Yes, you can talk politics on social media. Here’s how

by Kevelyn Guzman | Jul 18, 2024 | Industry, News Feed

7 things that are a complete waste of time (but agents still do them)

by Jen Dillard | Jul 18, 2024 | Industry, News Feed

At Inman Connect Las Vegas, July 30-Aug. 1, 2024, the noise and misinformation will be banished, all your big questions will be answered, and new business opportunities will be revealed. Join us.

Most agents don’t need more time. They simply need to use their time more efficiently. The best way to accomplish this is to eliminate the mindless ways we waste time. Here are the seven most common ways I see agents wasting time and how to reallocate that time in a way that leads to substantial business growth.

1. Consuming content instead of creating it

According to Statista, the average person spends two hours and twenty-four minutes every day on social media. That means the average person is spending over one hundred twelve hours each month consuming content on social media. These platforms continue to evolve into one of the most distracting time wasters ever created.

Imagine if you just carved out thirty minutes a day to create content instead of consuming it? What would that do for your business over the next few weeks? How would that turn this inefficiency into a productive activity?

This all starts by thinking about the content your ideal client would love for you to create for them. What are the pain points for your ideal client? What are the most frequently asked questions they have? What do they aspire to do and how can you show them you can help them achieve their goal?

When you focus on creating content more than consuming it, the momentum in your business begins to build.

2. Being busy instead of being productive

There is a significant difference between being busy and being productive. Busy is frantic while productivity is focused. But most agents have filled their days with busyness, giving them a false sense of accomplishment.

A solution to this epidemic is to practice the “Rule of Five” taught by John Maxwell. The principle is based on his example that if you have a tree in your backyard that you wish to cut down, consistency is the best way to ensure the tree comes down. He states that if you pick up an ax each morning, strike the tree five times, then put the ax down and do this every day, sooner or later the tree will fall. This principle applies to our businesses as well.

If you can identify the five activities that have the highest probability of helping your business grow, then prioritize doing them every day, you will achieve the success you are looking for in your business. So, what are those five activities for you? Make a list of them and stay focused on eliminating the inefficient things you do that keep you busy and initiating those high-priority activities daily.

This one step of refocusing your efforts on productive activities instead of busy activities can change your business forever.

3. Doing tasks instead of delegating

Similar to doing busy activities that are not the highest and best use of your time, many agents spend time doing tasks they should be delegating to others. Roughly speaking, for every $100,000 of annual income you make, that breaks down to an hourly value of $50 per hour. In other words, if you make $150,000 per year, your average hourly value is $75 per hour.

Understanding this, why do you keep stuffing envelopes for mailers, trying to figure out a description for your social media post, or calling to get showing instructions for your appointments? Those are tasks that could be delegated to an assistant or social media specialist who can be paid much less than the $75 an hour of value you have.

Delegate as many lower-cost tasks as possible. Reallocate that time to calling past clients or hot prospects. When you understand your value and do the tasks that are of the highest value for you, your net income and productivity will go up.

4. Perfecting a logo instead of having real estate-related conversations

People do business with people and not with logos. Yes, marketing plays a role in how you are perceived in the marketplace, but the lack of a logo is not the reason your business has slowed down. Your business has slowed down because you are not having enough real estate-related conversations.

Additionally, the number of transactions in most markets has slowed down. In this part of the cycle, you need more conversations than you needed when the market was hot. Based on this information you will need to work harder than before, just to maintain the business you have become accustomed to doing.

During a slowdown, it is human nature to look for ways to give your business a fresh look or to blame your slowdown on something your business doesn’t have. The only thing you really need to increase your business is to have more real estate-related conversations. Focus less on how you want to be perceived and more on the value you bring. In doing so, the business you desire will become a reality.

5. Being reactive instead of being proactive

How many days do you wake up without a plan of action for that day? Do you find yourself waiting on the phone to ring or are you making outbound calls? If you don’t control your schedule, the whirlwind of this business will keep you busy instead of productive.

The solution is to create a to-do list of activities the night before. This list should include your top five activities that we discussed above along with daily objectives you have for yourself. They should be time-sensitive and added to your schedule as appointments. These times should be uninterrupted until the task is completed.

Time is your most valuable asset. The more proactive you are with your schedule, the more predictable your success will be.

6. Focusing on quantity instead of quality on social media posts

Before posting anything on social media, ask yourself if the post is something that brings value to your ideal client. Wishing everyone a Happy 4th of July clutters your ideal client’s feed, and because it will lack engagement, these posts hurt your page more than they help. The algorithm is looking for content creators that post quality posts more than it is looking for people who post quantity.

Engagement and sharing are what drive social media success right now. Although every post or Reel is not going to perform great, by focusing on producing content that leads to engagement and sharing, your social media performance will be enhanced.

