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Unit 2 Selling Real Estate

“When I was at home I was in a better place”. Shake speare

and t heir Russian equivalents.

Have you found any new information about selling real estate?

Would you like to add something to the text?

Text 1

Guide to selling your home quickly

Every year over 900,000 people are unable to get a quick house sale for a number of reasons. Which is why this guide has been created to help improve your chances of a faster sale.

1) When you get a property valuation, the estate agent will assess your home’s true market value and put your house up for sale at a realistic price. If you list too high, you may miss buyers in the price range where your home should be. What’s more, you may not even get offers because you will have scared off interested buyers.

2) Most buyers are looking for a house in good condition that they can move into straight away. Buyers who are willing to do the repairs after moving in automatically take the cost of this work off the price they offer. You save nothing by not doing necessary repairs and you may slow down the sale of your home.

3)Many buyers drive past a house before deciding whether or not to look inside. The outside of your house will have less than a minute to make a good first impression. Mow the lawn, trim shrubs and trees, and weed the garden. Clear the paths. Repair gutters and eaves, touch up the exterior paint and repair or resurface cracked drives and paths. Place flowers in pots and/or hanging baskets at the front of the house near the door.

4)Most buyers are looking for an inviting home they can move into straight away. Spending some money for necessary work on your home before you sell it usually makes sure you get a better price and sell more quickly. Your estate agent will advise you which repairs and replacements are most important to get a sale at the right price.

5)Be careful that the cost of your improvements does not exceed the amount of additional money they will bring in when you sell. Make sure your improvements do not raise the value of your home too far above that of other similar houses in your area, as you may not get your money back when you sell. You cannot expect improvements to increase your sale price in excess of 20% than that for a comparable home in your neighborhood whatever you do or spend. Your estate agent can advise you as to improvements that will raise the value of your home when you sell.

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6)Consider offering to pay some of the buyer’s completion costs or include a one-year home warranty or other buyer incentives.

7)If you are in the house during a viewing, it can make buyers feel like they are intruding. They need to be able to visualize your house as their home. This can be difficult when you being around remind them it is still your home. Your estate agent will be pleased to show people around your home and will know when to leave them alone to look and talk by themselves.

8)Both you and the buyer have the same goal: for you to sell your home and for the buyer to buy it. Work with your estate agent to approach negotiations positively and with a win-win frame of mind.

9)When a buyer makes an offer, it means that buyer is, at that moment in time, ready to buy your home. Moods can change and you don’t want to lose the sale because you stalled in replying.

3.Match the titles and the numbers of the paragraphs:

Activity 2

1. You are going to read the text “The Right Time t o Sell”. While reading find the words with the following meanings:

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Text 2

The Right Time to Sell

1)Generally the market tends to be stronger in the spring and then picks up again in the late summer and early autumn. Your property will obviously sell quicker when the market is strong and demand is high. Therefore keep an eye on the property market and time your sale well. House sales are also affected by interest rates. Few people are willing to take out a £200,000 mortgage when the Bank of England has just voiced intentions of raising interest rates. Look out for what is happening in your local area. Ask Estate Agents what they are selling and search online property transaction databases for sales in your area. If you are looking to buy a new home as well as selling your own home, it is recommend that you put your house up for sale before you start looking for new properties. Some buyers even wait until they have had an offer made on their property before they start looking. You will then be able to time the process much better because you will have an idea how quickly you can sell and you can estimate the price your new home can be.

2)Your negotiating power as the seller will be affected by the following factors: Amount of interest in your property – if offers are flooding in, you pick and choose as you wish, however if your property has been on the market for some time with no real interest, the weaker your negotiating position as a seller. Current market conditions – if demand exceeds supply, then you can expect to receive a favorable price for your home. However, if the market is slow, you will not have the same negotiating power. Condition of the property – you will find it harder to negotiate the more repair work that needs to be done on your property. Time pressure – the tighter your time scale to move, the weaker your position in negotiations. Sentiment – selling your home can be a very emotional time but you are selling it, so try to keep your emotions out of negotiations.

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3) Chain or no chain – buyers who are not involved in a chain are in a better negotiating position to those who are. Look for those who are: • First time buyers. • Inbetween homes (might be renting now). • Buying with cash. • Investing (this won’t be their residence). • Mortgage status – buyers whose mortgages have been pre-approved will be a better position than those who have to wait for the paper-work to be processed. • Time Pressure – as with the seller, th e tighter your time scale to move, the weaker their position in negotiations.

