 175 S. Orem Blvd Orem, UT 84058 |
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May 3, 2012
March 19, 2012
I thought it only fair to update my last post.
The Branch Manager of that showing serivce called me today to apologize. She even told me what my “code” was. I am going to have to remember that code, or password, if I want to show the listings of agents that choose to use that service and for some reason, that still rubs me wrong. In my mind it is forcing me to be a member of something I would rather not be a member of. I stated my reasons in the last post.
I still believe that by forcing an agent that is not subscribed to the service to remember a code or password in order to show a listing is limiting the showability of the home!
THE LAST THING A SELLER WANTS IS TO
LIMIT THE SHOWINGS OF THEIR HOME
TO QUALIFIED BUYERS
IN ANY WAY!
However, I admire the company for taking the time to try and make right the wrong so I will re-think my stand about refusing to call that service in the future. Thank you Donna.
Filed under: Real Estate — Susan @ 5:01 pm
March 7, 2012
 I have never subscribed to a Centralized Showing Service. I know some agents like to pay for them. Each agent has the right to choose whether a showing service is right for him/her or not.
For me, I prefer to handle the calls personally. If I were crazy busy, maybe it would be something to check into but I enjoy taking the calls and making arrangements to have my listings shown. I feel like it gives me a more personal connection to my listings.
When I am representing a buyer, I occasionally run across a listing that requires I call a service to show a property. In the past, it has never been a problem. A few times, it has been a little annoying as I sometimes have a question I need to ask on behalf of my buyer which would determine whether or not that client even wants to see the property after all. The service has never seen the property and doesn’t have any information on the property that the agent has not given them, so an off-hand question is out of their realm.
In these cases, I end up waiting an extra long time for the service to ask the agent the question then get back to me. Okay, so that is one glitch with the showing service system, not as a client of theirs but as a consumer of thier product, a product they are charging their clients for.
Next, there have been times when I try to make appointment after usual business hours. REALTORS® often work long hours starting in the morning researching properties and go throughout the day, often showing houses at night as well. When a buying client calls and says, “I just saw a house I must see tonight!” What do you do?
If the agents paying for the service are working long hours, I guess I don’t see how the services think they are providing something that is worth the cost if they do not at least try to match the hours of their clients.
Finally, I was recently trying to make appointments for a buying client of mine. One of the listings was using a showing service. I called and gave them the number of the home I wanted to show. Once they had all the information they needed to make the appointment, they asked me for my “Code”.
I have never subscribed to a service. I don’t use them myself nor do I plan to use them. I asked, “My code?”
“Yes, before I can allow you to show this property, I need your code.”
After asking if she was looking for my association number, my NRDs number, my license number, to no avail, I finally told her I couldn’t imagine what my “code” could be.
She grew very testy and said, “Ma’am, if you want to show this property, you must give me your code. If this is Susan Jackson with CENTURY 21 Bushnell, then I need your code.”
I was hanging to civility, (barely maybe, but yes I was) and said, “I don’t understand how I could have a code if I have never subscribed to a showing service?”
“Well Ma’am, if you don’t know your code, you can’t show this property!”
“Okay, I guess maybe I won’t be showing it then because I don’t know my “code”. ”
She then proceeded to chew me out, non-stop, not letting me get a word in or ask more questions as to how I could go about getting the secret “code”. I finally grew so offended that I just hung up. I am sure I am twice as old as this rude girl, (Did I just admit that?).
First, I didn’t think I had done anything to warrant getting scolded and second, REALLY?
Someone is paying that girl to insult the agents for just trying to help them sell their listings.
If I were the Seller on that house, I would be concerned that the showing service requires every agent that wants to show my home to have and keep sacred, some secret code. I don’t know what it would be.
I did not show the home to my buyer because I didn’t have, or as I was accused, remember my “code”. If I have never subscribed to this service, I wouldn’t think I should have a code or be required to remember one but the service, a service I do not pay or subscibe to, thinks I should.
This is a Buyer’s market. There are a lot of listings out there to compete with. I made appointments to see the 7 other homes on my buyer’s list. Sadly, that home was not one of them.
