Three Key Parties of a Home Sale

The seller, the agent and the market are the three key parties of any home sale.  Each party has a unique role and within that role there are things they can – and can’t  - control.  The seller can control things like condition and price of the home while the agent controls marketing and negotiations.  The wildcard is the market and things like interest rates and inventory.  We talk about the interplay between these parties and how by working together and understanding the dynamics you can have a smother sales process.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to the Remax real Estate Insights Show
where you get real talk by real agents. Walk to
you by Remax of Southeastern Michigan. Welcome to our Remax
real Estate Insights podcast. We're happy to have you joining
us today. To our loyal listeners, I should probably say
welcome back. We've had a bit of a break towards
the end of twenty four as our media partner, iHeart

(00:23):
moved to some new studios in downtown Detroit. That resulted
in a little bit of a hiatus towards the end
of the year while they got everything set up. But
the good news is is we're back. We have several
special guests lined up and we've got some great topics
for you.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
And I know you can't see it, but the studios
are beautiful and it's so nice to be here today.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
We're diving in to a topic that is at the
heart of every real estate transaction, and that's the three
key parties to a home sale. There's the seller, the agent,
and the market itself. And you can kind of think
of it as the ultimate trio in the real estate world.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Here's the thing.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Each of these parties has a unique and within that role.
There are things that can and cannot be controlled. The seller, well,
they can control quite a few things. The agents, well,
great agents have control of many things. They're kind of
the quarterback of the deal. But even the best and
most experienced agents cannot change certain things, specifically what's going

(01:19):
on in the economy, for example. And then speaking of
the market, well, it's to me the wild card. It's
influenced from everything from interest rates to inventory levels. And
in this episode we're going to unpack it all. We're
going to talk about the interplay between these three forces
and how understanding what can and what cannot be controlled
can make the process maybe just a little bit smoother

(01:40):
for everybody involved. And joining me to chat about this
topic is our special guest today, Missy McSweeney. She is
with Remax Classic. Thank you Missy for braving the weather
today and joining us. Is the first guest in this
new studio. We're happy to have you.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Thank you so much. It's my pleasure. I'm so excited
to be here. And you said that about the studio.
It is absolutely stunning. It's gorgeous and I'm so excited
to be the first guest. It is a beautiful studio.
And I feel so professional.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, and their colors scheme, if you're not familiar with
I heard is red and black and kind of white.
And were we even wearing the colors where that was
intentional or not? We kind of pulled that, pulled that off.
So to kick things off, I'm starting I'm doing something
different this year with all of our guests, and I'm
going to ask them. The very first question is going
to be what got you into real estate? How did
you land with real estate as your profession.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Well, i'll give you the reader's digest version. The reader's
diegest version is God brought me to Michigan, and while
I was here, he brought me here, me and my
husband to start a real estate appraisal company, so appraisal.
We started our mixedweny appraisals. We were we were doing that,

(02:53):
oh gosh, probably almost ten years right before well we
started seeing the downfall and what was happening with the
mortgage crisis.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
So this is back in two thousand and seven, yes.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
And so you know we were Mike, my husband, Mike
decided to close that business and go and work for
corporate and which was great for us. But then I'm like, well,
what what what do I do? And so, you know,
I have a really good friend who's a real estate
agent that brought me on and I started pretty much.

(03:26):
It was I felt like, wow, this is where I
need to be And so gosh, that's been thirteen years now,
Time flies, right, Lilies. Yeah, So I think it came
from the fact that I moved here to Michigan start
the appraisal company, and after that it was just kind
of a natural procession to move into the sales part
of it. I was in the you know, you know,

(03:47):
we always say the appraisers they get a little they
get a little bad rap. But the risk management part
of the business to the actual sales of the business,
which I think is probably where I was. My husband's
very analytical and I'm very what right, So I felt
like that's probably more.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
Of the sales side, probably is a better fit for
you than yes, And it's been amazing. Well and we're
lucky to lucky to have you. So we're going to
talk today. And this was your idea. You know, this
is something that you say that you talked to, you know,
with your clients kind of this this uh the three
legged stool, you know of these kind of three different
parties to the transaction. And let's start with the party
to the transaction that neither the seller nor an agent

(04:25):
has very much control over. Yeah, and that's going to
be overall market conditions. And now when we say that,
you know kind of what things tend to fall in
that bucket.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Well, you know, the market is something that we place
your listing into the market. It's something we cannot control.
It has, you know, we things like economy, interest rate, competition,
all those things come into play. We've break that down
a little bit into economy, what's going on we've had
you know, the last Q four of twenty twenty four

(04:54):
brought in an extra little something there, which was the election. Right,
So one of those factors that we had to consider
in Q four was the election. So things like what's
going on with our job market, what's going on with
you know an election? Where where are those things happening?
With the interest rate? So economy plays a big part

(05:18):
in what's going on in the market. We're outside of it,
but we're into.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
It it, but it impacts it huge.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Impact, a huge impact. Yeah. And when I say interest rate,
people often will say to me, well, I'm not buying.
I'm just selling, So how does the interest rate affect me?
I don't care, you know, I'm I'm just trying to
sell my house. Well, I will say it affects you
in a big impact. A big impact is your buyer,

(05:47):
your buyer, whose potential buyers, A potential buyer that's coming
is going to absolutely affect affect you because it will
affect your buyer's purchasing power. So a seller and a
buyer definitely need to have some interest in what's going
on with the interest rate.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
Me because they'll typically the lower the interest rate probably
a certainly a stronger pool of potential buyers. As we've
seen interest rates, you know, kind of tick up over
the last few years. Obviously that does take some buyers
out of the market. And so yeah, it does impact sellers.
They may not see it or feel it directly, but
it is there.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
It is there, yes, And so we look at those things,
you know, what's going on with the economy, what's going
on with the interest rate? And then the one the
one nugget that I often talk about too is competition.
You know, we can comp out, we can do a
compare market analysis on what's going on, but what's going
on and what is the competition. So if I'm going

