Holmes on Homes

In the last edition we talked about the bubble bursting in pricing. If you tune in often, you’ll know I ramble on about supply & demand factors driving pricing and this insane market. This edition of Holmes on Homes is going to focus on how that translates into what it’s like actually selling AND buying in this market.

Options for buyers and sellers in 2021 look quite a bit different than it did just a few years ago. Think about the difference from 10 years ago!! That really isn’t too long ago and for most readers, were homeowners well before that. Remember when it was very black and white with options available to you. List your home – deal with repairs or updates – next come showings, inspections, appraisals and then wait for a closing date. What about buyers – you had Realtors and our MLS systems to tap into for home searches. That was about it! Today the landscape of real estate has changed drastically due to market conditions and technology.

We’ll start with the selling side of the real estate transaction and “WOW” doesn’t do it justice. It would be more of an expletive-filled statement on the amount of change here. 10 years ago you had a simple concept & simple technology: list your home with a Realtor. Take guidance on what to do with the home to present it. Deal with showings, inspection, appraisals and so on. Get to the closing and make sure the buyer is there too!

Today there is a world of options and the role of a Realtor has changed too. There’s everything from full-service real estate teams (that’s us), flat fee services and down to the D-I-Y approach with MLS access groups. I think of my role as a Realtor as your concierge of real estate solutions. I literally challenge our sellers to give our team things to get off their plate. Do you need movers? Would you like people to come in and pack for you? Want to leave furniture or things behind? Do you need a system to manage utility set up or transfers? Do you need cleaning, snow or lawn services? Literally, the additions to the customer service points can be endless and all you have to do is ask.

We take an approach of using our tools and fitting them around your experience to customize the approach. Take viewing a home as an example. We have 3D tours & live-video tours for remote viewing or for covid sensitivity. You can customize showing times so you can distance-learn or work from home. Do you want to restrict showings so you can have family time at dinner? All of this can be done with today’s tech & market trends.

But this is where it gets interesting and for those of you still reading, let your head spin on this. How about this concept: The Offer House. Yeah, that’s right.. an offer-house. I’m just giving you the same message I had a year ago but with a new name. Open Door, MarketPass, Zillow, Homestead Road and so on – they all make cash offers on homes. C’mon.. if you haven’t heard of these companies or seen their ads, received their mailers, emails, postcards or have seen the billboards – you know the ones I’m talking about. If you haven’t seen this stuff – you’ve been stuck inside. We’ll give you 2020 as an excuse.

If your home fits one of these buyer options – we can host an OFFER HOUSE! Get it.. open house.. offer house? All jokes aside, that’s literally where we’re at. There are local companies like MarketPass that have no restrictions on what they buy and groups like Zillow (Guaranteed Offer guy) which are more restrictive and gimmicky. What our team is doing to put all of that chaos under one process for you - host an offer house. In other words, we can meet for about 30 minutes or so at your home to go over the process and take a few pictures. From there we can literally solicit offers from all of these companies. Pre-selling a home can add a ton of value for a seller. You can choose your closing date up to several months out! Want the cash from the sale but need a holdover to help coordinate your next move – check! Need a late checkout? Done. Don’t want to clean.. want to leave stuff behind you don’t need or want – check, check. Need to sell in order to buy and want to be a confident buyer – check. Want to avoid repairs or updates, staging, showings, inspections, appraisals and buyer fall out – yes, it checks all of those boxes as well.

How far out are we from you hitting my website or walking into my office and saying “hey.. I want to sell my home” and my reply is “Great.. here’s your offer”. Ladies and gentlemen – that exists TODAY!

Whether you want to hit the open market and watch the buyers attack or you want a more simplistic approach – Our role as Realtors has evolved to a concept of providing real estate solutions. Our approach isn’t to fit you, your family and your home into our box. The goal is to take the tools and systems we have out of the box and customize them around you. All you have to do is ask.