Listing Process

Listing Systematically

Our listing presentation is very successful because it describes our listing process and system. It's absolutely imperative that you understand (and will execute) our listing system in order for the presentation to be successful.

LIST SYSTEMATICALLY FOR SUCCESS

Pre-Appointment Preparation + Emails

Prior to the listing appointment, expect to spend 30 minutes to an hour preparing market statistics, a rough CMA, and sending these two emails. It's critical to send both emails prior to the appointment. The emails contain all of the information that you will present in person. This gives your seller the opportunity to review everything, it shows the seller that you're already working for them, and it's work that you have to do to prepare for the appointment, regardless. Make sure to send these appointments the same day that you first speak with the seller.

1. Pre-Listing Appointment Welcome Email (Available in FUB)

   This email qualifies you, qualifies our company, and goes over our listing process. It's important that you modify this email to include links that are relevant to you and to include relevant information about you (your elevator pitch.)

2. Pre-Listing Appointment Rough Comparables & Market Statistics

   This email includes market statistics for their area/neighborhood and a rough CMA for their property. It's incredibly important to understand how to run market statistics and how to present a price range to any potential seller. This is arguably the most difficult (and most important) part of the listing presentation.

   • Market Statistics: Calculating Inventory
   • Rough Comparables: Determining a Price Range

Walking the Property

It's critical to walk the property so that the seller knows that you're familiar with the property. Never skip this and take as long as necessary to view every room, hallway, closet, etc of the property. It doesn't matter if you sold the seller the house a year ago - things could have changed and the seller must be confident that you're familiar with their property.

Russell Shaw is an industry veteran with decades of experience listing and selling hundreds of homes per year. The below podcast is excellent in its entirety. At a minimum, listen to him describe how he walks the property and sets the stage for the presentation at 20:03.

NAIL LISTING APPOINTMENTS W/ RUSSELL SHAW

After you've walked the property, set the stage by meeting at the kitchen table (or similar.) There must be a table to put the listing presentation on and to pass the loose papers as you explain them. Do not sit on the couch or somewhere casual. This is critical.

Initial Questions

Before we get started, I always like to understand your situation so that I can give you the best advice for your sale. Would you mind letting me know why you're selling? Do you know what your time frame is to sell?

It's important to gauge their motivation for selling. Some people have to sell (or really need to) because of a job transfer or a life transition. Some people simply want to sell. Everyone wants the highest price and a fast sale, but these are competing priorities. We have to help them find a happy place between their need to sell and how high they can list and still meet this goal.

Page 1 - Qualify Yourself

There are 17,000 agents in the Austin area. Last year, there were 39,000 sales. This means the average agent sells around 2 homes per year. What we find is that roughly 10% of the agents in Austin do 90% of the business. Because of this, it's super important for you to interview any agent you might work with and make sure that they have experience, great systems, and a great track record. {INSERT YOUR OWN ELEVATOR PITCH HERE} Add in any of the information on this page.

Page 2 - The Selling Process

Have you ever sold a home in Texas before? (Yes/No/Yes in another state) We work pretty systematically and we use a really proven process. We get started by learning about your move and setting a time frame. If you decide to hire me, the next step in the process is a home staging consultation, which is a ~2-hour consultation where our stager will walk through everything you need to do to sell your home. (I pay for the consultation.) After the consultation, we'll know when we can schedule the photographer. We can generally have your property on the market 2 business days after the pictures, and we always like to list on Wednesday or Thursday in order to encourage multiple offers, so we'll plan with that in mind.

After pics come in, we will start creating marketing assets, which will move very quickly. Most of our marketing assets are online, so we'll take those live and then ask you to review them because we can easily edit those if there are any errors. We do ask you to review and approve any print marketing before we deliver. I'll go over marketing in depth in just a moment.

We do everything we can to encourage multiple offers, but that doesn't always happen (though we hope it will!) If we don't go under contract in the first weekend, we do a great job of keeping you in the loop with consistent reports and feedback. I'll also go over this in more depth in just a minute.

When an offer comes in on your property, I'll give you a call or send a text/email (however we've been communicating the most.) I'll let you know the price and probably some general terms & comments like "this is great, congrats!" or "we'll likely want to counter this." I'll send you a detailed email by the end of the day that outlines all of the important terms of the offer, along with my comments on if the terms are standard. We'll want to pay attention to price the most, but we also want to pay attention to terms. For example, a 7-10 day option period is standard, so if someone asks for 15, we will probably counter that no matter what.