(06:42):
to list a property, I'm going to list it for
X amount. And we're done all our marketing and we're
ready to go, And we didn't know that the neighbor
was going to list their property. And they come in
and they market their property, they want to fire sell
it because of whatever reason, and we're already at one price.
But it's you know, twenty five thousand dollars lower than

(07:04):
what we were going to do. How is that going
to affect us? So knowing what your competition is, knowing
what's you know on the market presently, and hopefully talking
to your neighbors and seeing if you know something's going
to come up in the market that we don't know about.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
I mean absolutely. And so you touched on a couple
of different things. And let's go to interest rates because
it is kind of a big factor right now. It's
a big talking point, gets a lot of kind of
press and buzz. If we will, interest rates are in
the sixes. They've ticked up a little bit in the
last few weeks. Most experts seem to think they're going
to stay in the sixes for the most of this year.
There was optimism a while, a beat that maybe they'd

(07:40):
start to come down, but I'm everything i'm reading says
they're going to be if we're lucky six point two
at the end of the year.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
How greatly is that impacting the market? Do you think? Well?
I think, you know what, at the very beginning, it
slowed the market way down. Everybody's way what's going on?
What's happening again, going back to the election, what happened
with the election was you know, okay, now I'm secure, Okay,
interest rates are going to come down. Well, I think
now in talking to my buyers and sellers, but talking

(08:07):
to my buyers in particular, they're okay with it. They're
okay with it. And it's become a little bit more
I don't want to say normal, but it's become a
little more normal. Well, and it should.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
They've been here enough for going on three years, and
I get it. There was sticker shock when we were
coming out of the low threes that we had said
at for almost what a decade, it was like historic lows,
and then it bumped up and it went up fairly quickly.
But in a rate in the sixes, isn't bad. Historically
that's lower than the average over time, but it's just

(08:38):
it with a little sticker shock.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
So it's good to hear.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
You know that what you're seeing in the market is
people coming to terms with this is what it is.
And if I've got job security and consumer confidence and
I've saved that I can afford it, I'm not going
to let that go.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
That's bringing out some of our sellers too, Yeah, because
the sellers are having to come out of the mindset
of we'll have a two point three interestry right now,
why would I want to go and buy another house.
So I think the sellers are under standing, hey, I
might be able to get a little bit more from
my house, but I'm gonna have to it's gonna it's
gonna even out, yeah, because my interest rate's going to
be a little higher moving into the next property. So again,
it's all in. I think people are settling into this

(09:13):
is where we're at. Yes, that's what it is.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
So you mentioned competition, which leads me to question about
inventory because you know, while we never know exactly when
the next home is going to come on the market,
as a potential seller, unless you have very good relationship
with all of your neighbors to know what's going you
have to know what's going on. Inventory has been an issue.
It's been a big issue. There's not enough homes out
there for sale. You're indicating that you're starting to a

(09:36):
sense that maybe there's some loosening. Are you anticipating, like
in spring, we'll see a few more homes this year
than last.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
Year come out in the market. So I think so.
I think that the the economists are saying that, okay,
you know, people are again moving that mark just a
little bit coming outside of the I'm a two point
three interest right now, and I don't want to move.
So I think all of those things coming into are
coming into play. So we have sellers that are ready

(10:02):
to move, sellers who have, you know, stretched as far
as they can be in their home. They're ready to downsize,
right So I do think that this year we're going
to see a lot more movement from the sellers. I'm
starting to see a little bit of it now. I
know the the attrition rate right now, or the absorption

(10:22):
rate right now, is more than it was last year.
I think it was like I think one point three
at one point, which meant if all of the inventory.
It's on the market right now. Was to sell it
would take about a month and yeah, right a little bit.
And you're right.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
I mean I do housing reporting and the numbers are
tacking up a little bit.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, I think we're closer to two right now. Yeah,
so what that means, you know, two months worth of inventory.
So that tells me that we are moving a little
bit more to having a little bit more inventory.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Well, I think that you hit on something, you know,
again from the market perspective, and probably the last thing
and then we'll move on to the next is demographics.
And I look at it and you said, you know,
people have hung onto these houses and typically you know,
we would have seen in generations past as people retire,
the downsizing, people are aging in place more. And I'm
not picking on a generation, but that is kind of

(11:13):
the boomer generation, you know, right, I mean they're staying
in their houses longer. They're not moving on either because
they want to, they're more active, you know whatever, or
they were mentally tied to an interest rate. So do
you sense that that generation is truly getting ready to
move on a little bit?

Speaker 2 (11:29):
I do more, I do, I do, I do. I
feel like you know, just based on what we just said,
I think that they're aging and the stairs are becoming
too much. Yea, a little bit too much. I think
probably out of ten clients that I would have, eight
of them right now are in that bar in that bucket.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
Interesting because there's not really a polite way to say this,
but I know I'd heard from a couple of agents
last year that says, the only way I'm getting listings
is if somebody's moving into assisted living or it's an estate.
I mean, and that's kind of what was happening. People
were hanging on to that point.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
So it's healthy. It's healthy for.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
The sellers that are choosing to move to whatever they're
going to place up north, you know, downsizing kind of
whatever they're doing. It's healthy clearly for the market in
the industry, it is it is, yes, Okay, So let's
turn our attention towards another party that has some significant
control in a transaction, and that is the seller. You know,
they they one of the basic things a seller can

(12:25):
control is the condition of their property.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
So how do you address that. Somebody calls you out they're.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
Thinking of selling, and you walk in, how do you
address condition of the property?

