Real Estate and Technology news for agents,brokers

BrokerIPTV: Hello everyone. I am Mark and we are at BloodHoundBlogs Unchained with Zillow being our sponsor and I am with...

Russell Shaw: Russell Shaw.

BrokerIPTV: I love it. This is the way all interview should be conducted.

Russell Shaw: Sure. The people who are doing interviews not like this, I hate to say it, they are doing them wrong. So, Mark and I are doing it the right way and for those of you who are in the interview business, pay careful attention. You can skip the content of what I am saying, just watch what Mark is doing, okay?

BrokerIPTV: Excellent Russell. Well, let us talk about and you spoke about it briefly today on listings and listing management. You have got a market here in Phoenix, I think a lot of agents out there would just think this would be the worst place to be, the worst time to be in business, but I think you have got a little different attitude on what to do, how to take listings, and what listings not to take?

Russell Shaw: Well I think it is actually the best time to be in business because this market actually favors people who know what they are doing. That is the big difference. When listings are easy to get, they are harder to sell, when listings are real hard to sell, they are easy to get, when they are real easy...they are hard to get, they are easy to sell. That is always true. In this market listings are extremely easy to get. So, they are by definition harder to sell because they are harder to price, but you have people everyday in this market, we have if I tell you right now businesses up to where we are selling like close to 5000 units a month with around 55000 listings in the multiple listing system. That is up from about 3000 sales with 55000 listings in the listing system. What is the difference? When you have agents everyday taking listings that are never going to sell.

BrokerIPTV: Never sell.

Russell Shaw: They will never sell. The odds...most of the listings being put into the system are never going to sell at anytime. It is not that their market time is going to be long, they are simply never to going to sell and there is no prayer of them selling and what I say to agents is like think of something that you really, really, really like to do and when you think of it...really, really do is think of something you really like to do.

BrokerIPTV: All right. I got it, I got it.

Russell Shaw: And once you have got that thing, would you rather do that fun thing or take a listing that is never going to sell. They both pay the same.

BrokerIPTV: Nothing. They take nothing. They pay nothing.

Russell Shaw: So you may as well have fun as opposed to taking a listing that is never going to sell. The only listings we want to take are the ones we honestly believe we can sell and the rest of them we say no to. One of the false ideas that agents have is that the purpose of a listing appointment is to take the listing and that is a false idea. The purpose of a listing appointment is to see if you want the listing and then can you take it.

BrokerIPTV: Right, exactly and I know you use a lot of good quality pre-listing materials. You sort of already presold yourself your ideas and concepts even before arriving at the meeting. So, they have already really got your interview, you are there now to...

Russell Shaw: Well, to somewhat interview them, but if you actually think about it, if you looked at the profile of almost every top agent in the United States, they would be a listing agent who either has a demographic farm or geographic farm. They would almost always be listing agents. So, that would be true for almost every top agent in the United States. They would be agents who are listing agents, primarily listing based, even if they sell, they go well, half of our deals are buyers, but how did they get the buyer deals, from their listings, from marketing their listings. So they have operations that are still essentially listings based and it is not a complicated thing to price property. What might be complicated is to insist on not taking the listing if it is not going to sell. Like if a property is worth 400 and the agent knows it, there is no good reason to take that listing at 500 because the seller feels like it or that is what they would like to try. I mean really the issue is to go, "No, I am so sorry, I cannot do that." They go,"We have someone else to do the listing." You go, "Okay."

BrokerIPTV: Right. It is sometimes best to be the third call.

Russell Shaw: Well, I don't know; sometimes you don't get to be in this market here since you know it is not going to sell for the five, you should just walk away from it, but we are not trying to have a combative relationship with the client or a potential client. We just tell them the truth.

BrokerIPTV: Yeah, just a realistic approach to buying and selling and working with sellers.

Russell Shaw: For those of you in the viewing audience at home, I want you again, I emphasize what a great job Mark did in asking me these questions and also for those of you who are in the real estate business, I think you should really look and go, darn, that Russell Shaw really answered those questions on taking listings pretty good too.

BrokerIPTV: He is the best, isn't he? Hey, Russell thank you very much and we appreciate you being here with BrokerIPTV.