Within a six month period in 2015 and 2016 both of my parents, John Kearney and Jo Kearney, passed away. I mention this and post it here, because many of you who will read this have done business with or have had contact with them over the years. It is a great loss to our community not to have them still around. I was very lucky to have had two great parents. They laid the foundation on which I have built a wonderful life and career. I worked with them both closely for over twenty years and together they were my steady and consistent mentor. They taught me mostly by example. Here are some of the lessons I learned from my parents on how to conduct business.
Lead with service. The number one goal is to be of service to each person who comes through the door. Whether it results in a sale or not.
Treat everyone well. Not just the people who you think can help you. It all comes around in the end.
Be grateful. Know how lucky we are to be doing what we do. Relish in the opportunity to meet nice and interesting people.
Love is reflected with love. It’s amazing how nice everyone is to work with when you don’t take the bait at any point to make it confrontational. The attitude that “everyone is a friend” makes it much easier to make friends. “The Golden Rule” works in all instances.
Go the extra mile. Take the time to do something special. Make someone’s day. Do the unexpected. Not only will others notice, you will feel great about yourself.
Be Consistent. Be someone people can count on. Being dependable and doing small things consistently adds up to big things over time.
See the best in others. Look for the best in others. Look to compliment, don’t look to criticize.
Have compassion for others. Give someone a break. Be kind. Do something unexpectedly nice. Take a chance on someone where others have passed. Use your intuition about people, not always their credit score.
Win-win-win negotiations are best. Be the first one to suggest a reasonable solution. Go more than half-way when needed. Take a long view and don’t take negotiations personally.
Have an abundance mentality – Be generous. Expect the good to continue and don’t be afraid to share it with others.
Do everything with integrity. Honesty, transparency, fairness are always the right things to do. If it seems like it’s in the grey area, it’s probably the wrong thing to do.
Don’t burn bridges. Treat everyone with respect. Never leave on a sour note. Don’t take advantage of an opportunity to say “I told you so”.
Work hard. Showing up every day and working hard when you are at work ensures longevity.
Have fun! Deciding to have fun wherever you are is a great recipe for having a happy life.
Set goals. If you can see it and believe it you can achieve it. Aim high and write them down.
Take a long view. Everything that you do should be congruent with the person who you want to become and should be leading you in the direction that you want to go.
Smile. A warm and genuine smile help every situation and it puts people at ease.
Take responsibility. Don’t pass the buck. Do more than your share. Be the first to find a solution and the last to place blame.
Be loyal. Take care of your clients, your friends and your family.
Obviously I have a wonderful legacy to fulfill and I’m striving every day to embody these principles into my thoughts and actions. In in doing so I remember and honor my parents.
Even though we are in a slower time of year, houses are still selling. All year I have been seeing a shortage of good listings in the market. Right now there are 15% fewer available homes on the market than last year at this same time. This means that if a serious buyer is out looking for a nice home the cupboards are fairly empty. Right now there are many leftover homes on the market. I define leftover homes as those listings that haven’t sold for a specific reason whether it be price, location or condition. This shortage leads to heavy activity on those homes that come on the market ready to sell. Those homes are well priced, in good condition and in a location that doesn’t raise a red flag. This leads to multiple buyers being interested in the same house at the same time. Here is some advice for handling multiple offers from the buyer and seller perspective.
From The Buyers Perspective:
Check to see if you have competition. Your agent will call the listing agent to announce your intention to write an offer. Make sure you know if you are competing with another buyer. At the same time have the agent ask for the sellers preferred closing date and for any items that will be excluded from the offer. All of the information below assumes that there is another offer.
Make your decisions quickly. Getting your offer in a day ahead may make a big difference. Ask for a quick acceptance deadline.
Do your homework: Check comparable sales and decide the maximum price you will be willing to pay. Also, think about how you would feel if you would lose this house over a couple of thousand of dollars.
Do a thorough walk-through: When you see a house you are interested in, take your time. Check on the condition of the house, what would you need to do to make it yours. Are the systems (furnace, roof, windows) in good condition?
Prepare a clean offer: Don’t ask for Sellers to pay for appraisal, cleaning, HOA transfer fees etc. When the seller is considering two similar offers, $50 can make a big difference and send a signal that the buyers asking for all of the small stuff will be tougher to work with down the road on inspections etc.
Have your financing in place and make sure to include a letter from a lender along with the offer. I prefer to see a local lender who can jump in and make the closing work in a difficult situation rather than somebody who is working a toll free line.
A nice touch is to write a personal letter to the seller explaining who you are and why you love their house. The seller has an emotional attachment to the house and wants to sell to someone who will take care of their house.
Consider an escalation clause. When the house is a good value and you know there is competition one effective method is to write in an escalation clause. This clause in the contract automatically raises the bid price if another offer beats theirs financially. For instance it could read “the offer price shall be automatically raised to a price $1,000 above any other bonefide offer, the purchase price shall not exceed $xxx,xxx”. This is where the buyer has to know how much they are willing to pay; is it full price or $5,000 over?
From The Sellers Perspective:
If you are attracting more than one offer it shows that you have taken care of your home and priced it correctly.
You want to make sure that all interested parties have a chance to submit an offer. Have your agent communicate to each agent who has shown the property recently to gauge interest.
When reviewing offers look at these main points: net price to you after all closing costs, dates and terms and buyers ability to pay and close. (more…)
Interested in learning about the different neighborhoods in Boulder? In this report I have split Boulder into eleven different areas and present the lifestyle highlights, schools, shopping districts, local recreation and real estate statistics for each area. If you’re interested in learning about where to live in the City of Boulder this is your guide. Click Here to view and download the guide.
In order to sell a house in today’s real estate market a house must make a compelling case to the market. Some things like neighborhood and location within the neighborhood you can’t control. But set those aside and you are left with two key variables that are controllable and important to the sale.
What I’d like to talk about today is being competitive in the market. The main variables a seller has control over is the price they ask for their home and condition and/or upgrades of the home. I have represented these two variables on an axis below so that I show you what I’m thinking. Basically, if your home is in great condition (and I mean exceptional) you can ask a high price compared to similar homes on the market. If your home is in poor shape you have to ask a lower price. This is not rocket science but it gets trickier when a house is somewhere between the extremes. It is in okay condition and has a middle of the road price. Looking at the chart below you can see the line running at 45 degrees. Think of this as the success line. Every house that fits above the line (price vs. condition) will most likely end up in a successful sale. Every home below the line will wallow until the price or the condition changes enough to get it above the line.
Right now the market is fairly slow. There are fewer buyers out there. This means that competition for sellers is tough. In order to be compelling to the small pool of buyers they have to bring a more compelling product to the market. This means that the line has shifted, sellers have to either improve their home to sell it for the same price or reduce their price to make it work.
Knowing where you are is the tricky part. I help my clients by giving good feedback and keeping them abreast of the market as it changes. The information you used to list your house is no longer valid. Get it priced right and have your house show the best it can. If you can’t afford to make improvements up front, lower your price. It’s simple economics.
A Gallup poll on overall well being has named Boulder as the number 1 city in the United States! The index is based on the polling of 365,000 US citizens a year since 2008. The video above is a CBS Sunday Morning feature on Boulder, the number 1 town for overall happiness and Huntington West Virginia which came in last in the index. The video features a true local and an old friend Dave Query.
The index includes health statistics and hard to measure happiness or optimism statistics. The overall score for Boulder was 73.7 a full point above Lincoln Nebraska and Ft. Collins Colorado. It’s hard to say what is so special about Boulder but this starts to quantify it. Ready to move here? There is room for a few more. Give me a call and we can get started.