7. Spending time with unproductive people

The easiest way to guarantee yourself an unproductive day is to spend it with unproductive people. The people you surround yourself with are who you will become. If you’re the most productive person you spend time with, get a new group.

• Are you surrounding yourself with people who are avoiding making phone calls or people who hold each other accountable for being productive?
• Are you a part of a mastermind group focused on growing their businesses?
• Do you have a coach holding you accountable for the activities you need to do daily to achieve the level of success you desire?

The single most important factor in your success or failure in life is who you choose to spend your time with. Choose wisely.

We all aren’t as efficient as we should or could be, but there is another level for your business. The key is to refine your schedule to make sure you are limiting the time-wasting activities and focusing on the activities that help your business grow.

Southernmost home in US hits market for $18.5M in Key West

by Kendall Bonner | Jul 18, 2024 | Industry, News Feed

At Inman Connect Las Vegas, July 30-Aug. 1, 2024, the noise and misinformation will be banished, all your big questions will be answered, and new business opportunities will be revealed. Join us.

The Southernmost home in the continental U.S. has been listed on the market for $18.5 million.

Situated on less than half an acre, the 4,008-square-foot, home sits at the heart of Key West, Florida, near the Southernmost Point buoy where the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico meet. The mid-century-style home, built in 1958, is a historical landmark due to its location.

The estate is owned by Cecilia Joyce Johnson, a member of the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical conglomerate and the widow of late American artist Seward Johnson II, who passed away in 2020.

In property records obtained by Mansion Global, the Johnson family purchased the home in the 1990s and used it as a second home. Cecilia Joyce Johnson is listed as the seller of the property.

Ellen Gvili of Ocean Sotheby’s International Realty is representing the listing.

In a statement to the New York Post, Gvili described the property as a “rare find in Key West.”

“Most waterfront lots are either Navy bases or hotels, so to have that as a private residence in such a location is hard to find,” Gvili said.

The multi-family home includes five bedrooms and five and a half bathrooms.

According to Gvili, the interior design showcases a blend of historical charm and modern elegance. The design of the formal living room reflects the Modernist Hemingway era. Beyond the living room is a Florida room featuring views of the home’s tropical setting.

Large balcony over the property | Ellen Gvili, Ocean Sotheby’s International Realty

Other interior features include cathedral ceilings, stone flooring, and skylights. Its amenities include a large 50-by-20-foot pool, an outdoor lounging area, and a large balcony offering vistas over the property and the Atlantic Ocean.

According to Mansion Global, the property has a license that presents an opportunity for future investment as it allows for nightly and vacation rentals. The home will require some renovations to the sea wall and the dock, which was damaged due to a previous hurricane.

Email Richelle Hammiel

Ed Zorn to the real estate industry: Get rid of commission-sharing now

by Nick Schlekeway | Jul 18, 2024 | Industry, News Feed

This is the second in a two-part interview with California Regional MLS General Counsel Ed Zorn on the impending changes to the commission structure and how it will impact agents. Read the first part HERE, and check out his sessions live at Inman Connect Las Vegas July 30-Aug. 1, 2024. Join us.

Real estate broker and attorney Edward Zorn is nothing if not generous with his thoughts when real estate and the law intersect.

When it comes to adapting to business practice changes associated with a proposed nationwide settlement between the National Association of Realtors and homeseller plaintiffs in multiple antitrust lawsuits, Zorn has plenty to share and will do so at two sessions at Inman Connect Las Vegas later this month.

The NAR settlement includes rule changes set to go into effect on August 17, including a prohibition on listing brokers making offers of compensation to buyer brokers on multiple listing services and a requirement that brokers and agents sign contracts with buyers they’re working with before touring a home.

READ PART ONE OF INMAN’S INTERVIEW WITH ED ZORN

In a two-part interview, Inman caught up with the vice president and general counsel of the California Regional MLS to get his take on buyer agreements, seller concessions, steering and commission-sharing between brokers.

Part 1 tackled what Zorn will be talking about at ICLV, how listing agents’ jobs will change after August 17, whether seller concession fields will replace offers of compensation in the MLS and why mandatory buyer agreements are consumers’ big win from the NAR settlement.

With Part 2, Zorn dives into the nuances of offering a dollar amount or a percentage of the purchase price as a seller concession, the settlement’s potential impacts on steering, how buyer agents’ jobs will change after August 17, and the No. 1 thing people in the industry should be doing to stay out of antitrust trouble in the future.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You were saying you’re a big believer in having either a dollar amount or a percentage listed when a seller is offering concessions.

On the appropriate property. If you had a home that was subject to FHA lending … I would encourage you to consider offering concessions. If you were doing a $1 million home or a $900,000 home in Corona I would tell you, “Don’t offer concessions.” I would tell you, “Mark the box that says ‘We’ll consider a concession’” and don’t commit to any kind of number whatsoever.

