Often I’m asked for advice on just about everything relating to real estate. Having practised real estate since 1988 I’ve had the opportunity to assist many clients in buying and selling real estate. Everything from homes, condos, to condo complexes, land, acreages and so on. The best advice I can give is get good information, and get someone who can interpret that information for you.
In this advanced day an age you find out information on almost everything you are interested in. The challenge will be to accurately interpret the information to make the best decision. There are many ways you can do this but one of the best ways of doing this is to surround yourself with the best group of professionals possible.
Lets look at the word professional for a second. One of the definitions is "making a business or constant practice of something not properly to be regarded as a business" It does make sense that if you have a health or legal issue you get advice from a variety of professionals in that profession and then select the professional who you feels best represents your goals. The reality is that with the amount of information available on properties it is a good idea to have someone who has the experience and understanding to assist you interpreting that information.
It could mean the difference between overpaying for a property or uncovering an opportunity that may seem incorrectly priced today but will become in high demand for a number of reasons down the road. Realtors are real estate professionals who can help you interpret the market but not every professional is created equally. Just look at golf. Lots of professional golfers but only one Tiger Woods. At the very least Realtors subscribe to a high standard of conduct and make a constant practise of trading in real estate. You certainly wouldn’t talk to me about leasing office space but there are a number of Realtors that excel in that line of work. You wouldn’t contact me to sell your farm but if you wanted assistance and expertise for selling your home for the most money you would contact us or someone like us.
Are you of the opinion that a person should not sell their property without a REALTOR? I understand what you are trying to say, but lots of people fix thier own cars, and make their own home repairs. Why would I need a professional to sell my home?
Thanks for your comment. Firstly you don’t need a Realtor to sell your home. You should have a Realtor.
Making your own home repairs and fixing your car on your own are completely different then selling your own home.
If your repairs don’t work you get to do it again and learn from your previous mistakes. If you make a mistake on selling your own home thats a whole other ball of wax.
Some people are savvy enough to sell on their own but quite often the motivation is simply money. If you are a good negotiator you may get lucky but fixing a car is significantly different than fixing a problem on a deal.
I know. I don’t fix my own car.
When you sell on your own you are probably assuming that the people buying are like you and have your level of understanding. If you are wrong and they have completely outmanuvered you it could be extremely costly.
My only recommendation for people to sell on your own would be for people who can afford to lose more than they think they are saving. However even in those case I know I could do a better job for them.
Sheldon:
The comments your firm is posting on this blog over last week seems to suggest that you are feeling heat from internet and agencies like Comfree!
I always thought this blog was related to real estate in edmonton and not promotion of your firm. I may be wrong altogether and aplogize for that.
Is it true that Comfree and Internet is making life of a realtor hard?
Jackie,
Thank you for your comment. You raised a couple of points I’d like to respond to.
First in terms of our company feeling the heat from Comfree and other internet companies the opposite is true. I do receive an awful lot of emails regarding real estate and when then is an opportunity to inform or educate I do so.
In relation to the technology. Our little company is actually the envy of the real estate industry in terms of our ability to market our properties online. The increased traffic to our listings especially from out of town buyers has been tremendous. If you google an area we have a listing our listing comes up often in the 1,2,3,4 and 5 positions. Not us mind you but our properties. Our focus is to create success by Successfully marketing then negotiating our clients properties beyond what our competition can do and thereby provide a valuable service to our clients. We have some of the best virtual tours in the industry that feature music and truly professional photography to showcase our properties.
In fact Comfree has made life easier for me, since almost 50% of my business is helping buyers find a home. They have consolidated the for sale by owner market making it easier for me to help my buyers find the right property regardless of who has it for sale.
With regards to our blog promoting Edmonton. http://www.edmontonrealesateblog.com is a collaboration between myself and Sara MacLennan (marketing and technology director for Coldwell Banker Johnston real estate). Our blog is intended to inform the public on a variety of real estate related issues. From market conditions to graphs that we have exclusively created to show people what the information we provide means in relation to past releases, to tips on buying and selling real estate, to benefit our clients and to showcase our unique and I mean truly unique abilities. http://about.teamjohnston.com Since we don’t market like traditional agents through bus benches and billboards but through our clients success we use our blog from time to time to market our successes. Unlike most agents who direct web traffic to their homepage where buyers often have to hunt for the listing they wanted to see, our traffic is directed to direct domains/addresses that showcase our listings without our listings competing with our other listings. http://www.westedmontonhome.com is one example.
In closing I hope that answers your question about http://www.edmontonrealestateblog.com and some of our posts.
p.s. Out of thousands of posts we have very little dealing with companies like comfree, unlike their website which is dedicated to disparaging Realtors. In terms of percentage of content I would suggest it is them feeling the heat.