All Forum Posts by: Michael Woodward

I second Jon Klaus about the tuition. Fortunately you get VERY good information for the cost of your education that you can use over and over. I've found that I have to build the same house plan at least twice to really know what it costs to build it.

In my opinion, the key to success in new construction is using identical floorplans as often as possible especially for the first couple years. I think that most builders that try something new every time eventually give up or fail. Custom builders have to have enormous experience to be successful at one-off builds.

Hopefully you can work out all the kinks and then repeat the same plan on many more lots. I know you're a "systems" guy so I'm sure you've already thought of that. Good luck!

Hi J. I had to make a claim for hail damage last year after all the bad storms we had (east TN). I had never made a claim before but I expected them to play hardball with me. My insurance company (Amica) sent out an inspector and he told me that the hail damage was as bad as he'd ever seen (insert surprised face here). He filed the claim and started the process. In a few days I had their quote and was able to start shopping for my own quotes. After the work was finished, my contractor told me that the insurance company's estimate of shingles was too low and he had to buy more to finish it. I sent the contractor's invoice to Amica and they amended the claim and sent another check to cover the difference. I couldn't have been happier with the experience. I'm still amazed at how easy they were to work with.

It's unfortunate that Allstate is taking the aggressive approach with your claim. My suggestion would be to arrange a meeting at your house with your contractor and the Allstate inspector. They can't simply brush you off when confronted with the evidence. There's a national board of insurance (www.naic.org) that monitors this kind of thing so you might want to get some information from them about proper procedure as well as forms to submit complaints against Allstate if they try to stonewall you. Hopefully they'll do the right thing.

Good luck!

Bill Gulley, Lisa Maceda: When I got your responses I realized that my question was somewhat ambiguous. The scenario I'm talking about is of a vacant house being shown by a Realtor. I won't be able to be there so I won't have the opportunity to prep with scents or lighting before hand. I'm wondering if having a place to sit is one of those "must-haves".

Thanks for the feedback about the music. That's a good point.... one person's symphony is another person's chalkboard scratching.

J Scott - Do you ever partially stage your houses with just a few things? I think I'm going to start pricing full staging into my projects but I'm wondering how far I really need to go with it.

I'm working on strategies to improve the desirability of homes I list for sale and was wondering what your opinions are about providing a place for people to sit when they come look at your house.

My gut tells me that providing a comfortable place to sit will help keep people in the house longer and also provide a place to fill out paperwork (hopefully offer paperwork).

Also, I'm wondering if having a radio or CD player running with soft music helps.

Since I'm not a Realtor, I don't have the opportunity to see reactions or hear feedback from buyers. What's your advice?

Thanks for the input Steve and congrats on the sale! I haven't tried this strategy yet but I think every effort helps. I'm gearing up for shock & awe on my sales marketing!

I used to buy and sell cars when I was younger so I was always curious when I saw something sitting beside the road for sale. I don't think I ever stopped to look at any car though that didn't have the price on the windshield. The extra "effort barrier" of calling the owner to get the price was enough to make me pass it up every time. I think the same is true for most people.

Michael - Good luck with your new listing. Let me know if you get any feedback about the price on the sign.

Eric - I think you're exactly right that people feel that if the price isn't listed, it's too high. I know that I feel that way. I won't call about a house that doesn't offer the price on the listing. The other problem I think people have is that they don't want to have to endure a high pressure sales pitch just to get the price.

Tim - Thanks for the insight into your strategy. I've had a surprisingly hard time getting my Realtors to put brochure boxes out. I guess they look at it as a hassle to keep up with. One of them complained to me that they thought the neighbors were taking them all. What she obviously didn't realize is that's EXACTLY what you want to happen because close neighbors are a great source for sales (to friends and family). The more information you can make available the better! I recently got a contract on a house from someone driving the area. That taught me a valuable lesson about making sure information is available at the street to pull in the drive-bys. Thanks also for the link to your brochure box.

Rob - I think you've given me the key to the reason my agents have resisted this idea. It never dawned on me that the agents need to always be thinking beyond my project. It makes sense that they would want to make as many connections with people as possible. I just want calls from serious buyers so I suppose that's the disconnect. Cool logo! I'm a huge fan of capitalism! It goes great with a side of freedom!

I would really like to hear everyone's opinion about whether or not you think it's a good idea to put a home's price on the For Sale sign in the front yard.

I'll withhold my opinion for now so I don't pollute the raw data. Thanks!

I want to point out one more thing on this subject that really stood out to me in J's recent podcast that I think is critical to his success in selling his properties. (J....correct me if any of this isn't accurate..)

He and his wife have built an extensive network of relationships with their local Realtors!

If you think about all the ways that effects your exposure in the market, the power of it really shows. We all know that we can't sell anything unless we can get our product in front of eager buyers. It doesn't matter what the price is or how nice the property...if no one sees it.... no one will buy it.

Now imagine the effect of having the best Realtors in your area taking all their clients to YOUR property first. Since buyers are never going to look at ALL the available properties, they will pick one of the first several they look at. If your property is always one of those.....voila'.... yours "magically" sells while others sit for months.

(Disclosure....I'm not a Realtor.....but I am a fan....)

Corey, I'm seeing some "unusual" activity in my area of TN. Inventory on good flip properties is very low which is driving up prices on distressed properties. It's widely known that institutional investors (renters) are having a major impact on this segment right now. That's making it VERY difficult to find good projects but when I DO find them, they're still selling reasonably well if I stick to conservative ARV numbers. I got in too deep on the renovations on a couple rehabs recently and have carried them longer than I wanted to. That was my fault for getting too anxious to buy something. It's easy to make bad decisions when activity slows down.

What's surprising to me right now though is how fast LISTING prices on typical homes appear to be rising. The metric that I use to screen flip projects let's me see a current value estimate alongside the listing price. Most new listings are hitting the market MUCH higher than the current value estimate. It looks like most of the local Realtors are convinced that they can get more for their listings than they have in the recent past. I haven't checked to see if local days-on-market have grown recently but I think there's a danger that prices are rising faster than buyers can tolerate which will inevitably slow down sales.

It sounds like your clients in Utah are going to need to buy for less, spend less on rehab, and price below the market (survival of the fittest). My experience has taught me that price is key to selling fast.

J Scott has assembled an amazing team that's succeeding in his market in spite of tremendous local competition. He's a great source for advice in this area.

J. That sounds like good news to me. I hope it IS a sign of things to come! Not only are these large investors screwing up local investors ability to find investment projects but I feel that they are creating a lot of uncertainty and instability in the real estate market. There's too much money moving into real estate too fast. We all know what happened the last time that happened. Hopefully this is the first of many holes that will get punched in the new real estate bubble that will prevent it from over-inflating. I miss the good old days of slow and steady appreciation.