4)The estate agent works for the seller and they will try and get the highest possible price for your property, as their commission is directly affected by the sale price While the agent wants the highest commission possible, they also would rather get something than nothing. It is therefore in their interest to put both parties in a win-win situation. The agent will be more realistic than the seller about the sale of the property as they should know the condition of the market.

5.What do you think about the ideas of the text? Do you think they could be helpful? Can you add your own ideas? Discuss the text with your group mate.

This is my step-by-step answer for everyone who asks: How to become a real estate agent and what's the best way to start? While listening to it, fill in the blanks.

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agents; assistant; best; business; busy; effective; estate license; job; license; mentor; networking; online; personally; real estate; realtors; start; stuff

1.Actually get your real (1)_________. Go online and there are a TON of schools out there you can go to. Overall, it doesn’t matter too much what class you take

(2)____________ - they’re all pretty much the same, so I’d go with the most cost

(3)___________ option because you may as well just save the money. If you want to take the classes in person, you can but it’ll generally take a little longer and it’ll cost you a little more money, so (4)___________ I’d rather just get it out of the way as quick as possible, for as little as possible, and just take it online.

2.As you’re getting your (5)_____________, or after you get your license, begin

(6)___________. Just go to open houses in the area you want to work in and meet other agents. This part is just about meeting other (7)___________and getting to know the markets you want to work in - you’ll need to do this at some point, anyway, so you may as well just (8)_____________ now.

3.When you’re at the house, introduce yourself to the agent and begin networking. As long as they’re not (9)__________ or right in the middle of something, most would be happy to talk with you. Just be honest, say you’re getting in (10)__________ and want to learn the (11)_____________. Ask how they enjoy it, what they think of it, how long they’ve been doing it for, what they think of that area - just be open to learning from them and hearing their opinions.

4.So by this point, I’m going to assume you’ve bee n doing the third step for a 2-3 months now, you’ve probably seen 50-70 homes, you’v e probably met at least three or four dozen (12)__________ by now. And this is the part where everyone asks

me…”how do I get started, what’s the best way?” Onc e you get your license, the (13)_________way to begin in real estate is to work as an (14)___________ or intern to another agent to learn the business. Chances are you’re not going to do much business in your first 6-12 months anyway, so use this time as an opportunity to learn as much as possible. This does a few things: You’re able to learn firsthand from an agent who’s busy enough to need an assistant. And you’re able to get PAID to learn, which means you’d be figuring this (15)_________out on your own, anyway, so you may as well get paid to learn from someone who’s doing it day to day. So how do you find someone like this? Well, you’ve networked with dozens of real estate agents while you were getting your license - reach out to them! Offer to help. If there are particular people you really liked, call them up and offer to take them out for lunch or coffee. This is how I ended up meeting my first (16)_________, it was from a random open house I went to and we hit it off. You could also walk into the real estate

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brokerages you’d like to work for, in the area you want to work in, and speak with the person at the front desk to find out if anyone is in need of an assistant. You can also check online for (17)_____________ postings, I promise there are usually a few going at any single time from agents looking for assistants.

5. I’d recommend doing #4 for 6-12 months. Literally this is the best chance to learn and get PAID to learn, or get entirely free training from someone day to day firsthand. But this isn’t the end goal - obviously the end goal is to get comfortable enough to eventually go off your own, and I’d imagine after a year you should be fairly comfortable with the process to feel comfortable enough to forge your own path and begin growing your own business. This is where you ideally want to be…and after a year, you should be in the position where you know exactly what to do and how you can begin growing your business without the training wheels of someone else. Suggested reading: The Millionaire Real Estate Agent: http://goo.gl/TPTSVC

Your money or your life: https://goo.gl/fmlaJR

The Millionaire Real Estate Investor: https://goo.gl/sV9xtl

How to Win Friends and Influence People: https://goo.gl/1f3Meq Think and grow rich: https://goo.gl/SSKlyu

Awaken the giant within: https://goo.gl/niIAEI

The Book on Rental Property Investing: https://goo.gl/qtJqFq

2. Discuss the ideas of the video with your group mate

Jared James is a speaker and trainer in the real estate industry who has tens of thousands of followers on Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube.

1.Read his article “ 5 Reasons You Won’t Make it Selling Real Estate” http://realtormag.realtor.org/sales-and- marketing/sales-coach/article/2014/06/5-reasons-you-won-t- make-it-selling-real-estate

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Unless you are fully committed to real estate and have a solid business plan, you will have trouble finding success. Sales coach Jared James outlines five situations that can bring down your career — and how to avoid them.

