Those of us who sell real estate for a living know that consumers want to hear back from us as soon as possible when they call or email (or text, in some cases).  What’s a realistic turnaround time for the response?

If not with clients or otherwise tied up, many Realtors (yours truly included) will pick up the phone when called during business hours. (Some won’t. Some do time blocking and return calls at set times, such as between 11am and noon and 4 and 5pm. Those who time block in this way will often put a message on their voice mail explaining when they will call back. Hopefully, that works for the caller!)    In general, Realtors and real estate sales people will not take calls or return phone calls while they are with other clients unless there is a really crucial event happening – and if that’s the case, they’ll let the folks they’re with know about it upfront.  Depending on how long the appointment is, then, the return call could be an hour or two or, in the extreme, at the very end of the day (if with relocating clients and doing a crash course in the area that goes 8 hours – it can happen, but is exhausting for all).

Once in awhile, a voice mail or text simply won’t be delivered by the wireless carrier in a timely manner. This is extremely embarassing and upsetting to everyone impacted by it.  So please keep in mind that it’s always possible that your message simply wasn’t delivered.

If something big is going on, check in ahead of time with your Realtor

If there is some momentous event or report looming, talk to your buyer’s or seller’s agent ahead of time to learn his or her schedule and availability.  This is key for reducing everyone’s stress!

Agents do sometimes take time off, too. Communicate with yours to know when he or she is off, and do your best to respect that time. Real estate licensees who get too burned out are less effective in the long run. (more…)

Home sellers in Silicon Valley today worry about things they never had to worry about10 years ago, many of which they have little control over.  Like what? Much of it has to do with online or web marketing via websites, blogs, web portals and social media sites.   Here are a few:

• County records on properties are now public and available online almost everywhere, including permit records, info on the structure and lot size, etc.  If the public or county records are incorrect, buyers still use them – so wrong info on home size, bedrooms, baths etc. can hurt market value, as can incomplete or missing permit files online with the city, town or county.
• If the Google street view of the property happened on a bad day (say, the neighbors were having some sort of RV get together and the street was jammed with trucks and motorhomes or the yard happened to be in disarray), it can kill viewings.  Buyers and agents may skip that house all together if the “street view” makes it look bad.
• Some websites that display the information on listed homes permit consumers to blog or comment about the home.  Consumer comments online  can be devastating if the remarks aren’t good!
• If homes need good “social media exposure” to sell for top dollar, how can home owners know what constitutes good social media marketing – especially if I’m not on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn or any of those popular sites? (Do I need to be on every site?)
• Syndicated errors: If a home’s marketing is incorrect on the MLS but corrected later, will all of the sites it was syndicated to get the correction, or will the info stay wrong and cause us harm in marketing the house or condo? (more…)

Each year, Inman News sponsors a “people’s choice” voting for the most influential person in real estate.  Inman nominates 100 strong candidates but voters may also write in someone not listed.  This week, I was very deeply honored to have been included on such a prestigious list of real estate leaders nationwide, and I’d be thrilled if you would consider voting for me.

Where to vote:  follow this link and the fields for entering your desired winner’s name and info will be about 20% of the way down (midway through the article and just after a large ad) – deadline is Dec 1, 2011:

http://www.inman.com/news/2011/11/2/2011-peoples-choice-real-estates-most-influential

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What’s your home buying style?  Impulsive? Cautious? Analytic?  Deep bargain hunter?

A few times in my real estate career, I’ve worked with Silicon Valley home buyers who were so anxious to purchase a home that I was concerned that their impulsivity might be a cause for buyer’s remorse later.  When that happens, I try to slow them down a little – I’ll suggest “let’s look at least a few homes” if it happens that they want to buy the very first home they saw. Part of my fiduciary duty is to look out for my clients’ best interests, and sometimes that means putting the brakes on just a little (or telling them what they don’t want to hear).

More commonly, it’s the other extreme that I see in our very well educated, extremely analytic population: paralysis by analysis or an overabundance of caution. (Sometimes it’s overabundance of bargain hunting.)

The vast majority of successful Silicon Valley home buyers are somewhere in between: they set up their priorities and goals (“I want to buy in the next 4 months at this price with this location or school and this type of property and size of home”). The clearer they are on their goals, wants and needs, the easier it is to help them get it – as long as they have realistic expections. That is key!

