RE/MAX real estate
Office Newsletter - Week of October 28th Edition
November
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GLVR Releases Coming Soon Disclosure Form
Before it received final approval, the disclosure was created and vetted by a Coming Soon Task Force, the MLS Committee, MLS legal counsel, and the Board of Directors.
The disclosure is now available to GLVR MLS subscribers.
Generating business is SOOOOO easy...if you decide.
Why is it that sometimes the most productive and obvious activity just seems too hard?
The resistance to being in live FLOW with people you haven’t talked to serves no one.
One of my most influential mentors, Dr. Fred Grosse, said something that has stayed with me for over 25 years. Making the decision to do something takes about 10 seconds. Decisions are fast. You either do it or you don’t.
He said that most of us often take years “deciding to decide”. Indecision keeps us feeling guilty and keeps us stuck!
Thought of the week:
When you know what to do, decide to decide quickly.
NAR Report: These Are the Top Home Improvements
Homeowners and REALTORS® alike want new roofs and kitchens. According to the 2019 Remodeling Impact Report, released by the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), the two projects rank as the most popular home improvement projects among both demographics.
The report, which examines homeowners' reasons for completing the projects ranked, also provides the costs and seller recovery values for many of the tasks.
Here's a graphic provided by the NAR that illustrates the top Joy Score projects as well as the top return-on-investment projects:
Design a Better End to Your Workday
Life in the real estate industry can be chaotic. As a real estate professional, you may be used to a non-traditional work week, with at least some minor tasks needing your attention on the weekend. That’s why, to find balance (and sanity), it’s important to add routine to your schedule whenever possible.
A regular end-of-day ritual is an excellent way to close out each day and help you ease into your schedule the next morning. Here are several things you can handle daily to help design a better end to your workday:
Go over what you got done.
If you aren’t implementing them already, it’s a great idea to start using a checklist on a daily basis. At the end of each day you can go over what you accomplished so you’re ready to tackle tasks the next morning. Also, be sure to start your end-of-day ritual about 15-20 minutes before you plan on leaving your office or work area.
Review tasks for the next morning.
This should coincide with the task above. Be sure you’re aware of any tasks you haven’t finished at the end of each day, as well as anything else you know you need to handle the next day. Also, update your calendar accordingly.
Clear your workspace.
Before you leave for the day, be sure to clear any clutter on your desk. However, check all the files and papers you’re moving before you either stack them or throw them away—there may be a task lurking in the pile that you’ve forgotten to handle!
Agents, what are some jobs you make sure you tackle right before you leave the office?
Actually, You Most Certainly Can
Henry Ford said “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.” Mr. Ford was right about that.
I’ve written before about the damaging attitude of “can’t”. Telling yourself that you can’t do something is about the most limiting thing you can say to yourself. Believing something is beyond your capabilities almost certainly makes it true. Even thinking you can’t do something is enough to stop your progress or at least slow it down.
Thinking you “can” on the other hand is often enough to push you past obstacles, whether real or imagined.
Telling yourself that you can’t is habit forming. Once you convince yourself that you have limitations you’ll actually behave as if you have those limitations. But you most likely don’t. In fact you’ve probably blown past those limitations at other times of your life. You’ve already proven than you can do it, you only have to remind yourself of your past success. Sometimes you have to remind yourself often. Again and again.
You may not have overcome the exact obstacle in the past that you are currently facing but you’ve overcome so many obstacles in the past that one more new one hardly matters. You blew past the other ones and this one is more of the same.
Remember how tough those past obstacles seemed…..before you ran over them? Think of how many things you do today that you once thought you would never be able to do. Think of all the times in the past when you thought you couldn’t only to discover that you actually could.
Thinking that you can’t do something causes you to forget about all the things you CAN do. Thinking you can’t tricks you into not even trying. Imagine all the things you can do that you wouldn’t be doing if you had fallen for that trick in the past.
People of unlimited success think in terms of CAN! People of more limited success think in terms of CAN’T. Which one are you?
It matters that you know the answer to that question because while you won’t ever just think your way to success you most certainly will think your way to failure if you’re thinking in terms of can’t.
Energy Efficiency Tips from Carson Wentz
Eagles Quarterback Carson Wentz shared some of his favorite energy tips with us. These tips are easy to follow and can save you on your energy usage. Most importantly they are Carson approved.
Business Development Manager
NRG NE Realtor Channel
Office: 267-295-5836
Personal mobile: 717-875-7690
https://www.nrghomepower.com/energy-choice/energy-solutions/concierge/
Keep Your Holidays ‘Safely’ Electrified
Who doesn’t want a giant inflatable jack-o-lantern/turkey/snowman in their yard? Besides the big stuff, well-lit walkways and candle alternatives are important for the safety of visitors; especially when dozens of children are likely to stop by.