Speaker 2 (12:35):
Well, ultimately, it's their home. It's their house, and what
they're calling me to do is to come give them
some advice. So and as much as I say that,
it has to be done gingerly because when I go
back to it's their house, it's their home, it's where
they live, it's where they're comfortable. It's personal personally, yeah,
And so helping navigate them through that, I usually take

(12:57):
a tour and we go through troom and they ask
me what can I do in this room? And it's
very simple, this is this is what we want to
streamline to do. So if I also show them a
picture of you know, here's a client that I had before,
and here's a client of what they their house looks
like now, like what we did. And so helping them
navigate through that room by room is I think takes

(13:21):
the big, you know, the scariness out of it for them,
and it's just it's more open and honest with them.
As I'm walking through. Sometimes you know they have I'll
just say a little knick knacks here and there, and
those things will have to go. So it's just easy
to say, let's let's box these up. These are personal.

(13:45):
We don't want anything to happen to them. So let's
box them up and put them.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Away before we That's a nice way of handling it
versus you've got a bunch of stuff sitting out they
have kind of eye clutter. But I mean, but that
is part of the finesse of what you're doing. Is
is and there's truth to what you're saying. Obviously you're
gonna be people coming in and out of your house. Let's
not have something that maybe is a treasured remembrance of
a trip, you know, get bumped and knocked to the

(14:09):
floor or something happened to it.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yes, yeah, so that's one of the easiest ways to
do it, because you know, condition makes is a huge part.
And one of the things that I always tell my
sellers also is you know, you may not have a
you know, mansion, but most of us don't. Most of
us don't. But the cleaner it is, the better. So

(14:33):
even if it is let's just say a thousand square
foot ranch and it is immaculate and it's beautifully cleaned,
it has the sense of condition as far as you've
taken care of this property, You've maintained this property, and
nobody wants to walk in to your property that's filthy.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
No, we just bought and sold last year. Matter of fact,
we closed last year on January twenty fourth, so right
about a year that we've been in and so we
had been looking for months, almost a year before we
did this. And your again as it putting the consumer
hat on, not just the you know kind of real
estate hat, you're so right clean makes all the difference psychologically,

(15:17):
you know, just how you feel about the house, how
it presents itself to you, and I think you're right.
It does send a message, whether right or wrong, because
maybe they just had somebody come in and really clean
this baby before or they put it on the market,
but it does set the signal up they cared for
this home, and if they cared enough to have it clean,
the perception and usually the reality is as they've taken

(15:38):
good care of it.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
And it does it does, you know, transition into how
we list the property because somebody is willing to pay
more money for a.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
Clean house that that's turnkey, that I can come and
don't have to do anything too.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, it's definitely worth the time and effort if you do.
If you know some of the homes that I walk
into they've lived in the house for fifty five years,
and so there's a lot of stuff that you have
to go through. But if you do that prior to
the listing, then a person's coming in saying, oh, I don't,

(16:15):
I don't have to wait, I don't I need to
move in. Right. So the other thing is people need
to move in now. Yeah, so that can be a
deterrent if they see that so much needs to be
done with the house after they close, right, So turnkey
making sure that it looks nice and clean transitions into
this home has been taken care of.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yeah, absolutely, and just out of curiosity. I mean, I
know historically kitchens and bathrooms tend to be rooms that
if you're going to put a little extra elbow grease
and if you're going to put a little extra effort
in you know those you know, But what do you
I mean, are there does it matter? I mean, are
there other Are there specific rooms that you think really
have to shine or is it like.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
Lay kitchens and bathrooms you don't want to have any
This is so gross, But I seen I've seen you know,
long strands of hair in the bathroom and just it's
just so it's a turn off, Yes, but you don't
want to see any of that. But you know, one
of the things that a lot of my buyers have
mentioned to me is the sliding glass door. Yes, the

(17:20):
frame there of the sliding glass door. Keeping that clean. Yeah,
it makes a difference. You're walking in the door and
you know you're stepping in and that's the first thing
you see.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
Oh, that's interesting because I know, like what is in
commercial buildings like the Class A, like the elevator grates
get cleaned, right, That's one of the things in a
Class A building that they pay attention to. And so
it's kind of like, well, you have to make your
home a Class A building, and you wouldn't think you're
thinking windows and sinks and all of this other stuff.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
And it's something, Yeah, open the sliding glass door and
they see a bunch of you know, dirt or a
dead bug or whatever it is, and you know that's
all of a sudden, it's.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
Okay, what is this very interesting?

Speaker 2 (17:57):
And how I can't even tell you how many of
my buyers.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
So now even at my own home, I'm like vacuuming,
treat it as if you've got a party, because I
just got out the I mean I clean, you know,
methodically every week. But we had some people over a
couple of weeks ago, and you know, I've been noticing
every now and then, like a bug up fly on
life support, you know, flying around the house somewhere, and
they all tend to land in the tracks.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
Right. For some reason, I've been trying to.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
Get out or whatever, and I took the vacuum attachment.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
I'm like, okay, I know I saw. I want to
make sure I get that out of there.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
So that's funny that that's something that buyers are I mean,
because it's kind of a looked down thing. It's not
like it's something your eyes going to see right away.
But that's when I.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
Fly that sliding glass door open to step out or
step in, you look down. You heard it here? First,
take care of the track on the siding, all right.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
So we're so you're talking about condition, and you're talking
about you know, things that they can't control, the cleanliness,
the you know, the the you know, cleaning of things
and putting on that best you know, face forward for
a good first impression, which leads to you know, like
you you alluded to, it leads to the price going
to be able to how you're going to market the home.
So how do you talk to sellers about the price,
because that is something that they have control over, Yes

(19:07):
they do.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
It is there again, ultimately it's their home and they
can list this property for whatever they want to listen
it for. What I'm there is to help guide them
through giving them the most education that I can on
what the market, what's going on in the market. My
expertise is on the market, how what's happening with the economy,