After we go under contract, there's a 90% chance that contract will close. We have to get through a number of contingencies, but the option period and the appraisal are the most important. The option period is the period during which the buyer has the property inspected and negotiates repairs (they almost always negotiate repairs.) Consider this the second round of negotiations that we'll have to get through. I'm here to help you minimize any damage during this period and to make sure that anything we agree to is reasonable. After the option period, there's a greater than 95% chance the contract will close, but we'll have to get through the lender's appraisal (which the buyer and buyer's agent have no control over.) After the appraisal, we have a 99% chance the property will close.

Page 3 - Staging & Property Preparation

We put a lot of emphasis on and place a lot of value on staging and property preparation. We'll help you identify the highest return on investment improvements that we can make. Since your property is occupied, we'll bring our stager by, who will provide a 2-hour consultation (with notes.) We'll know exactly what we need to do to the property to make sure that you get the highest price.

Page 4 - Professional Photography

All buyers start their searches online, so great photos are absolutely critical. We've worked with the same photographers for years. These guys only photograph residential real estate and they're very good. After we've gone through the staging consultation, made smart improvements, and had the property photographed professionally, the listing is awesome.

Page 5 - Marketing Strategy

Our marketing strategy revolves around a single property website for your home w/ a custom domain of "youraddress.com". Everything we do drives people back to this site so we can track it and so that they can see the awesome professional photography we're using. We market directly to buyers, to buyer's agents, and to people already living in the area.

Marketing to buyers is really straightforward. We have your property everywhere online that it possibly can be listed. All buyers search online and we want to be in front of all buyers.

We market to buyer's agents through the MLS. When we list on the MLS, it tells all buyer's agents that we'll pay a 3% commission on your property, so they'll want to show it to their buyers. These buyer's agents will have automatic emails set up to their buyers, so we're getting to buyers again as an extension of buyer's agents.

It's important to market to people in the neighborhood and area b/c they might be renters that want to buy and they might be owners with friends who want to move into the neighborhood. We'll put a sign out front and a flyer plate (instead of a flyer.) The flyer plate is an 8.5"x12" sign w/ a link to the single property website and a big QR code. When someone drives by the house and is interested, they can stop and plug the URL into their phone or open the QR code to get high-definition photos & all of the important info.

We did away with flyers inside the home a couple of years ago and we use a "single property business card" now. This also has a QR code and a link to the website. We're 100% focused on getting people back to the great photographs and tracking that activity. This helps us accomplish that.

Page 6 - Where Will Your Listing Appear Online?

The short answer is "everywhere". We'll syndicate your listing to Zillow, Realtor.com, and other national portals. We'll also send your listing to the IDX & RETS feeds, which are what all of the local companies use. The end result is that your listing is on every website that buyers look for in Austin real estate for sale.

Page 7 - Listing Timeline and Multiple Offers

It's really important that we manage the timeline of your listing in order to give you the best chance of multiple offers (which means that buyers compete and drive the price up.) We always list your property on either Wednesday or Thursday. If you list on Wednesday, then automatic emails go out to interested buyers on Thursday and they have plenty of time to schedule showings that weekend. We will schedule 1-2 open houses the first weekend, which provides the appearance of lots of demand, which motivates buyers to make offers sooner rather than later. If we have multiple offers, or we're confident that we'll have multiple offers, then we'll set the highest and best deadline for Monday (sometimes Sunday, but generally Monday) and we'll pick our winner on Tuesday morning.

Page 8 - Follow Up & Communication

While we're doing everything we can for a fast sale, that doesn't always happen. Sometimes it takes a few weeks to sell your property, and this is usually where sellers get frustrated with their agents (because they disappear.) We're going to send you real-time showing alerts every time your property is shown. When agents access the lockbox, it communicates with our system, which sends an email to you and me to tell us it was shown. It also sets off a series of 5 emails to the showing agent requesting feedback until the agent responds. As soon as the agent responds, we'll both get the feedback. Single pieces of feedback are nothing to get excited or upset over, but if we do end up on the market for a few weeks and we have to discuss a price reduction or making improvements to the property, we'll have an objective set of data to look backward at.

We're also going to send you weekly market activity reports that show you how you fit in the competitive landscape, consolidated showing reports that show you who was through your property, and online traffic reports, which are Google Analytics reports showing you web traffic.

I always like to tell people about our team at this point. I will be your main point of contact all the way to and through closing, but you will hear from our support staff with document requests, reminders, and notifications. If you ever have questions about anything, please call me on my cell phone. I am always your main point of contact for any negotiations or important decisions.

Page 9 - Typical Seller Closing Costs

These are the typical seller closing costs. {Go down the list and itemize them} If you want to do napkin math, it will cost roughly 7.5% to sell your property. It's generally a little less than that, but that's a good, conservative estimate. If you'd ever like a more detailed estimate, just let me know, and I can send it over. The only thing this doesn't include is property taxes because that changes throughout the year. The easiest example is a June 30th closing, which is exactly halfway through the year. If you close on June 30th, you'll pay for 1/2 of one year's property taxes. If you escrow taxes and insurance (which most people do), you'll then get this money back roughly 30 days after closing.