I think you’re going to see [concessions] clump around the entry-level market because that’s the specific buyer that needs the comfort of how this process works, and that this particular home I’m going to put an offer in will work for my situation.

I think mid-priced homes to higher-priced homes will not have concessions. I’m not saying I would put concessions on every property. I would say it depends on what my seller needs.

If my seller is one of those looky-looing, “Hey, I don’t really have to move. I can take three, six months. Doesn’t really matter,” I probably don’t recommend he does concessions. Concessions are a particular marketing strategy to drive a quicker, faster sale and to help a certain segment of people, make it easier for them to buy this home.

I understand that distinction you’re making, but this is a change that’s being made across the board. You have this philosophy determined by the type of property and whether it’s subject to FHA lending, but there are many thousands of agents that will be using these fields that may not have that particular philosophy on concessions and may decide to treat this field as just a replacement for the compensation field. The implementation of it is across the board, so why not just have a Yes or No, and then the FHA buyer can just ask for what they want?

Again, if you’ve ever dealt with an FHA buyer, it’s an easy thing to say, a hard thing to get them to do.

Wouldn’t that be their agent’s job, though, to tell them “This listing is offering concessions”?

Sure. Let me give you shock of all shocks: Buyers don’t listen to me. This is why [the concept of] steering, for those of us who are in the field, is such a laughable idea. You kidding me? You think I could convince you to buy a house if you hated the kitchen? Agents don’t have that power.

But you can say as a buyer’s agent, “Oh, I’ve heard the foundations in this development aren’t good.”

Correct. I can scare people away from homes all day, sure. But my point is, if there’s a home that is good for somebody … and they’re a first-time homeowner, maybe the first in their family to ever buy a house, and it’s at a price that they can afford, but they don’t have the cash, convincing them to put an offer in and just ask for it on the [idea that] maybe you’ll get it, that’s a giant emotional event for somebody. People cry when they don’t get a house. It’s devastating to them.

If it’s a first-time buyer who’s really trying to secure the American dream and get a property, to be told “No” could end their decision to buy a house. That absolutely happens.

I think we’re making some really good quality changes. We’re getting rid of offers of compensation. We’re getting them out of the forms, which I think is super important. It’s one hundred times more important than the concession issue, to make sure that the forms don’t encourage continued commission-sharing.

That has way more impact on what the risk is of potential steering or using fear of steering, which is really the issue on the seller side, than concessions are.

People have this opinion that concessions will replace offers of compensation. I have actual experience. I have data that suggests that that’s not going to happen, both historical and right now. I agree, people can just put nothing and let the buyer make an offer. I agree that that is something that can happen.

But again, go talk to the heads of, like [the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals] or any of the fair housing, first-time homeowner groups. They’re petrified about the commissions coming out of the MLS because they know that their body of people are going to be too scared to buy houses. The reason CRMLS is so behind keeping some level of concessions viable to help that group is important.

We can’t throw the baby out the bathwater. That’s what we’re doing if you’re going to attack concessions. At least let’s see what happens.

When you have your listing presentation, you tell the seller you don’t have to commit to anything regarding the buyer agent or concessions. But how do you have that conversation when you do want to offer a dollar amount or a percentage, if it is an FHA property?

It would be part of my explanation going through the comparative market analysis. Let’s say I’m selling a condo in Corona and it’s a 150-unit project and they have a three-bedroom two-bath. We look at the other three-bedroom two-baths that have sold in the neighborhood. Let’s say they’ve sold at $450,000. Three of them sold in the last two months. I’m going to look at what are the concessions that the seller paid to help a buyer get into the home.

I’m going to have that conversation with my client when we’re setting the list price. I’m going to explain to them that there is a set of potential buyers that may have a challenge in buying your property because they don’t have enough cash on hand. So do we want to address that or not?

We don’t have to. The other strategy we can go to is let’s go with the lowest price. Strip out the concessions and compensation … and let’s drop the price, make it lower. But we’re gonna have to rely on good buyer agents to be able to explain that and we’re not going to control that, so there’s a risk there.

This is part of my skill in communicating to a seller: what kind of marketing strategy do we want to go to market with? A lower price, no concessions? Or do we want to push a little bit of a higher price, but offer concessions?

Here’s what you’re going to get when you do the lower price: It will go to an investor, an all-cash guy who’s going to rent the house out because he’s going to see a nice, low price, and going to offer all-cash. Is that what we want? I’d rather have the VA guy or the FHA person in that house, personally.

Do you know of which MLSs are just doing the Yes/No in the concession field?

I don’t. I don’t know who else is going to be comfortable enough to do it because there’s so much fear around it that I think any MLS that’s going to take the tack of “We don’t want to talk to the [Department of Justice]. We don’t want to have any issue at all,” I think they’re going to either do no concessions, or they’re going to do only a Yes/No field and then kind of see how does it work.