(19:30):
what's happening with interest rates, what's happening with the competition.
And in that competition, we go through comparables, right, how
do we come up with what is going to best
fit in that market space? And you know, I go,
I go back to the appraiser, you know mentality that
I have in my mind and show them what has

(19:52):
happened in the past. So an appraiser is not has
not he's not giving or they are not giving information
on the fututure, giving information on what's happened in the past.
And so again they're risk managers for the bank. So
the bank wants to say, you know, what is our
risk on this property? So my when I come in

(20:12):
and talk to my clients. I talked them about here's
what's happened in the past.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
Here's what's closed recently, what they closed for.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
This is what's closed recently. Here's how it compares. We're
compared to market and else. Here's how it compares to
your home. Either pluses right. This one had to finish basement.
Yours doesn't have a finished basement. This one has a
three car garage. You have a two car garage. These
all have two car garages and unfinished basements. And this

(20:41):
is most similar to yours. Yeah, so helping them understand
what that data means. So here's your comparable. Here's what's
happened in your neighborhood or within one mile of it.
Not what happened you know, three or five miles else
right here, but what's happened within one mile and in

(21:04):
the last six months. This is what an appraiser. Who's
most likely most people are not going to have the cash,
even though I do have a lot of cash cashiers. Yeah,
most people are going to have to take a mortgage
out and they're going to have to have an appraisal done.
So here's where you know, a block of numbers is

(21:26):
going to land from this appraiser, So we want to
at least be around there. Now, what's going to make
your house not necessarily more valuable, but more marketable? Clean house,
like we talked about condition a clean house, but navigating
them through the appraisal process, I think is probably one
of my power houses, Like it's one of my superpowers.

(21:48):
And getting helping them understand that again, we're having to
go back into the marketplace. If you know, the comparable
or the range of numbers is five hundred thousand, but
you want to sell for nine hundred on, we're probably
going to have a problem. And here's why. Yeah, here's why.
Here's what. This is what the data is showing.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
And this is what and this is what an agent
representing a buyer is going to be telling their people,
is you know, kind of using the same data because
it's not like it's just our data. You know, other
people have access, you know to this. And now it's
been a seller's market for a while, I mean in
the fact that there's fewer homes for sale than the
number of buyers out in the market, so that tends
to favor the sellers, right, and we've seen that prices
have kind of accelerated. There are times where there's you know,

(22:28):
bids by multiple buyers on a property, you know, things
of that nature. Are you finding that sellers are of
a mindset where they're still looking to kind of shoot high.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
You know, I mean? Or are they being realistic?

Speaker 1 (22:41):
I mean, do they listen to you in the expertise
that you're bringing and saying, you know what I thought?
Maybe I was here, but I hear what you're saying.
You know, some of the houses that in my mind
I was comparing my house to have features mind doesn't have.
And are they you know, are they pricing it, you know,
correctly in your mind?

Speaker 2 (22:56):
So I'm not going to pack myself on the back,
but I'm going to say the better that's communicated to
a seller, the the easier really it is for them
to come to understand how am I going to pull
these two things together? Wanting X amount of money an
X amount of dollars and oh wait, what's the reality.
So I think if you you know, being able to

(23:17):
communicate that to them based on what we were talking
about today, has been pretty easy. Good. I think most
of most of the sellers are of understanding that because
either they have a place they need to go or
want to go, and so they don't want to be
I don't want to be months. I'm me dealing with
this for six months and generally that that will happen.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
If you're not if you're not pricing, if condition and
price isn't correct, yeah, it's going to sit. And then
everybody wonders why because in this market things are still
moving relatively fast. So if you you know good condition,
listen to your agent, like Missy, you know, you know
on and you know on the comparables and what's going
on in your very localized market, not even southeastern Michigan
as a whole, maybe not even the city you live in, asshole.

(24:01):
Your neighborhood's very distinct, you know.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
And we'll say too, it's highly likely in this market
where we have, you know, more buyers than we have sellers,
that we may get more than the price that we're listing.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
So keeping that in mind, however, what are we going
to do to ensure Because I'm telling you here's the
price that we should list the property for because it's
pretty close to what an appraiser is going to see too.
But if somebody wants to come and give us fifty
thousand dollars more than we've listed for what are the
techniques that we're going to use so that we secure that,

(24:40):
meaning an appraisal, praise, so guarantee or of some sort.
I've had also recently, probably in the last six or
eight months, added an earnest money deposit that is non refundable.
Sometimes those buyers are, you know, all of a sudden say, oh,

(25:00):
wait a minute, the appraisal came in at this this,
I'm out, I'm out, or I'm not going to do
that anymore. So how are we going to how we're
going to keep that buyer on the hook if you will. Yeah,
And some of the strategies are, hey, okay, listen, if
you want to do this, well, accept your offer fifty
thousand dollars more than we listed, but you're going to

(25:21):
have a higher earnest money to deposit, and it's going
to be non refundable.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
Well, absolutely, because you know now we're in theory taking
this off the market. You know in good faith that
we're going to work on this deal. But we understand
if you're off in fifty over, there could be an appraisal,
you know, shortage, you know, coming down here and yeah,
I get I.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
Totally totally get it. And you're right.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
When we sold last year, we listed it for a
certain price, and I mean and I, you know, agreed
one thousand percent with the agent.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
I knew exactly you know why. And I was right
on board.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
A couple of comps and those houses were a little
bit bigger, they had features ours didn't have, and in
the market did push the price up. We had, you know,
multiple people, We had like three or four offers, you know,
in two days. And it's like that they pushed the
price up on their own, not enough that it became
an appraisal issue, but enough that we got a little
bit more than it was, you know, listed for I

