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Use a Local REALTOR When Buying or Selling a Tooele Home

January 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment
use a local utah real estate agent

Use a local agent

How many times have you heard us say, use a local Realtor when buying or selling a Tooele home. Well were going to say it again.  At least Chris is. Via last weeks post!

Chris and Berna are the owners of the Group1 Real Estate office in Tooele and they continually suggesting that you should use a local Realtor when you are buying or selling a Tooele home. They have a lot of Real Estate experience to offer home buyers and home owners wanting to list their houses or condominiums. Most of it right there in Tooele Utah. I would bet that if there is a home that has been listed on the MLS in Tooele City, Erda, Stansbury Park, Lake Point, Stockton or Grantsville Utah, in the last 15 years,  Berna has been in it, knows the history, and has an informed  opinion about value and potential problems.

Isn’t that why you use a local Realtor when you buy or sell a Tooele home?

Last week Chris posted again about the buying or selling your home in Tooele,and why it pats to use a local REALTOR.

 

Here is what he thinks about the subject of local representation.

Buying  Tooele Homes use a Local Agent

When Buying Tooele Homes use a Local Agent. Or if you are selling your home in Tooele, Stansbury Park, Erda, Lakepoint, or Grantsville Utah get local help.

Why do you need to hire a Local Tooele Realtor?  Where do I start?

I was just going over an article I had written last year for the Transcript Bulletin on the advantages to listing your home with a local Realtor,  and it occurred to me that I need to have the same conversation with my home buyers. ( and home sellers)

I wrote. while talking to a potential client last week out in Stansbury Park, I was asked a very good question. With 80% of buyers these days searching for their new home on the internet, how important is an actual agent?  Well, to me the answer is an obvious VERY IMPORTANT! The INTERNET has both simplified and complicated the house searching process. On the one hand, it’s now easy to see all of the properties that would fit you from the comfort of your own home. On the other hand, if you search the MLS for 3 bed 2 bath homes in Tooele County right now, you’ll find 59 homes that match that criteria. The selections of 3 Bedroom ramblers in Stansbury Park or 2 Story w/ acreage in Grantsville UT would find someone driving all over the area.

In a market where great homes, or more specifically GREAT BUYS are selling fast, you need help managing your time. You need someone that knows the area, knows what is likely to be available soon, and knows where the greatest chance is that you can find what you are looking for. That almost always is a knowledgeable, Experienced, local Real Estate Agent. A Tooele REALTOR.

Looking at so many overpriced homes is a waste of time,  you’ll find that your dream home, priced right by a very motivated seller may be just around the corner, but it may be gone before you have a chance to go see it if you are not buying Tooele homes using a local agent.

We have been helping a client the last couple of weeks who likes to drive around and look at the homes for sale based on signs. She’s probably found a dozen homes for sale in Stansbury Park that she liked the looks of. Most of them have already gone under contract by the time she was ready to make an offer.  On the other hand, when she called us and told us what her needs in a new house were, Berna knew about one that would be perfect for her, and she now has it under contract.

A local agent will know his market much better than most buyers.

You might then ask, ‘Well, why not just call the agent on the sign?’ In fact, you can. But, here is one of my major pet peeves. If you do that, and they show it to you and you fall in love with it, who will represent you in the purchase? The listing agent will. But, he will actually be representing both parties. Not the ideal situation for either of you, although it can be a great deal for the agent!

You are entitled to have someone who is absolutely on your side in the deal, someone looking out for ONLY your interests. You may buy as many as 4 or 5 homes in your life. Your agent will probably have done it hundreds of times in his career. So why not have an experienced pro in your corner. Especially (here’s the best part) when it costs you nothing! It’s true!  Most of the time, it’s the seller that pays those commissions, not you! I can’t think of a good reason not to use a Realtor to help you find your home, can you? By the way, that 80% number I talked about earlier only tells half the story. Of that 80%, 86% of them still use their own Realtor!

If you would like to see whats available, give me a call @ 435-840-5029, or stop by my website, click on Tooele Homes and check out the inventory available in Stansbury Park, Tooele Grantsville or any where else in Tooele County you have an Interest.

When you call, I will surely tell you, you may not want to use us, but when Buying Tooele Homes use a Local Agent.
Blog Archive

2012-01-11 13:35:50 Are we seeing actual signs of a recovery in Tooele
2012-01-09 12:19:31 The early bird wins the awards…
2012-01-08 08:47:09 Buying  Tooele Homes use a Local Agent
2012-01-08 05:39:15 Tooele Real Estate Then and Now
2012-01-07 10:47:19 New Tool To Buy A Home In Tooele

If you are in the market as either a home buyer or seller call Berna @ 435-940-5029 she will be more than happy to give you other reasons to use a local REALTOR when buying or selling a Tooele home.