Once – only once – I sold a Los Gatos house in which the husband purchased without the wife’s physically seeing it.  This is rare!  They had moved so many times that he understood precisely what mattered to her, and if the house met that list, he was good to go. (more…)

Yesterday I got a phone call from a woman looking to find a lease option to buy property in the San Jose area.  “I’m tired of wasting money on the rent”, she explained.  Hoping to locate one, she was phoning the agents of San Jose houses for sale – maybe one of them would do a lease option?  Not likely.

Why are lease options hard to find in Silicon Valley?

It is a challenge to find a lease option in the greater San Jose area for a number of reasons, most of them related to the extra risks involved as opposed to simply renting or selling the real estate outright.

1 – Cash needed at close of escrow: An overwhelming majority of the home sellers here want their cash at close of escrow, so the buyers can be all cash or part cash and part loan (20% down, for instance).  Most real estate sellers want to take the cash from the property being sold and do something with it immediately – and the majority of the time that means putting it into another home in which to live.

2 – Don’t want to be a landlord: Doing a lease option means that not only will the owners of the property not get their cash right away, but they also have to become landlords in the meantime.  If they pay a professional property manager, that may cost 8% per month in overhead, too, so it cuts into any profit.

3 – Lease options are risky: With lease options, there is far more risk for the seller, of course, but also for the buyer!  (And by extension, real estate licensees who get involved with lease options.)

• The seller risks a default by the buyer/tenant and then having to go through the trouble of evicting him/her/them.
• Pricing risks for both seller and buyer:  the purchase price is decided upfront, but the sale isn’t finalized for a year or more.  During that time, the real estate market could appreciate like crazy (leaving the seller to feel that the house is sold for too little, less than market value) or the prices could fall (with the buyer unable to complete the sale since the property wouldn’t appraise – thus losing all of the downpayment in the process).  Either way, buyer or seller could feel unhappy and cheated. (more…)

Instead of writing about the news, today I am in the news, so contrary to my normal practice, I’m the focus of this post!

Today’s San Jose Mercury News has a pull out section, styled like a magazine, with its annual “best of” list – the “Best of Silicon Valley in 2011“.  I was deeply honored to find myself listed as the “Best real estate agent in Silicon Valley” (if you have the print edition, it’s at the top of page 33). The online edition isn’t yet published.

The results of the list come from voting by consumers.  I believe that my clients are the best on the planet (you may have noticed that on all of my sites and blogs, somewhere is the line “helping nice folks to buy and sell homes in Silicon Valley“) and their endorsement is usually apparent with their repeat business and referrals, but this is a wonderful acknowledgment that I deeply appreciate.

For those finding this who do not know me but who are searching for a good, knowledgeable, communicative and ethical Silicon Valley Realtor, I invite you to read about my background and see some comments by clients on my websites.

Info on Mary Pope-Handy on the popehandy.com website (testimonials here, gallery of sold homes here)

Info on Mary Pope-Handy on the Valley of Hearts Delight site (pull down menu for various aspects)

Many thanks to all who voted for me!

Are open houses important for getting a home to sell, or for getting it to sell at a higher price?

In Silicon Valley, only a small percentage of homes sell directly from an open house visit by a home buyer. Depending on whose statistics you believe, it’s somewhere in the 5% to 10% range. Some would argue for smaller figures than those.

The best home buyers, who are pre-approved and serious enough to be working with a real estate professional and have their own buyer’s agent, can come whenever it suits both their schedules and the home sellers. But that doesn’t mean that all of them do.  Some serious house hunting buyers may be out on their own, without their agent because they don’t want to “bother” him or her too much. I’ve had clients like that myself, and no matter how much I reassure them that I want to show them homes and prefer it, even, they want to mostly look on their own until they are either more serious or have found something they really love.  It is not uncommon for buyers to phone or email me that they’ve seen a house that they want to buy.  This seems to be a growing trend.

Knowing that the best Silicon Valley home buyers do have an agent, don’t necessarily need open houses, there are some who move from this thought to the idea that open houses are without significant value to the home sellers.  Some Realtors would assert that open houses only get neighbors and “Lookie Lous”, that they are only used by the agent to get new buyers and are a waste of everyone’s time. That’s an extreme position and I think it’s mistaken. (more…)