(26:10):
was perfectly happy.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
Right, I bet you were.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
We went out of town. We had a ski trip plan.
We said here, she held an open house, had all
sorts of showings. By the time we landed, we had
four offers, and it was like in the caboard and see,
I'm like, it's a house every day.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
This is easy, I know, right, I feel like that's
going to happen again. It's already starting to happen now
from the listings that I've had, And I think here
in the next couple months, it's going to be It's
going to happen again just like that. I think more
and more sellers are going to experience that too. Yeah.
You know what when I often and asked that question,
you know, or are we still getting multiple offers, I'm like, yeah,

(26:45):
we're still getting multiple offers. It's a lot different than
it was in twenty twenty one. Right, I would list
of property and multiple offers meant twenty.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
Five exactly, yeah, right, which is more, honestly, more than
people could really deal with.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
Yeah, it was. It was insane. I had a list
twenty five offers and I think there were like fifty showings. So,
you know, we're not seeing that that anymore. However, we're
still seeing multiple offers. It may just be you know,
three or three Yeah, like you said, which is still great.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
It's still again again, it's still as a seller, it's
a seat you want to be in. There's nothing wrong,
you know with it from a seller's perspective. Yeah, it's
not the crazy hot that we saw coming out of COVID,
but especially in our market's got a little seasonality that
has returned. You know, they're coming out of COVID and
seasonality was out the window. It was just hot for
you know, you know, fourteen sixteen months straight. But we're
seeing that little bit of a seasonality right now. But

(27:35):
I would into seeing spring.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
It kind of goes back to what we were talking earlier.
Are we seeing more sellers come back on the market. Yeah,
I think we are. We're starting to see things change
a little bit. When instead of having twenty five our list,
twenty five offers were down to three or four, right, So,
but I think that's kind of where it's going to stay.
That's the norm, and that's good.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
I mean, that's a healthier to me. It's a healthier
market for everybody.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
But it's also telling me also telling me that you
know what our properties that were pricing, we're pricing them appropropriately.
So I don't think we're you know, I think the education,
the communication and the understanding between the seller and the
agent it's critical and I think we're seeing that.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
So let's go to the other The kind of the
last thing we're going to touch on as is just
something that the seller can control, and that is their
reaction or their answer to an offer. They can't control
what the offer is, right, They can't control what another
you know, what the buyer. If a buyer wants to
come in and try to low ball, they can't control that,
But they can't control their you know, kind of their
official reaction to it, not the reactions you stay at

(28:40):
the kitchen table, but their official reaction. So how do
you handle that with them? Well, you know, absolutely you
can do several things. You can decline it, you know,
if it's something that's.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Crazy low low, or something that they don't like, you
can counter it or you can accept it. Those are
the three things that you you work on when you
have an offer. Now it is it is a little
easier when you have three offers on the table versus
just one. Right, if three offers on the table, you're
sitting back as a seller saying, okay, I have a
little bit more of a position of strength. But I

(29:15):
think that even though there is you know, three or
four offers on the table, that having having a position
of strength even though you have three offers is where
you know, I, as an agent comes in and says,
what did our marketing plan? What did it bring to
the table here? So do we have three great offers?

(29:38):
Do we have one that's not so great, two that
are great? Or are they all terrible? And I think
that the result of the kind of offers you're getting
is a direct result of your marketing. And so I
think that helping starting with the possession of strength helps
our sellers say what exactly am I looking for? We

(29:59):
may need extra occupancy, we might need no occupancy, we
might need occupancy for free. That's been right, kind of
a cool thing. Well, and I think somebody was asking
me the other day, or I haven't sold a house
in a while, can they can I rent back? Or
can they rent it back for me? And I said, oh,

(30:20):
absolutely you can. You probably won't get the offer accepted,
but yes you can, because it's become a little bit
more of a norm that the occupancy is for free. Now,
how do I protect my buyer from that? I'm gonna
step aside for a second and just talking about sellers,
But how do you protect the buyer from that? You
protect the buyer by saying you can live in my
you can live a minute property for free. That's fine,

(30:41):
but we're going to put an escrow, yeah, of X
amount of our dollars.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
Well, because I mean, now there's living and life happens,
and if there's damage and you have a little bit of.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
Protection, but helping the seller understand that, like, Okay, you're
gonna be able to live for for free. But hey,
here's we're going to set this money aside and you'll
get it back if everything's great. And I have I
know that everything's going to be just fine with you.
So this is not a problem. You'll get your money back.
But this makes every This makes the collaboration in this deal.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
This helps put this helps put this factory together together.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
Absolutely, Yeah, It's funny how like you go back in time.
Let's say what you know, ten twenty years ago, if
a seller, you know, closing happened, seller stayed in the
home which is now the buyer's house, they did pay rent,
you know, I mean, and it's funny how that's become
not a thing.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
For the most part.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
I mean, it certainly still can happen, but market conditions
have changed. And when it's a seller's market, that's another
benefit that you know, kind of they get.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
To here's a strategy that I don't know who it was,
but a brilliant strategy of okay, we're we don't just
have to know the entire purchase agreement is negotiable, right,
So it's not just the price, and I.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
Don't know often it's price and terms, I mean, And
that's kind of what gets forgotten. So much focus gets
on price, and I get it. I guess you know.
The house is the financial asset for you know, a
big one, the biggest one for many people. But it's
price and terms. Terms is like everything else, everything that's
on the contract.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
And that's why I sit down with my clients face
to face and let's lay out these contracts and see
what this means, right, Because what if they're all pretty
close as far as price, how are you going to
differentiate the three offers or the righter offer it is,
And what does that look like? Could you know, could
that look like they pay for their title insurance or whatever.