In the future, when I see that service listed as a contact for showing the home. I will call the agent directly because I will NEVER call them again. I won’t volunteer to be insulted by a company claiming to be serving our industry.
Sellers, when you are interviewing an agent to list your home, may I recommend you ask if they plan to use a Showing Service. If they do, you should make sure you ask questions about or set guidelines as to how the service might limit showings of your home. If a buyer can’t get into your home, they will never make an offer.
Filed under: Real Estate — Susan @ 12:39 pm
May 19, 2011
April 9, 2011
March 14, 2011
Here is a list of current *Short Sale Listings in North Utah County. Give me a call if you would like to make an appointment to see any of these homes or *short sale listings in South Utah County.
*Short Sale report 3-14-11
*IMPORTANT NOTICE:
Susan Jackson and/or CENTURY 21 Bushnell is not associated with the government, and our service is not approved by the government or your lender. Even if you accept this offer and use our service, your lender may not agree to change your loan. If you stop paying your mortgage, you could lose your home and damage your credit rating.
March 3, 2011
 There is a new trend that is gaining momentum in the world of real estate. Showing services. These are service centers that take care of scheduling the showings for agent’s listings. I am not sure how long they have been around. I am sure there have been different models of the service that have been trying for years to take hold, but I have only seen it really start to catch in my neck of the woods in the last year and a half or so.
I do remember hearing the sales pitch of the first one I had ever heard of. It sounded good. You sign up, then let them know when you have listings. As an agent, once signed up with the service, you just put down the service’s phone number as a contact for other agents to call when they have an interested, potential buyer. At least this particular service took it’s fee at closing but I am sure that by now, there are differing methods of payment.
The pros of this service are:
* Some agents are hard to reach, the service is always there, ready to take the calls and schedule the appointments.
* It frees up an agent’s time to do other, more important tasks.
* It makes you look more professional at listing appointment, therefore, winning you more listings.
* It keeps track of the calls and showings and sends the agent a report.
* It sends feedback requests to the agents that showed the home.
* Scheduling is fast and easy.
* Claim the ease of scheduling means more showings.
* Have updated showing instructions and information.
* Make drive up showings easier.
* Makes listing easier to show resulting in more showings and a faster sale.
In the beginning, I contemplated using one of these services. It sounded good but I couldn’t overcome my resistance to losing that one on one contact. I enjoy taking calls from agents wanting to schedule showings on my listings. It gives me the chance to talk to them and ask a few questions and get information on how serious the buyers may be or if they are just looking, etc. You can learn a lot in those few seconds of conversation. So, I never did sign up.
Now that time has gone by, I am seeing more of these services around and I have had the opportunity to interact with them. Some are definitely better than others. They are not always as fast as they claim. Most of the times I have called, I have been told they will have to get back to me. Some take longer than others and some don’t get back to me before we are finished our showing tour. Some, to my displeasure, are NOT always there, ready to take my call. They have normal business hours which makes it impossible to show a home the following morning.
I often get buyers that call me in the evening and ask to see a home the next morning before they go to work. Is it rude to expect a seller to show with that short a notice? Probably, but I guarantee that if the buyer doesn’t see the home, they are NOT going to make an offer.
Buyers are anxious to find the right home and when they run across one that looks promising, they want to act, now! So, these showing services that have business hours have lost showings several times from me simply because I could not reach them in time.
There have been times I call and my buyer wants me to ask a specific question about the property before we schedule a showing. The answer determines whether it will be still be on the list. The showing service doesn’t know the answer and here is my biggest problem with these services.
Some agents are relying on them too much. They do not even publish their own phone numbers as a contact on the multiple listing services. I think this is a disservice to their sellers and is frustrating to me, other agents I have spoken to, and to buyers. Yes, I am happy to call the service to schedule a showing but it is unrealistic to think the service can answer all the questions my buyers may have. That is the listing agent’s job.
So, if you are interviewing a listing agent and their sales pitch includes the fact that they use a showing service, ask a few questions before accepting right away that the service is a bonus for hiring that agent. There are many very good agents that do use them. Just make sure you find out just how much they rely on the showing service and if they still intend to be reachable to other agents that may have potentially interested buyers.