Keep your family and loved ones safe this holiday season (plus save some change on the bills) with these tips in “Halloween Decorations – LED Halloween Lights & Safety”.*
Welcome to the New MAX/Center
When you log in today, you’ll notice a more user-friendly MAX/Center! In addition to back-end updates, MAX/Center now has featured stories, improved tile placement and a much more intuitive design.
Other features include:
- A headline banner that calls out important announcements
- The tiles along the top are ones that you visit most or have favorited, making them easy to access.
- Informative tile descriptions when hovered over
- Main feature story
- Four other relevant stories to you
And this is just the start. More and more functionality will be added as development continues on the site.
Website Template Options
Learn about the various website layouts available in booj!
Your Client Got Negative Feedback. Now What?
It’s an experience familiar to most agents: You’ve helped your client stage their home, promoted the listing and facilitated a showing, only for the hard work to result in nothing more than an uninterested buyer who leaves negative feedback. While you may accept that this comes with the territory, it’s definitely not a pleasant situation to be in for either agent or client. Fortunately, there are ways that you can make the best out of what may seem to be a bad situation.
ShowingTime helps agents acquire feedback and share it with sellers. Based on our agents’ experiences with using that feedback to support clients, we’ve put together a few tips below to help make sharing negative feedback a positive experience.
Contextualize the feedback
As unpleasant as bad feedback may be, there’s no point in keeping it hidden from your clients – honest feedback is essential for making changes to either the listing price, the home itself or both that will earn offers. In fact, a key advantage of a showing scheduling service like the ShowingTime Appointment Center is that it makes the collection of feedback simple, with feedback requests sent automatically after each showing.
Yet while it’s necessary that you do share buyers’ observations your client receives, as an expert in your market you can take even the most negative critique and reframe it in a positive, actionable way for your clients. Think of yourself as less of a censor and more as an interpreter.
ShowingTime’s Listing Activity Report can help with this, allowing agents to review all activity details for the life of each listing. By default, feedback is sent to the listing agent for review; the agent can then easily forward the feedback to seller(s) and also publish it in their report. If the feedback is worded in a less-than-productive way, however, the agent may opt to paraphrase the response instead of sending it along verbatim, or wait to share the feedback during a meeting with the client in person to provide a face-to-face explanation.
Regardless of how the feedback is shared, ShowingTime gives agents full control, empowering them to have necessary discussions with clients in a manner that fits their personal approach.
Prove the validity of the suggestions
One way to soften the blow of negative feedback is to demonstrate its accuracy – and, by virtue, how making changes to the listing reflects the changes suggested by the feedback and matches market trends. To do that, turn to relevant market statistics to make the business case for incorporating the less-than-positive feedback. As we’ve discussed previously, a market stats solution like ShowingTime’s InfoSparks can be used to provide empirical evidence supported by current, accurate data to highlight why suggested changes to a listing could pay dividends.
Negative feedback can understandably evoke strong emotions. The right data can ground the conversation, keeping tempers cool and all parties engaged on a plan of action to improve the prospects of getting an offer.
Use feedback to inform future feedback requests
Sometimes commentary is bad not because it’s negative, but because it’s simply unhelpful. No matter how you square it, sometimes feedback is too opaque to prove immediately valuable for a seller. Nevertheless, that feedback can still be useful for informing the development of new questions to solicit future commentary that’s more helpful. Sometimes, simply tweaking how you ask your questions can mean the difference between helpful comments and frustrating, vague responses.
Using a solution like the ShowingTime Appointment Center’s feedback template feature, an agent can increase the likelihood that future comments are constructive and sufficiently descriptive by letting agents (and their clients) ask the right questions.
Debbie Lentz
Sylvia Merkel
Merry Cardone
Marcy Staiman
Pat Fabozzi
Jon Miller
John Fiore
10/8/2019
Years with RE/MAX real estate: 1
Years in Real Estate: 4
Sue Shortell
10/9/2019
Years with RE/MAX real estate: 21
Years in Real Estate: 31
Pam Gothard
10/28/2019
Years with RE/MAX real estate: 6
Years in Real Estate: 14
RE/MAX real estate
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Email: joel@LehighValleyHomes.com
Website: www.LehighValleyHome.com
Location: 3120 Hamilton Boulevard, Allentown, PA, United States
Phone: 610-770-9000
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Twitter: @jdiaz01