Perfect Agent Match Real Estate Blog

I was recently quoted in an article in the regional Colorado magazine The Yellow Scene. The article was on home improvement and home staging during a sale.

http://www.theyellowscene.com/Editorials.asp?feature=Home+Improvement

I thought it was a very good article. If you are currently or soon will be selling your home and it is vacant, I suggest you check this out.

I was reading through Realtor magazine and saw a special segment on what the public likes and dislikes about real estate agents. In this segment was an interview with Bill Cosby on the subject of Realtors. Here is what he had to say:

“-They can be the chauffeur while taking people to visit beautful homes.

-They know great and expensive places to have lunch.

-They continue to show houses-for hundreds of thousands of dollars above the buyer’s budget.

-They ad lib better than an actor-although quite a few have become actors when something goes wrong in the listed home.

-They have the ability to get people out of their comfortable home and into someplace else immediately…so they can show it.”

We are thinking that Bill should have used Perfect Agent Match to find his real estate agent instead. Maybe then he would have gotten more than an overpriced chauffeur with expensive lunch habits : )

More to come about the rest of the article on what people like and dislike about Realtors…

Once upon a time, life was beautiful for real estate agents. They were gatekeepers to the all important MLS databases. If a buyer wanted to find a house for sale, using an agent with MLS access was the only real option. If a seller wanted buyers to know their house was for sale, it had to be in the MLS… and using a licensed real estate agent was the only way to do it. Agents knew that they were your only option and they took advantage of this. If you didn’t want to pay what they asked, you wouldn’t be given access to the MLS. There was very little discussion of services offered and how that justified the commission earned. There didn’t need to be, because agents held the key to the MLS and that is all that mattered if you wanted to play the real estate game.

Things are changing. Many MLSs have made their information public via the web so buyers can search the entire MLS using powerful online search engines. You still need an agent to put a listing in the MLS, but that can be accomplished for $200 or less in some cases.

So does this mean that real estate agents are on their way out? Unlikely, but it is good news for consumers. We are seeing the good agents pick specialties of expertise and really focus on those areas. They are providing value with their knowledge of the local area, specific circumstances of a buyer or seller, the real estate process, marketing, etc. Other real estate agents are not adapting to the new real estate environment and are either dropping their commissions, or losing business.

The fact remains that buying or selling a house is an incredibly complicated process with many perils if you don’t know what you are doing. Even the most savvy real estate investors use real estate agents because they know that the right agent is worth every penny. But that is the key… THE RIGHT AGENT WITH THE RIGHT KNOWLEDGE AND SERVICES IS WORTH EVERY PENNEY. The wrong agent can cost you thousands.

This Blog was inspired by the following article:
http://www.brokeragentnews.com/news/residential/2007_9/9_21_2007_qt_1190437339.html

Great News! Interest rates are dropping and are now below levels not seen in over a year. This means good news on a lot of fronts. Cheaper financing means more people can afford to buy new homes. Maybe more importantly, lower rates means more affordable payments for all those who already own homes and are having trouble making payements. Let’s all hope that this is the begining of a recovery.

http://rismedia.com/wp/2007-09-17/us-mortgage-rates-drop-below-year-ago-levels/

We deal with it every day: real estate agents who exaggerate their number of transactions, close ratios, DOM and other stats so much that you have to laugh when you finally discover their true stats. We might even be able to accept a little bit of exaggeration, but I just got done dealing with an agent who represented he had done 50 transactions in the last 12 months. Even in our phone interview with him he told me that he could verify those numbers… but when the time came to actually send the verification documents we require, he bowed out. We did our own research and found he had completed only 7 transactions in the last year. How do you go from 7 to 50 transactions over the last year? Certainly this has been the extreme, but it really isn’t that uncommon for us to find agents that have doubled or even quadrupled their true numbers to try to win the business.

So why is stats bloat so prevalent among real estate agents? Probably because it helps agents get clients that wouldn’t otherwise work with them. Real estate agents have been getting away with this for decades and they know there is no way for you to independently verify the information. (At least until Perfect Agent Match came along) Also, I’m starting to think that some of these agents honestly believe that they are doing twice the transactions they actually do, maybe because they have actually told so many people the exaggerated numbers that they have convinced themselves, or maybe they have never taken the time to actually look at their stats to see if they are doing a good job.

The good news is that there is no shortage of great Realtors out there who are very honest and don’t need to exaggerate their stats to win your business. We are happy to deal with these Realtors every day and these are the agents that we will recommend to you as your Perfect Agent Match.

We seem to be in a very turbulent time in Real Estate right now. Many markets are seeing actual decreases in home values while other markets are chugging right along as if nothing was wrong. I ran across this great article which shows appreciation rates for all major US Cities. How is your city doing?

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/HomebuyingGuide/HomePricesByCity.aspx?GT1=10329

People are often skeptical about our service when they first hear about it.  And why shouldn’t they be?  There are numerous companies that make you trade your information so they can “Sell” it to the highest bidder.   Let’s make it perfectly clear that Perfect Agent Match does not do this, nor do we have any hidden agenda.  Our mission is simply to find the very best real estate agent for your needs.

Things we DON’T do:

□       We don’t sell your information to anyone.

□       We don’t market to you or put you on an email list.  If you get an email from us, it will be direct to you from a real person.

□       We don’t charge membership fees or any other kind of upfront fee for agents to be part of our service.

□       Agents don’t need to join to be part of our service.  In fact, we don’t even have a program for agents to join.

□       We don’t sell territories to agents.

What we DO do:

□       WE DO FIND THE VERY BEST AGENT FOR YOUR NEEDS

So the big question that people have is how do we get paid for our service?  Simple.  For decades, real estate agents have been referring customers who are moving out of town to real estate agents in the customer’s destination town.  In return, the referring agent is paid a referral fee at closing for making the connection.  This referral fee is so established that virtually all real estate agents in the country will pay the exact same referral fee.  As Realtors, we use this established system to find you the perfect agent without charging you a dime.   

Here are some more common questions that we get:

Welcome to the GRAND OPENING of Perfect Agent Match and the very first blog.  We are so excited about this service, and it seems that the buyers, sellers, and agents that we have already worked with are equally excited.  But why shouldn’t they be?  This is a service where everyone wins:  Buyers find better agents which help them find the best home for a better price, Sellers find agents which help them sell their home quicker and for more money, and real estate agents get to work with clients in the area they know best.  It’s a real No - Brainer for all involved!

As part of our Grand Opening celebration, we are offering a $200 gift certificate* to your favorite store when you buy or sell your next home using a Perfectly Matched agent.  All we ask in return is permission to share your Perfect Agent Match experience with future home buyers and sellers.  To take advantage of this offer, simply mention this blog entry.

We look forward to working with all of you in the years to come. 

Chad St. Onge

Owner

Perfect Agent Match

*Gift certificate delivered within 30 days after closing.  Limitations do apply.  Call for details on the gift certificates.