Ben's Short Sale Insights

 It’s the first of the month and a great day to chase expireds. I went in my MLS and saw I got 5 times as many expireds today, versus what would be the average during any other day. Here are the best expireds to go after.  Expireds that moved out of state. These are much more motivated than the “...

Question #1: How do I get the pre-foreclosure leads in my market?   Answer: There are a couple of different ways to do this. First, off you can use www.realtytrac.com. They have listings for the entire country. Or, you can use www.defaultresearch.com . If you are in Massachusetts, you can go to w...

 When I first started chasing listings, it was pretty tough. You see, the market in our town was red hot. Therefore most people would sell FSBO. I sell real estate in Gainesville, Florida. It’s a college town and the population is more liberal and better educated than the general population.   Co...

  If you’ve ever had listings, then you’ve also had angry sellers. People seem to get these wacky ideas in their head about why their house didn’t sell. Their home is overpriced and isn’t selling. Why isn’t it selling? It’s obvious, because a buyer can buy the same (or nicer) home for less money....

  Bad customers drain your energy. They make you wonder if you actually are even a good realtor. “Since you can’t sell my house for X, you’re a terrible agent. I can get more money on my own, because you greedy agents are losers,” the seller says. Are you going to be very confident on your next l...

  If you’ve already gotten my expired letter, then you know it’s pretty long. I often get the response from agents, “But Ben, eight pages? Are you nuts? People will never read this!” Like everything in life, there is no black and white answer. The only thing reason we even mail a letter is to get...

  The other day I had a seller who was getting grumpy about not having sold his house. I had told him that I would be doing something special to get his house sold. Then I tried that same tactic on another house with dismal success. So, I decided to cancel doing it on his house. The seller went b...

  When you go to someone’s house on a presentation, sometimes it can be a little weird, right? The key to staying in control on a presentation is to be comfortable, no matter what happens. I’ve been on presentations and seen people get mad at their kid (poor kid); get in an argument with their sp...

   I’m pretty busy today, so I don’t have a lot of time. I need to remind you to put your e-mail address and website at the bottom of your letters. Last night I got an e-mail from a guy about selling his property. It came thru at 9:27PM, probably when he was reading his mail. This is the 3rd cust...

   Here is something I’ve been trying lately on my listing appointments, and it has been working great. If you get the seller in the habit of signing paperwork, when they get to the listing agreement, they sign it right away. The other day, I had my sellers sign off on the disclosures. At the bot...