Over the past five years, I have had the opportunity to grow a pretty large coaching program where I speak to tens of thousands of real estate professionals. This experience has allowed me to witness first-hand not only success stories but also more unfulfilled potential than I care to talk about. Through it all, I always look for the common denominators of every situation.

Today, I want to cover five reasons people don’t make it selling real estate. We’ve all seen them, heard of them, and felt bad for them. And some of you reading this may be on the verge of becoming one of them if you don’t make a change.

So here are five reasons you won’t make it selling real estate:

1. You are “trying out” real estate.

The notion of trying something out speaks to a lack of commitment. All too often, someone will decided to sell real estate because they see the success of another real estate professional — but what they don’t see are t he years spent doing floor time, holding open houses for other agents, and working nonstop, seven days a week.

It is my belief that many people focus too much on the results and not enough on what it takes to get there. I like to say that everyone wants to have a best-seller but nobody wants to write the book.

Making it selling real estate takes more than interest; it takes full commitment. It takes the kind of commitment that Hernando Cortez had in 1519 when he and his crew set sail on their final voyage from Cuba to Mexico. When he arrived on the shores of Yucatan, it is said, he turned to his army and commanded them to burn the boats. The lesson was simple; they were either going to conquer and come back on someone else’s boats or die trying.

Luckily, a real estate career does not require your life, but some would argue that it does require a piece of it. If you can’t fully commit to real estate, don’t waste your time.

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2. You aren’t coming from a position of strength.

I see many agents get started in real estate with the best intentions and even the strong work ethic needed to succeed long term. But if you are lacking the financial stability to get started, you may find it a tough go.

When I was selling, I was one of the top agents in the country, and even I didn’t earn a real commission in the first six months of my career. It takes time to build relationships, create context, show houses, and go though the process of a transaction. Real estate is not like most careers where you will receive a paycheck two weeks after starting.

Worse yet, it is not uncommon to have a couple of properties under contract only to see them both fall apart. This can be crippling when you were depending on them to pay your bills.

Do yourself a favor and don’t sell properties full-time until you either have six months of living expenses saved in your account or you are in a situation, such as living with your parents, where you can keep your overhead very low.

3. You don’t believe that you need help.

This type of thinking runs rampant among the personality types who get into real estate. They’re generally the type of people who don’t want to have a boss, and believe they can do anything they put their mind to. There is some truth in that statement, but everyone needs help from somebody. The quicker you realize that, the better off you’ll be.

Think about it this way: Most people’s issue is not that they don’t know what to do; it’s that they don’t do it. If you don’t believe me , ask yourself how many diets you’ve ever been on. You know what you should eat and that you should exercise … you just don’t do it consistently enough.

For a guy who coaches people for a living, I like to call this job security.

Needing other people goes beyond coaching, though; it’s also in the organizations that you join and your level of activity within your local, state, or national real estate association. I have heard many times that practitioners don’t gain business by going to

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these events, and in many cases, they could be right. But it’s not just about that. It’s about the level of community that you create.

In November, I have rented out the Connecticut Convention Center for all of my students and followers for two reasons. First off: yes, to help agents build their business. But the other reason is to get everyone together to form a sense of community. This is important because, when people feel community, they don’t feel alone, and when they don’t feel alone, they feel a common purpose, and when they feel a common purpose, they gain identity, and when they have identity, they will do things they wouldn’t have done before.

They say you can judge the level of success someone will have on this Earth by the number of awkward conversations they are willing to have. You are more willing to do the things you don’t want to do (like prospecting) when you identify yourself as a person who does those things. For example, most people don’t wake up in the morning and say, “I want to cut down trees today,” but when you identify yourself as a lumberjack, it’s just what you do no matter how you feel. Identity matters and community helps gets you there.

4. You don’t have a plan.

Can you imagine stepping into the kitchen for the first time and trying to make a cake without knowing any of the ingredients? I know it sounds ridiculous, but that’s exactly what you do when you try to start a business (and that’s what selling properties is) and you don’t have a plan to follow.

Your e-mail doesn’t dictate what you do every day — your plan does. If you are in this business and you don’t have a plan to follow, you can go to my website and download a template for free. I also have a free webinar on the subject that I recorded earlier this year. Whether you use my template or someone else’s or develop your own, following a business plan is key.

I am a big believer that you need to assess where you are now so you don’t regret where you end up later. Know where you stand and follow a map that gets you to where you want to go.