Filed Under: For Buyers, For Sellers, Tooele County

Selling Real Estate in Tooele is Knowing Your Neighbors

December 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment
After reading Chris’s post on selling “Real Estate in Tooele is Knowing your neighbors”, I realized that the many hours that he and Berna spend in community service has a payoff. It’s about more than just being good citizens, it’s about being good agents, knowing the territory & knowing your neighbors and their neighborhoods
Here is some of  what he had to say.

 

 

First of all, prospecting is in the eye of the beholder. Is it only defined
as knocking on doors, or making 100 “cold calls”? Could it also be defined as
joining a civic or church organization full of the movers and shakers in your
area, and building relationships with the people that know all the people? I’ve
always struggled with the 80/20 here, because it seems to me that if you really
do that, you are wasting the most efficient, cost effective book of business you
have. Referrals from past clients. Because, if you are devoting all that time to
generating new business, you aren’t devoting enough time to your clients,
meaning you won’t be getting that referral business. You over-promised and
under-delivered, so why should they come back to you?

There are a high percentage of listings in Tooele County listed by out of
area agents. I haven’t worked all the figures yet, but it appears to be upward
of 70%. Banks have a tendency to list with the “big city” agents, and don’t seem
to recognize the mountain range separating us from Salt Lake. But even if I take
those out, I’m going to find that more than half of the “regular” listings are
still by out of area agents. I actually showed a commercial property last
weekend listed by an agent in Moab, some 300 miles away! I won’t even talk about
the agent that thought she could give good service when she took it. I’m more
concerned with why the clients would go there. What are we failing to do as
“local” Realtors?

So, what do we have to do to set ourselves apart from the other 10,000 agents
in the State. How does the 80/20 rule apply here? Do we act like agents that
think that once the listing is signed and the sign planted we’re done? Do we
turn down showings because they involve an 80-90 mile round trip? What type of
service defines what we do? Is there room for civic service under the name of
prospecting?

I think there is. In this small town, there aren’t many people that don’t
know us. They don’t always know what we do for a living. Some of us know us as
leaders in a County political Party. Some recognize Berna as the Vice-Chair of
the Chamber of
Commerce, or as the one that organizes the Chamber Easter Egg Hunt for 3500
kids each year. Maybe it’s from sitting on Planning and Zoning in Tooele City. Maybe
it’s our service in our Church (Great applesauce, by the way!) Maybe it’s the
pumpkin bread that B bakes for our clients each Christmas. There are others, but
I will tell you this. Each of these things has brought us  paying clients,

clients we’ll keep for life, at a relatively low cost.

What I’m getting at is that there are many ways to build your business, to
set yourself apart from the average. Is it cold calling every day to get that
new customer? It’s obviously worked for a lot of people over the years. It
doesn’t work for us. We easily interact with 100 people every week, people that
get a positive feel for how we do our business. That has been an investment of
over a decade, so no quick payoff. However, the marketing budget seems to keep
shrinking, while the client list seems to grow. Figure out a way for your
farming area see you in a positive way, keep the quality of your work at it’s
best, and you will win in this tough economy. In the meantime, I’m staging the
Chamber
Santa Parade Saturday, and I can’t find my Santa hat…

Now you know why I think Chris or Berna are the perfect couple for selling Real Estate in Tooele. If your looking for a home or condo in a rural area just a short drive from Salt Lake City, then check out all the listings in Tooele City, Stansbury Park, or Grantsville Utah and then give them a call. 435-840-5029.

Chris is spot on when he suggests that “Selling Real Estate in Tooele is Knowing Your Neighbors”!

Filed Under: For Buyers, For Sellers, Relocation, Tooele County Tagged With: , ,

Tooele Real Estate Team Goes to California

November 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Our associates on the Tooele Real Estate team went to California last week. Once again they were going to the National Association of Realtors convention in Anaheim.

To hear them tell it, the objective was to learn the latest and best ways to help clients list, buy and sell  Tooele Homes.

After reading Chris’s blog about the adventure ( he and Berna are the owners of that Group1 office in Tooele) I’m not so sure.

I know that when they left, Berna had signed up for every class she could find to help her understand how to better help you buy and sell short sales and foreclosed homes in Tooele County. Chris as usual had his boat loaded with land use seminars and Commercial Real Estate classes.

It sounded good but I’m going to let you read his blog and decide if they got their moneys worth.

This is what he wrote when he got back.