February 24, 2011
 Shark Pic taken by my husband, June 09, Roatan Honduras If you know me then you know that I love to scuba dive. When I am not diving, I am trying to figure out how I can get somewhere so I can dive. I like to try new places and have been to many different vacation destinations. When I travel, I always pay attention to the real estate atmosphere of the area we are in. I take pictures of homes for sale, I grab brochures, talk to the locals, and have even visited the local real estate offices in order to educate myself on the market wherever I visit. My knowledge and experience have come in handy for many people over the years as they consider buying a vacation home. If you are considering buying a vacation home in a tropical area, give me call or email me. I would love to share my thoughts on the places I’ve been.
Now, back to diving…
Since I love to dive, I talk about it… a lot. I hope I am not one of those people that go on and on, boring everyone that will listen with every detail… but I probably am.
Since I talk about it a lot, the most common response I get is, “I would like to try diving but I am afraid of sharks.”
That is such a common statement but my husband recently made an analogy that I wanted to share. I can’t remember word for word so I will put it in terms I can remember and explain, but the idea was his.
Many people say they won’t dive because they are afraid of sharks but few will say they will not go to Yellowstone because they are afraid of all the wild animals. Millions of people go to Yellowstone in spite of the fact that it is full of wild beasts that can and have killed people over the years. (While we were there for a family vacation a few years back, we bought the book, “Deaths in Yellowstone” and took turns reading it out loud during our visit so we are acutely, and a bit humorously, aware of how dangerous Yellowstone can be.)
So, we visited Yellowstone and while there, we were excited to see a coyote. You don’t see them everyday so it was a treat for us and while Coyotes wouldn’t frighten too many people, no one is going to go try and pet one, right?
Ok, next, we saw a lot of Buffalo. They are magnificent creatures. They may seem harmless from a distance but again, you wouldn’t want to get too close and try to pet one. They have been known to hurt many a tourist when approached.
We saw several black bears that trip. Talk about exciting. There was even one that came over the ridge while we were fishing. We were all spread out along the bank of the river and I quickly rounded up my little kiddies and moved to a safe distance from our car and my big strong husband. In the end, there was no cause for alarm, but I do not regret taking caution.
Finally, while we were driving along on the North end which is less traveled than the rest of the park, we spotted a bear and her cub crossing the road. My husband wanted to get a picture so he got out the car and walked down the hill a bit trying to get a good shot. It didn’t take long before he realized this was not just a Black Bear but rather a Grizzly, and a mother Grizzly at that. He carefully backed away and got into the car and was happy to have experienced that sighting without harm. Grizzly bears are much more aggressive and attack more often than Black bears.
So, my husband’s analogy about diving with sharks is kind of like our trip to Yellowstone. There are many different kinds of sharks. There are Coyote sharks, there are Buffalo sharks, Black Bear sharks and …Grizzly Sharks.
Most sharks have the ability to harm a human, but will not. People have been harmed, just like at Yellowstone, when they do not exercise caution, and try to pet them or molest them in some way, but in most cases, they will run, or swim the other way when you approach.
I have come across several species and some, such as a Nurse Shark, are almost docile and just want to be left alone to sleep in the sand on the bottom. You can look from a distance but if you get too close, they swim away, I am sure annoyed at being disturbed.
I have seen a few different Reef Sharks as well. They look more menacing but I have yet to see one that didn’t want to just get away as we approached.
There are 3 kinds of sharks that I would be happy to never run across. The Bull Shark is one of them and there is a possibility that I will see one someday since they are often found in clear, tropical water. They are big and while harmless, most of the time, can be onery and aggressive. I am pretty sure I would live to tell about it but I would still rather not see one.
The others are Great Whites and Tiger Sharks. I believe the odds of running into these are slim. Great Whites tend to like murky water so they can ambush their prey. There isn’t much point in diving in water if you can’t see anything.