Page 10 - Intelligent Pricing Strategy

When it comes to pricing, most agents simply run a CMA, show you averages, and make a recommendation. We like to go further than that. We start with a CMA to find a price range. We then look at market conditions (are you in a buyer's or seller's market) and market seasonality (what time of the year is it.) We also take into account your own priorities and expectations, which are arguably as or more important than any market data.

Page 11 - Understanding the Market

It's important to understand if you're in a buyer's or seller's market. You can read articles about the Austin market in general, but real estate is hyperlocal, so we want to look at your specific area of town. The fewer options there are for buyers to choose from, the tighter the market is, and the more of a seller's market it is. The more options there are, the less pressure there is on buyers, and the more of a buyer's market it is. In general, when there are <3 months of inventory, it's a seller's market, and when there are >6 months, it's a buyer's market.

Page 12 - Seasonality of the Market

The Austin market is incredibly seasonal. It generally follows the school year and the holidays. In the spring and early summer, the market is really busy. In the fall and winter, it's really slow. There are around twice as many sales in the spring and summer as in the fall and winter. {Go over this graph in depth with the sellers}

Stats & Pricing for Their Property

At this point, you move to the righthand side of the folder.

Show them the REALIST printout and confirm that this is the house and the correct square footage.Go over market statistics and cross-reference it with Page 10 from the listing presentation.Go over the Quick CMA and explain to them that we want to find 1-3 properties that are most like theirs. Ask if they are familiar with any of the sales and see if any of the homes stick out to them. Let them know that you will look at the comps again and send them a detailed email that goes over pricing.

If you're not familiar with statistics and CMA price ranges, then make sure to watch Part IIa and IIb of our 3 part class.

Listing Agreement

Let them know that you will leave the listing agreement with them so that they can discuss it privately and make up their mind without any pressure. However, you would like to go over the agreement with them. Go over the agreement briskly and then go over the Special Provisions at length. Make sure you know the special provisions incredibly well and discuss these in depth. Position it as:

My agreement is similar to the agreement you'll sign with almost any agent in Austin. However, mine differs because we write in a few special provisions to protect you. These are:

• You can terminate the agreement at any time with an email. We just ask for 48 hours to pick up our sign and lockbox. The horror story that happens is that a seller signs with an agent who they think is great, only to find out the agent isn't great. The seller tells the agent that they want to part ways, but the agent tells them that they're required to list with them until the agreement ends. We would never want a seller to work with us if they didn't want to. That's why we explicitly write this in. If you decide we're not a fit, just send me an email.
• I don't double-end commissions. This means that I will personally earn no more than 3% on the deal. If an unrepresented buyer comes along, I'm not going to try to represent both you and that buyer (lots of agents do try to do this and it's a huge conflict of interest.) Now, we do allow our brokerage to represent both sides because we want Bramlett agents to be just as motivated as any other agent in town to bring us a buyer. If Bramlett acts as an intermediary, three things can happen:
  1. It's one of our agent's clients and they've been working with them. They earn 3% just like anyone else would.
  2. An unrepresented buyer contacts us and wants to see the house, so we show it to them. If they want to make an offer, the first thing we ask them is if they want representation or not. If they do want representation, then we refer it to an in-house agent who works it for 1%, and your fee is reduced to 4% total. Everyone wins.

  3. Unrepresented buyers say that they don't want to work with an agent. We write that into the contract and your fee is reduced to 3% total.

     At the end of the day, I want to earn 3%. I won't try to work in any situation whereby I earn more.

• If one of your friends, colleagues, neighbors, etc wants to buy your house, then I don't earn anything or you can keep me in the deal for 1%. This happens a couple of times a year and it's always really lucky for the seller. We put a sign in the yard and a neighbor's parent wants to buy or someone from work or church learns you're selling and wants to buy. The spirit of this agreement is that you guys have hammered out a price and you have an easy deal. If they have an agent or if you want me to negotiate on your behalf, then this doesn't apply.

In Parting

Ask them when they plan to make a decision. Let them know that you will follow up with them at that point. Let them know that you would love to work with them. The next steps are for you to schedule the staging consultation. You'll just need to have a signed listing agreement to move forward with that.

Core Competencies

Buyer Representation

• Pricing Properties for Buyers
• Predicting Appraisal Problems
• Submitting Impeccable Offers
• The Inspection Process

Seller Representation

• Pricing Properties for Sellers
• Listing Systematically
• The Listing Process & Presentation
• Understanding the Contract