How is the buyer’s agent’s work going to change after August 17?

The biggest thing that’s going to change with the buyer’s agent is going to be the need, No. 1, to be properly trained and skilled in communicating about transactions and understanding value, in addition to the things we buyer agents always do, which is emotional support, marriage counselor, friend, confidant.

Here’s the thing that’s going to change a lot and that is you’re going to have to get a buyer representation agreement signed. You’re going to have to be able to demonstrate your value, and you’re going to have to be able to then set your pricing of what you charge consistent with what value you bring to the transaction.

You’re going to need to be able to explain to your buyer how the current process has changed and how they can expect to include your fee in an offer so that the seller continues to pay your fee, just like historically it has been done for decades. You’re going to have to develop those skills. You’re going to have a presentation, you’re going to have to have data.

Realize you’re going to be in competition. You don’t get to just say, “Well, on my last X number of transactions, either this is what I made, or this is what everybody’s offering, so that’s what I’ll put down.” That’s not going to cut it.

If that’s what you do here in Knoxville and you want 3 percent, what are you going to do? Because if you want to move to Knoxville, I charge 2 percent. That’s my rate. So if you charge 3 percent, what are you going to do when I come along — a 30-year lawyer, 20-year Realtor, I’ve done thousands of transactions. Who’s the buyer going to use?

So they need to realize they’re going to be subject to price competition. Make sure that you’re setting the fee that you’re charging consistent with what your skill level is, your value proposition, the services you’re going to provide, and don’t be concerned about what other people charge or what’s being offered.

Then the next thing you need to realize right away as a buyer’s agent is you don’t need any help from the listing agent to decide on what’s being offered or anything like that. Go show every single property, open every door your buyer wants to see that he’s qualified for or she’s qualified for, and make an offer on every single property.

It doesn’t matter if the seller has offered concessions or not. Doesn’t matter. Make the offer and then be ready to negotiate the price against the offer you made. This is where the skills of valuation, understanding how to do a proper CMA, how to make appropriate adjustments for differences between comparable properties and a subject property, including other financial contributions from the seller, how it interacts with that as you start to justify your offer price.

In every offer that I make from this day forward, it’s going to say, “Seller shall pay Ed Zorn Realty X percent, in my case, 2 percent, of the purchase price of closing.” That’s going to be in every offer, and then we’ll negotiate from there.

So I’m not concerned ever about getting paid. It will be part of the transaction, just like it is today. The difference is that my buyer and I negotiated the buy-side fee, instead of the seller and the listing agent deciding on the buy-side fee. That’s a huge difference.

What are you being asked about the most in your work as a lawyer?

When agents are saying “what’s going to change?” what they really need to see are the [transaction] forms. The way you change agent behavior is MLS input and the forms. So it’s those two things together that can be used to change behavior.

With the terms of the settlement agreement and MLSs signing on, the MLS has done their job. We’re removing the commission fields. We’re changing our rules to mandate this buyer representation agreement. The MLSs are doing what they can, rule-wise and technology-wise, to drive those changes.

The other part of that now is going to be the forms. I think [the California Association of Realtors] did a good job by getting rid of commission-sharing. Just get rid of it. Eliminate it. We don’t need it. There’s no purpose in it. Off MLS, there’s no purpose in sharing commission.

Now that the [listing agreement] form is gone about sharing commissions, then the other form that matters is the purchase agreement, making sure that purchase agreement forms have a sentence or a process where the buyer can include in this offer on the purchase agreement the request for the payment of the buyer agency, as well as any other potential costs. Therefore, it is subject to negotiation between the buyer and the seller.

But I think what you’re going to find is, by the time you get to January, people are going to look backwards and go, “That really wasn’t that big of a deal.” A lot of hoopla, lots of hand wringing, lots of “Oh my god, what are we going to do?” but once you see the forms and if the forms are crafted properly, the system will naturally flow because people will use the forms to help educate and inform their consumer and that will drive the practice.

I fully expect 90 to 95 percent of all offers will have a request for the seller to pay the buyer’s agent.

Is there anything that people in the industry should be doing to keep themselves out of antitrust trouble in the future?

The No. 1 thing the industry should be doing to stay out of trouble is get rid of anything that supports commission-sharing. That means at a state association level or a local association level that is creating standardized forms, those listing agreement forms should not accommodate or facilitate the sharing of commissions between brokerage firms, between the listing broker and the buyer’s broker.

They should be focused instead on only the commission discussion being between the listing agent and the seller.

Email Andrea V. Brambila.

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Broker Spotlight: Vanessa Griffin, The Agency Tyler

by Verl Workman | Jul 18, 2024 | Industry, News Feed

Teams Spotlight: Matt McKee, The McKee Group at Compass

by Amy Chorew | Jul 18, 2024 | Industry, News Feed