today’s balanced market, bidding wars continue on specific properties in certain areas. Although we are seeing many examples of multiple offers, it does not necessarily mean buyers
  Routing Number VIRGINIA COMMERCE BANK

  are overpaying for properties.
  Read the entire article here
  

• Sellers or real estate agents lying through their teeth; opening up offers after the allowed time period. Those are just a couple of the allegations I have received via email following my recent articles on bidding wars.

  We are now seeing an increase in people entering the market at the same time as the number of homes for sale are going down. As a result, buyers need to be even more aware of some of the practical problems they will face when they choose to participate in a multiple-offer situation.

  Here are some situations that I’ve been told about:
  Read the entire article here

Please, don’t think I am against the real estate industry; I’m not, and wouldn’t be such an active participant in it if I did not believe in the great value that Realtors bring to the public. However, there certainly is room for cleaning up some areas of the industry, and I believe this is one of them.

What do you think?

Here’s the latest update from the Milton real estate market. As you can see in the first chart, the Total Market Annual Summary, the inventory of available homes is slowly tracking downwards. We now have a similar amount of inventory to what was available before the new construction started back in 2001, yet we have 4 times the number of houses. Sales activity is remaining fairly constant, and as the days on market reveals, things are selling quite quickly. 

Here’s the annual update, showing overall activity:

And here’s the Weekly Price Range Summary

As the Weekly Summary by Price Range (above) reveals, activity is spread across the lower ranges. An interesting note is that, with today’s mortgage rates, money has a much stronger buying power, and I think that is partly why the sales over $375,000 are fairly good.

For example, at 3.6%, the monthly payment on a $100,000 mortgage is approximately $505; if rates were 5.5%, that same payment would only get you $81,000 of mortgage. Double those numbers and your $1010 will now get you into a $200,000 mortgage vs a $162,000 mortgage. More realistically, multiply those numbers by 3.5 and your $1,768 will get you a $368,000 mortgage at 3.6% vs a $284,000 mortgage at 5.5%. THIS IS HUGE!!! This difference alone moves you from the mid-range semi-detached homes and the upper-end row houses (townhouses) into the lower-mid-range detached homes. For the same monthly payment. Sure, your taxes will be a touch higher, and the downpayment required a little bit more, but not by a significant amount. 

And here’s the graphical listings and sales information (listings in green; sales in red):

Another fascinating week of activity in town, with the number of sales being down 33% over the previous week, and the number of available properties staying relatively consistent. I’ve included a graph to give a clearer visual presentation of the trend over the past 8 months, and it is quite interesting.

I have to repeat what I’ve been saying every week – multiple offers abound. I was involved in 2 more this week. Also, as agents are catching up to the changing market, some of the benefits to buyers

are already disappearing. For a couple of months, it was easy to get an offer accepted conditional upon the sale of the buyer’s property; now it is virtually impossible. Why, you might ask? Because if the house is priced properly and shows well, it seems increasingly likely that there will be multiple offers, so there won’t be a need to accept a conditional-on-sale offer.

What this means for sellers is that NOW is a good time to sell! What this means for buyers is that the window is rapidly slamming shut! The perfect storm I’ve been talking about is rapidly dissipating. Sure, it may come back, but it may not come back for 5, 10, 15 years. I have to speak straight from the heart, and ask when people are going to get off the fence and take action? We’ve seen prices inching up; the supply is down, and still people are trying to time the market. Guess what folks – you missed the bottom of the market. Don’t keep trying to do the impossible; just get into the market now!

Call me today at 905-208-7002, and we’ll get you moving along the path to owning a home, or an investment property, while the options are still out there.

Here’s the updated Annual Summary:

Milton Real Estate Activity Summary 05-22-09

And here’s the weekly overview:

Milton Real Estate Weekly Summary

And here’s the weekly summary graph of listings (green) and sales (red):