(32:26):
It looks like. The entire purchase agreement is negotiable, and
I don't think that that is something that a lot
of people do or think about. But it doesn't necessarily
mean just price, because the higher the price you go,
the more money that you're spending on an appraisal guarantee
runs into problems. So if you can take some of

(32:49):
that money off and say, well, you're okay with as
a buyer agent, You're you said that you were okay
with spending an extra fifty thousand dollars on an appraisal. Right, Well,
how about we, you know, give twenty five and then
the other twenty five is how, you know, helping the
seller's bottom line somehow. Right. So when I'm sitting on

(33:12):
this side of it with the seller, I say that often,
well you have They're going to be paying for your
title insurance. They're going to be paying for your certificate
of clothes of occupancy if that's needed. They're going to
be paying for a home warranty. They're going to be
paying for all of these things which equal out to X,
Y Z, right, and so the terms of the sale.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
Are huge as and I think you're right, that gets
lost because again, so much focus, you know, goes to
the number. That's what everybody looks at. But you said
the devil. I always say the devils in the details, right,
And I agree with you completely. You could have multiple offers,
and let's assume some of them are going to be
within a stone throw of each other from price, if
not identical, right, and then it's like okay, well, Now
let's get down to is it cash? Is it are
they securing a mortgage? What are they doing with an

(33:57):
inspection and an appraisal? What are they doing with occupancy?

Speaker 2 (33:59):
What are they doing?

Speaker 1 (34:00):
Yeah, like you said, with other you know, closing costs
and things of that nature. Yes, so already, Well, the
last of the three parties to a sale of a
home is the agent, like Missy McSweeney that we're talking to,
you know, like that like the seller. I mean, the
agent doesn't control the overall market conditions. They just have
to be aware of them, you know, so that they

(34:20):
can you know, communicate, council and advise their you know,
their clients, but they don't control them. And they can
advise and counsel and coach the seller on a lot
of things from condition and pricing and you know, stuff
like that. But ultimately, what a seller actually does is
in the seller's control. So let's talk about some things
that the agent can control. And one of those I
think is, you know, some of the marketing of a home.

(34:42):
So talk to me about marketing is kind of your specialty.
You light up when you talk about that. So, so
how do you approach marketing a property?

Speaker 2 (34:49):
Well, you know, it's my job to expose the listing
to the largest pool of ready, willing, able and interested buyers, Right,
So what what do I need to do to get
this property in the eyes of the market. And so
I always start with telling my sellers that the buyers

(35:10):
are looking through three lenses. You know, they have their
lenses are property condition, which we talked about, the location,
and price. And the thing about it is a buyer
is not going to be able to get all three.
There might say, hey, listen, I want a beautiful kitchen

(35:31):
in a fabulous neighborhood. So beautiful kitchen condition, fabulous, good location,
what is going to have to give price? Price? So,
in my marketing of trying to get this property out
there to those those clients or to those potential buyers,

(35:52):
exposure and exposure means who is going to buy this property?
Are a colonial property? Which so like two stories. Are
we going to go and market to you know, a
senior center?

Speaker 1 (36:07):
No?

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Probably not? Right? Am I going to spend my marketing
dollars at a you know, elementary school? Probably because they've
little kids? And that's okay. So finding the right exposure
to ready willing, enable, interestive buyers is important, you said,
I light up. I love social media. We just met

(36:29):
earlier with a presentation that I did on social media.
I think social media and all aspects of the of
this era is important.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
And he has a large significant reach, yes, a.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
Large significant reach. So and being able to dial into
the demographic as well in that social media aspect is critical.
So and I know, I just you know, I talk
about social media a lot. I know there's not a
lot of people that like to be on camera, and
that's fine. There's other ways to do it. You can

(37:06):
take a picture and put in a voice over.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
Beautiful pictures I mean part of the marketing of the home,
because I mean it can show to some degree the condition.
It can get people stoked about wanting to see it,
you know, just by the beautiful pictures.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
That are I always kind of step outside of the
traditional right. Of course, we're going to have professional marketing
or professional photography, and if you don't, there's usually a consequence.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
Right.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
But sometimes when you're in this high, fast paced market
and you throw some pictures on the house will still sell.
Why because there's you know, more bodfication all that stuff.
It's still going to sell. And so most sometimes I'll here, well,
I didn't have to spend X amount of dollars on
my marketing because or my photo, my photos. I took

(37:51):
my iPhone and did it. Well, okay, well you did
sell the property, but how much money did you did
you keep on the table right by doing it with
the most integrity that you could for your seller. So
professional photography is obviously something that you know, can should consider.
It's something that I think professional have. Professional photography and

(38:12):
professional cleaning or two of the things that I are
just non negotiables, like those are things that I that
I will always provide, but there are going back into
the social media part of it. It's you know again
photos cleaning, but take it outside of the traditional and
outside of the traditional I think is social media yea,

(38:32):
and videos and getting and showing and exposing the property
you can only see in two dimensional with the picture right,
get into a three dimensional and let that buyer who
I probably have had two or three out of country
clients that needed to saw the visual. Yeah, saw the

(38:54):
visual with our marketing when it was a video. So
I think that that is a really big part. The
other the other traditional I think marketing technique is open house.
But how do you take that traditional open house and
blow it up to a whole different level. How do
you take it to a different level. And so again

(39:17):
many people and some agents will disagree with me, but
it's okay, that's just not their forte and that's not
their thing. But I think there is a huge opportunity
for open houses and open houses meaning you don't just
stand there and let them come in. You bring the
home to life for these people. You stand outside and say,

(39:39):
look at this amazing park right that they that you
bring to light things that they may not be able
to see if they were just walking right alone within
the property. So I think open houses are amazing. I
think that they're opportunities. Well absolutely they are. In a
couple of fronts.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
I think it's a fabulous opportunity to get in a
short period of time a high number or potential buyers
you know, through there. And because I know there are
people that can do and have to buy home site unseen,
I can't ever fathom myself doing that, but I know
that it does, you know, happen. But for many people,
stepping into the home is what's really going to you know,
as where they can start to see themselves living there.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
Well, I also think it does a really amazing service
to your seller. Exactly. It's like you said earlier, how
you sold your property. You were gone on a ski trip. Yep. Well,
I think the opportunity you know, we always say the
day that your house hits the market is the top
of the market. That's for interesting. Yeah, the top of
the interest is going to be that first day, and
then it is going to start declining after that. Yeah, right,

(40:39):
So why not take the opportunity to let as many
people in, whether they're with their agent or not, as
many people in so that it is the inconvenience is
the seller the least amount of time, the least amount
of time you're going to power up that open house,
and what do you do. You don't just go and
stuck some signs in there. That's that's a weak process

(41:00):
of getting ready for the open houses with postcards and
door knocking and inviting and social media and boosting your posts,
taking videos. So there's a process to the open house.
I think a lot of people think, oh agent sign.