A week at Disneyland-NAR Convention 2011
As has become a habit I can’t break over the last decade, Berna and I spent the last week in Anaheim at the National Association of Realtors Conference and Expo. Obviously, this is not a priority for most Realtors in this economy, as this was by far the thinnest attendance of any conference. We are generally the only Tooele County Realtors that attend. There are good things and bad things about the attendance, as it was easy to move from room to room without the huge crowds of the past, and the venue itself at the Anaheim Convention Center was conducive to getting wherever you needed to be with no muss or fuss.
Low attendance can also be a problem, especially if you’ve been to a few of these. There are only so many “new” technology classes you can attend each year, and low registration means less offerings. There are also only so many “motivational” speakers you can bring in with a fresh way to say “buck up, soldier” each year, and the quality of those offerings has suffered over the last few years.
Luckily (or not!) I get to spend many hours attending governance meetings, which are always informational to me. I learned alot about spying on my agents Facebook pages in the Risk Reduction forum and committee. I learned that four the fourth straight year, the Land Use & Environment Committee is heavy on environment and light on land use, and that having me on the Housing Opportunity Committee may have not been the smartest decision they ever made.
But, for all of the negative news that’s out there, and the negative comments above, there were some amazing positives as well. There always are. I watched two Realtors receive “Distinguished Service Awards” for decades of service to the industry. I saw an individual that has contributed over 100K to RPAC in his lifetime. I saw all of the “Realtor of the Year” recipients (taking me back to when I was fortunate enough to be so honored a few years ago). I saw standing room only in every committee meeting I attended, full of Realtors doing their best to make this industry, and by extension the Country better. I saw thousands of my fellow Realtors working hard to find a way to stay in this amazing industry, and an Association doing its best to help.
I’ve been an outspoken critic of the NAR over the years for various things. I can’t stand listening to another presentation about how cool Realtor.com is, even though they are using my own dues dollars to complete with me. I hate how they contribute RPAC to everyone in Congress whether they meet my definition of “Realtor friendly” or not. And, until you’ve sat on a Board of Directors with 700 members, you don’t really know the definition of unwieldy!
So, why do I always come home from these things so inspired? Because, I always pick up some little tidbit, or product, or idea that will make my job better, or easier, or more efficient. Something that makes me better able to serve or protect or retain my clients. It’s a week I spend with the love of my life Berna, who also is my business partner, where there aren’t kids, or Chamber of Commerce stuff or family drama. There’s just us spending time together with ten thousand or fifteen thousand or thirty thousand of our closest friends. Nascar Hall of Famer Darrell Waltrip calls it “Co-opetition”, the act of thousands of type A, competitive Realtors working together for common goals. It’s inspiring!
Having it a corndog’s throw away from Disneyland seems appropriate. I saw Bank of America executives insisting they were working hard to streamline the shortsale process, while sitting inside their huge, gaudy, tasteless quarter acre “booth” at the Expo (Fantasy Land). I sat through classes extolling the limitless opportunity by getting into commercial real estate (Adventureland). I saw debate over building to standards that would make a home produce more energy than it uses (Tomorrowland). Finally, I saw lots of crime scene tape blocking off a whole floor at the hotel next store (California Adventures!).
So, as I get back to work with all the new stuff I brought home, full of vision and energy, I can’t help thinking about whether I’ll make the trip next year. Sure is inconvenient and expensive to take the time away. Wait, it’s in Orlando! Don’t they have another Disney thing back there somewhere? Hmmmmm

Filed Under: For Buyers, For Sellers, Tooele County Tagged With: , ,

Information for Home Sellers

November 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Two of the most important tasks of a Salt Lake  listing agent are, price the home properly, and expose the listing to as many potential buyers as possible.

Failing in either one of these can cause a home to sit unsold for months for obvious reasons.

If the house is listed higher than the market, few  SLC home buyers will even bother to take a look. Price a home too low and a lot of hard earned dollars can be left on the table.

Pricing a Salt Lake  home under market will not eliminate low ball offers either.

In today’s Salt Lake marketplace, where competition includes a huge percentage of short sales, Pre-foreclosures and bank owned foreclosed homes you can expect home buyers and Real Estate investors to take a run at all of your homes equity.

That’s why, when I read an article by Debe Maxwell a blogger on Active Rain that offered a simple tip on listing a home to maximize traffic i couldn’t wait to share it with you.

Debe says in her post entitled “Ditch the 9s when pricing your Charlotte Real Estate”

  • Spanning markets – While you might think listing your house for $399,900 will make buyers see your home as a bargain, you might actually be losing out on a lot of interested buyers. When buyers search for houses from $400,000-$450,000, your property won’t show up, so you’d be better off upping the price a little to $400,000.  Then you’ll expand your potential buyer base because it will show up in property searches priced $350,000-$400,000 AND searches priced $400,000-$450,000, thus capturing TWO pools of buyers rather than eliminating one altogether–and with only $100 in your price! (read entire article here)

For sure this is a small thing, and Salt Lake City is not Charlotte, but the strategy is sound no matter where the home is located.

Let me add to Debe’ s post that many of today’s Salt Lake  home buyers, because of the way they see the market, are searching houses for more than they qualify for.  The idea behind this strategy, rather right or wrong is that  many home sellers are so desperate that they may steal a property.

Keep that in mind when pricing your SLC home.

Filed Under: Featured, For Sellers