Tiger Sharks are just hungry. They will eat anything, anywhere. The possibility of running across one of those is higher if you are in Hawaii and I am still not sure that shark we cornered, albeit accidentally, in the cave off Lana’i wasn’t a Tiger. In person, it looked like it had stripes but the camera/pictures wasn’t able to prove it. If it was a Tiger, we were lucky that it wanted nothing more than to get away from us and out of that cave.
I also take comfort in the statistics. Scuba divers have rarely, very rarely, been attacked by sharks and even of those, the diver was trying to pet the shark, ride it, or molest it in someway. Most shark attacks happen on the surface so before I surface, I take a good look around before I head up to the boat. ha ha
Then there is always my final strategy. You should never dive without a dive buddy. It is unsafe to do so. I always carry a dive knife as well. I figure if I see a hungy shark coming my way, I can just use my knife.
Some say it is best to aim for the gills and others say aim for the eyes. I say, aim for my dive buddy and while he is bleeding, I should have plenty of time to get away. 
February 10, 2011
I am sure you have noticed my brand or my logo. It incorporated my baby, my Plymouth Prowler, into my marketing at the beginning of my real estate career. My slogan has been
“I’m on the “prowl” to get your home sold”
It’s been quite a few years and I got a wild whim so decided to put my car on Craigslist…just to see. Well, it seems that only minutes later, I got a bite and started conversing back and forth with an interested party and the longer the converstation lasted, the more serious it got.
I panicked!
I guess I won’t be selling it just yet, or at least, it would have to be an offer I couldn’t refuse, but for now, I love my beautiful, rare car and am happy to keep it a little longer.
Built: 1997-2002
Designer: Chip Foose
1999 car: 253 HP
Autostick Transmission
0-62 mph=5.9 seconds
2002, changed to Chrysler
Only 11,702 cars were made between 1997-2002
Filed under: Real Estate — Susan @ 12:14 am
December 29, 2010
I admit it, I love HGTV!!!
I don’t watch TV during the daytime and I think I am the only one in the house that likes it so I don’t watch HGTV often. When I am home alone or everyone else is off doing other things, I watch and then, I have a hard time turning it off. It is like my husband’s Triple Chocolate Torte, I can’t get enough.
I particularly like Property Virgins and Designed to Sell. There used to be one called Real Estate Intervention or something like that. I only saw it once or twice but I think that one would be one of my favorites if I could watch it more. It had a “no-bones-about-it” type of agent telling people why their house won’t sell. I related to that one for some reason.
The two I mentioned before seem to be on whenever I am able to watch so I am sure that is why they have become my favorites, but I also relate to them well. I love Sandra Rinomato on Property Virgins. She is so patient and knowledgeable.
Designed to Sell is also a good one, though I often disagree with the lengths they go to re-decorate a home to sell. Sure enough, the end product is always beautiful but at least in our area, often unnecessary to get a home sold. I have decided that they need to make sure the decorator has ample opportunity to “wow” the audience. It just seems kind of silly to me though when they go into one house and say the walls are too neutral so they paint them green, then the next house, they say the walls are too green so they paint them neutral. They paint one house the same color that was supposedly the reason the last house would not sell. There is humor in that, somewhere.
Also, when they have the open house at the end, it bugs me that that “buyers” come in and critique the funishings. I do not downplay the importance of good staging but the buyers I work with understand that the furnishings do not come with the house. They spend their time trying to decide if their own furnishings will look good in the home, not the previous owners.
I recently saw Design on a Dime for the first time and it was amusing to me. After watching Designed to Sell and an occasional re-decorating show, I have figured out that the common budget seems to be around $1,000 for an HGTV onscreen makeover. Design on a dime will do a makeover on a room and spend around $1,000 but they hand make everything. The one I saw showed the decorators making a lampshade out of styrofoam cups. They glued about 15 cups together and put it on the lamp and I had to chuckle. I thought, “Okay, Design on a Dime comes in and spends about $1,000 to make things like lampshades out of styrofoam cups so that later, Designed to Sell can come in and spend about $1,000 to get rid of things like hideous styrofoam lampshades.”
Filed under: Real Estate — Susan @ 4:43 pm
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