Speaker 1 (41:15):
Yeah from open house in a balloon and you know,
something like that, and yeah, that's that's like the low bar.

Speaker 2 (41:20):
You know, that's the low bar open house. That's not
the how do I elevate this open house? And I
think you take the traditional things like photos and cleaning
and open houses and elevate them to stratosphere.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
And I think that you're right. I mean I I
we went through a lot of homes. Like I said,
we looked for months as we were looking, and it
was funny because at the house we ultimately bought was
originally listed with a different company and then changed agents
went to Remax agent. That's when the price got more realistic.
That's what we bought. But it was funny when we
went through the open house, the agent was so disinterested. Yeah,

(41:55):
I'm like, we we came through once and we came
through like a second time because we couldn't this house
out of our mind. Right when we went through the
first time, the price was a little out of it,
and I said, well, let's just see, we're not sign
finding a lot in the price point.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
Let's just see. I mean, we're not going to do this.
Let's just see.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
And we came back through a second time, like two
weeks later when there was an open house. He recognized us,
so he did, I mean, he did recognize it, but
then like, oh, you've been here before.

Speaker 2 (42:19):
Okay, And I'm like, oh, such a missed opportunity, dude.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
You know right, we're setting a buying signal, you know,
but you didn't really capitalize on it. So I think
there is so much, like you said, that you can
do to get people and it helps the seller because
showings are hard, you know, and when you're trying to
sell your house and live in your house and keep
it in showing condition to do that for weeks and
months at a time, it becomes a challenge. So yeah,

(42:42):
if you can do something at the front end and
get as many people in when when interest is really high,
you are doing a service.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
You have to again, dial it up, dial it up prior.
If you're asking your seller to you know, open their
home up, what are you going to do? That's different yep.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
And I've seen some people like doing a very different
not this ondn't isn't necessary probably for every property. But
I'm doing wine and cheese and you know, different things
like that and kind of almost making it and do
or like doing one for the neighbors first, like you know,
and you know beforehand because they want to come in anyway, Well,
in the neighbors it's also an opportunity for you know,
for me to you know, interview for somebody else. Maybe, absolutely,

(43:20):
but it's also the opportunity for those sellers. I think, gosh,
I can probably name a handful of open houses that
I've done over the years that it was somebody that
came in and said, my cousin, uncle, sister, brother, whoever
wants to buy in this neighborhood, right, but they live
in somewhere else or state, and I'm here for them,
and I've sold the house to somebody that was a neighbor. Absolutely,

(43:43):
I mean, ye don't you don't want to discourage them,
you know, I mean, so you can make it about them,
or like you said, just include them in door knock.
A just want to let you know there's going to
be extra traffic on the street this weekend.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
This is what I'm doing. You're welcome to come by. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
Absolutely, we both know most cases, once a house sells,
somebody else in that neighborhood is going to sell.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
They're already thinking about it.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
So yes, one of the other items that as an agent,
I think, you know, you have some control over obviously
in it and I think it's one of the things
that is most appreciated but maybe not ever really talked
about a lot, is the negotiation that happens most most people.
Most consumers don't necessarily love negotiating, Right, There's a reason

(44:24):
we don't like buying cars. We don't like to play
that game of writing a number on a sheet of
paper and they're going to go take it back to
their manager and see if we can get the rustproofing.
I mean, all of that type of stuff that we've
been you know, put through over the years. Most people
aren't good at it and they don't like it. So
this is where I think an agent, you know, you
have some control over Okay, so you've got an offer.
It may not have been what the seller's like, but

(44:46):
now they've got some control over their response and their
agents negotiations. So talk to me about how you approach
negotiating for your cass.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
Well, I start my negotiation process. I'm going to revert
back to my marketing. Yep. So when my marketing is
on par, when we've we've listed the property the way
it should be listed or I feel like it should
right where it's appropriate to the market, and I and
my marketing has exposed this listing to as many people

(45:16):
we can, and we have you know, three or four offers.
We are starting at a position of strength. So when
you start a position of strength versus the position of weakness,
you have all the power. And so that might mean no,
we didn't get the list. Well, if we didn't get
the price that we wanted, or maybe we didn't get
the term. So we got the price that we wanted.

(45:37):
Usually we get the price that we want. But the
term right now is occupancy. Obviously you got the seller
who has a two point three interest rate and they're
trying to move and you know they're having to they're
there now in the buyer poll. So how do we
take the list price we got? How do we negotiate
occupancy when this person is saying, no, we're going to

(45:58):
give you this price, but you have to move in.
We need to move in a sap going back and
negotiating that, Where can we navigate that? Yeah? So I
think that starting with the position of strength with your
marketing is makes the negotiation part easier.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
I mean, and you're absolutely right, and you want to I mean,
if you're going to negotiate anything, it's always better to
be coming from that position of strength. So the last
thing that you provided you kind of you kind of
shared with me before we got on air that you
feel that you can control is life support for a deal.
That's a that's a big word or that's kind of
a big a big thought process there. I know what

(46:34):
you mean by that, but you know, share with what
it shared with our listeners.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
What does that mean?

