OK, so I have a minor cold and was napping away the morning yesterday. I treat colds with lots of sleep. I dunno if it works, but it feels good and can’t hurt.
The doorbell rang, which is odd, 'cause I rarely get visitors, let alone unexpected ones.
I opened to find a stranger standing there with business cards out, ready to hand me one.
“How are you?” he asked cheerfully.
“I’m sick, what can I do for you?” I say, a good deal less cheerfully.
“I’m a realator representing one of you neighbors. We’re having a open house tomorrow and I wondered if you knew anyone who would want to buy this house.”
I have never heard of this. Is this now common? I tend to over-react to people coming to my house uninvited, but I thought this was very odd. Anyone else hear of this being done?
I’ve never had a realtor personally ask me for potential customers, but I’ve gotten postcards saying “We’re listing the home at 123 Your Street - if you know someone who might be interested…” I’ve also gotten cards saying “We just sold the house at 321 Your Street and we’d love to list yours if you’re looking at moving…”
I doesn’t sound strange to me. It’s a desperate realtor trying to sell a house. A couple years ago they could sell almost anything, now almost nothing. They used to stop at all the houses in this neighborhood, and try to get you to sell.
This is what I would think. Thing about open houses is that you can tell how busy it’s been. So, if no one’s been there, a potential buyer knows they won’t have much competition and could low-ball the seller. If there’s lots of interest, it drives the prices up. But, even if the buyer only thinks there’s interest, that will make them up their offer a bit.
Neighbors are often excellent contacts &/or prospects where you are trying to sell real estate. It’s Sales 101. I sell commercial RE and I always deliver packages to neighbors.
So you are saying that it is common for realators to come around and ask you if you know people looking to buy?
How many times has someone been to your place this year to ask if you know people who want to come to an open house?
Would it be OK for car dealers to start doing this? “Hey, I’m selling some cars, do you know anyone who needs one?” Which sales people should be out knocking on doors - not selling, but asking me for leads?
This is just like a telemarketer, only they came to my damn door. I agree it is a desperate attempt, but to me, that doesn’t make it any less odd.
Maybe not common, but I wouldn’t be surprised. As a neighbor, you have something of a vested interest in who becomes your neighbor. If you have a friend who might be in the market for a house, and you wouldn’t mind that friend living near you, then you might tell them about the open house. (We had our landlords ask us if we knew someone who wanted to rent the open half of the house above us - talk about a vested interest in your new neighbors!) That’s not quite the same situation as a car dealer - you don’t care who else drives your model of car, really, since there are so many cars on the road.
We got a phone message just the other day asking the same thing about a house a couple of streets away. In fact, we DO know of someone who is interested in buying in this neighborhood and might like the asking price. So asking the neighbors is a strategy that just might work on the part of the realtor.
So I guess here is my question: If you *knew *this, why haven’t you *already *mentioned it to them?
Is it because it is a few streets over and you didn’t know about it? What if it were a few houses down, something you passed every day, would it make as much sense? And does it not come up on the real-estate search engines?
We know the person was hoping for something specifically on our street (it gets somewhat less traffic and has more trees), and it may be the case that he even looked at the one in question but decided not to offer. What the realtor’s message provided was the fact that the current owners had dropped the asking price (fairly significantly), a couple of weeks after the potential buyer had been looking around. Paying several thousand less for that particular house might make up for the ever-so-slightly less favored location.
If he’s already looked at the neighborhood so recently, he might not check the prices online again so quickly.
It’s all hypothetical at the moment actually; we haven’t called the realtor or the interested party back yet.
I don’t know if it’s common, but it’s becoming more the norm. In the last six months or so, I’ve had two different realtors come to my door, each telling me about an open house in the neighborhood and suggesting I come to the open house “and bring any friends who are looking!”
I agree that it’s a new technique trying to dredge what interest they can in this down market. Now, in the old days, I used to get a letter every six months or so from a realtor telling me s/he had a client (usually identified with some brief biographical information) who wanted to buy my house. I always thought that was odd. Funny how that’s dropped off now…
I think the real motivation is this - they want the open house to look crowded, and they know that if they tell the neighbors in advance, some of them will come so they can legitimately snoop in all their neighbor’s stuff.
A friend of mine used to be sell houses and she complained that most of the people to show up at an open house were the neighbors. At least in the beginning.
Khadaji I said sell. They were soliciting door to door to get get you to sell so they could make a commission. We didn’t want to sell the house. It wasn’t this year, and being in a major flood this year I don’t think it would have sold. The most time in a year this happened was 3 times.
I get at least a card/leaflet a week from local agents. Do I want to sell? Do I know any buyers? Prices dropped! Cash Buyers! It’s so common here, they’re covered by the junk mail laws.
I’m sure they’d be at the door if they thought it would be more effective, but in this neighbourhood you’d better be selling chocolate if you ring the bell, people can get tetchy round here.
First of all, the word is Realtor. It has only two syllables. It does not have an “a” between the “l” and the “t”. It’s REAL-tor. It is the name for someone who belongs to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), not just a real estate agent.
Although most agents are Realtors, some are not. If you don’t need the services provided by NAR (legal, forms, Multiple Listing Services, others), you might not want to pay the hundreds of dollars it costs each year to join. Some agents who have a specialized market (like selling only in a condo development) don’t belong.
OK, that’s done. And I are a two-syllabled Realtor. (It’s trademarked, so I really should use TM, but I’m too lazy to code it properly. Use your imagination.)
To answer the OP:
It’s a little-known trade secret in some neighborhoods that the best customers and the most likely buyers of property are the neighbors. In my area, about 30% of the sales are to people who live nearby already (really!). I’m not saying this is typical of other parts of the world, but the first people I approach, either personally or by mail, are the ones close by.
And visitors to my open houses are often neighbors who just want to see the house inside, but are not serious buyers. Nothing wrong with that – it’s a chance to get acqainted with potential future customers and expand my prospect list.
I have never heard of this. Is this now common? I tend to over-react to people coming to my house uninvited, but I thought this was very odd. Anyone else hear of this being done?
A friend of mine used to be sell houses and she complained that most of the people to show up at an open house were the neighbors. At least in the beginning.