Speaker 1 (46:38):
So you've got a deal, we've come to terms, right,
I mean, there's been an agreement between buyer and a seller,
and now we've got that point of time from the
time that we've got agreement to get it to the
closing table and actually done. And there's a few things
that can cost some hiccups and hurdles along the way.
So when you're saying to keep peep it, what do.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
You you know what whenever we talk about a sale,
somebody is going to get paid. Sellers are going to
get their money because they're selling their property. I will
be paid my professional fee for assisting and helping and navigating,
and the buyer gets home. So it's a win win
for everybody. But if if something is stopping, we have

(47:18):
some hurdles, nobody's going to get what they are here
for in this market space. If we if we don't help,
if we don't come and come to a more of
a collaboration space. Is at that point all of the
terms are done. Everything is there. We're just trying to
get this to close. Whether it's you know, working with
the title company making sure that title is cleared. If
my seller has something that's you know, causing an issue,

(47:42):
let's talk to them. Do I need to take a
you know, a certificate to the title company? Run that over?
So we need to do that. Let's get that done.
It is. Is it an executor issue and we have
to go and run down a you know, a sibling
to sign off on a done summit. We need to
do that. But the funniest thing I had this recently

(48:03):
that I have to share in keeping the life support
was everything was great. It was it was moving right along.
A praiser came out, inspection was done, that went through,
the appraiser came out. He came out really fast. And
this was a v A loan, which okay, yeah, and
as we know, a v A loan takes their appraisal

(48:24):
process is a little bit a little different, and they
require a few extra things. So this was a va
loan and funny. Everything was great, except he came back
and said, well, there's three things that need to be rectified.
One is the some pump. Like okay, well, what's going
on with the some pump? I been in this house

(48:44):
a million times? What's going on some pump? Oh? Well
it needs to cover? Like okay, well, we'll go by fine.
I ran to home depot, went and got something cover.
Didn't realize there was only one kind. Got it, came
back and the sump, my sump pump cover only had
one opening to slide in while there was three. And

(49:06):
I'm like, what in the world am I gonna have
to go to home depot and they're gonna have to
help me with this? What am I gonna do? And
it turned out that there was a miter saw, and
so the cellar and I we were cutting it and
we put it on there and we had the praiser
come back out. But I mean, that's just a simple
that's not a simple example, but it's a funny example
of like just what you have to do. If I

(49:28):
would have said to the cellar get this done, they
probably would have. But they're in the mess of like
trying to figure out where they're going, what's gonna happen.
It was it literally took me half an hour to
go do this, go and do this, and bring this
so that the praiser could come in, reinspect and we
could get a clear to close. So sometimes it's you know,

(49:50):
not just shuffling papers around now, but just you know,
rolling up your sleeves and getting into the nitty gritty.

Speaker 1 (49:58):
Oh and there's so many stories from agents out there.
You know, paint brushes, you know, they they've painted in
the garage door, They've done this, you know they, I
mean so and God bless all of you. Like you said,
like you said, you run into home Depot. This is
this is the side of real estate that's not the
sexy side people and vision right right, you know, I
mean everybody thinks that it's Oh I drive a nice
clean car and I get to go see all these houses,

(50:21):
and you know it's and it is and there is
the fun side obviously of this industry. But yeah, they're
running to home Depot to get us some pump covered.
You try to keep the deal going so that we
can get this checked off the appraisal, you know, list.
I mean that's just stuff people don't see.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
Yeah, I just just that and just you know, keeping
keeping a timeline. I often say that I'm a little
bit more of a puppet master too, of Okay, what's
going on between title, what's right, what's going on between lender? Yeah,
like does the lender need something? What's what's going on?
How can I help, even though it might not be
my buyer, how can I help that lender? Because again,

(50:54):
we're in a collaborative space that says, how are we
going to get this, how we're going to get it done?

Speaker 1 (50:58):
Yeah, then you start to add other things like okay,
proof of an insurance because the buyer needs to show
that they've got homeowners insurance, and there starts to be
all these little things boxes that need to be checked,
you know, And and like you said, it's a good
puppet master orchestrator.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
Absolutely yes.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
Well, thanks again to Missy McSweeney with Remax Classic for
being our special guest today.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
Missy, you shared such great information and.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
I think, as you know it was we're sitting here
hopefully there's some folks listening that are on the cusp
of looking to buy or sell this year. This is
maybe one of their resolutions for this year is to
to get a new home. If somebody would like to
reach out to you directly or contact you, what's a
good way for them to do that.

Speaker 2 (51:35):
Yeah, you can reach me at Missy McSweeney dot com,
M I S I E M C S W E
E N E Y dot com. That'll take you to
my website and if you want to see my social
media pages there you can. You can see on video
you should.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
You should check out her and check out her videos.
If I'm not mistaken, I think you did a video
of the sump pump coverage you I thought I think
you did.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
Yeah, you did do a video that one too, so
but yes, I mean you reach me there or two
four eight nine eight two two eight one four.

Speaker 1 (52:06):
Is my directors say say that number one more time.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
It's two four eight nine eight two two eight one four. Great.

Speaker 1 (52:12):
Well, Missy, thank you so much for being here and
being willing to be our first guest in the new
studios here, and thanks to our listeners, whether you're a
loyal listener or you're new, we're really glad that you
joined us. Our next episode is going to feature a
candid conversation with the real estate broker about what it
takes to get and stay into real estate, and perhaps

(52:33):
even reinvent yourself if you need to as the market changes.
We look forward to chatting with you again soon. We
hope you enjoy today's episode. Don't forget to subscribe, write
a review, or rate the show as it helps us
reach more people. You can also follow us on Facebook
and Instagram.