Honored

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: (GREG KIELY/617-383-4480)

BROOKLINE REALTOR® ACCEPTED IN THE PRESTIGIOUS LEADERSHIP ACADEMY OF

THE MASSACHUSETTS ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

(Waltham, MA.) – Greg Kiely of William Raveis Real Estate, has been accepted into the 2010-2011 class of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors® (MAR) Leadership Academy.

Established in 2004, the MAR Leadership Academy has been created to nurture and train individuals who aspire to become active volunteer leaders in the REALTORS® association, and/or civic and charitable organziations. Utilizing a combination individual study, groups sessions, team-building exercises and personal profile analyses, the intense 8-day program over 4 business retreats will teach attendees important leadership and life skills that may be applied to both their business practice and any future leadership roles they may assume within the REALTOR® organization.

Specifically, academy participants can expect to gain stronger communication skills, learn the critical elements of network and coalition-building, and receive valuable instruction on goal-setting and strategic business planning techniques.

A total of 8 Realtors® have been chosen to participate in this elite 2010-2011 academy class, which will graduate in May. Participants were first required to submit a written application, then appeared before a selection committee to complete a personal interview with past and present MAR leadership.

Great afternoon for raffle ticket sales at Roche Bros in West Rox

Patty and Helen spent the afternoon selling our $5 Breast Cancer Research Fund raffle tickets at Roche Brothers in West Roxbury. For those who don't know, the raffle raises funding for a Navigator Program at the UConn Health Center and Beth Israel/Brigham & Womens Hospitals here in Boston.

Become a Fan of our Facebook Page to see photos and get more information.

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Raffle ticket sales are ongoing. Click for details.

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William Raveis speaks about recent awards

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"William Raveis Wins the Gold"

A refreshing view of "do-it-yourselfers"

A Buyer’s Perspective on the Pitfalls of FSBO | Redfin Boston Sweet Digs

Pam Reynolds, one of the bloggers for the new Redfin website here in Greater Boston, posted a refreshing perspective (link above) on FSBOs (For Sale By Owners). Her points are the arguments that many of us in the brokerage community try to make to sellers on a regular basis. The properties she uses as an example are in very high traffic areas and the amazing thing is 95% of the home-buying public does not know about them. In fact, one of the properties happens to be directly across the street from where I live (I even park in that building) and it wasn't until I did a specific site by site search for FSBOs that I found out about it.

To pick up where Pam left off. I have had more than a few conversations with some do-it-yourself sellers (and buyers, surprisingly) this year after they were able to put a property under agreement. With all of the new difficulties in the mortgage market and the fears about declining prices, buyers are asking for more between offer and closing. This makes navigating the path to the closing table increasingly more difficult. While we all take pride in being able to accept a challenge and tackle it individually there are numerous reasons to leave this one to the pros.

1. As negotiations get more and more intense, there is that invaluable middle-person to take the heat for each side and leave the raw emotion of the negotiation aside. It's amazing how hurtful discussions can become when a buyer begins harshly criticizing the home that a seller has built countless memories in.
2. When your appraiser (last I checked there were absolutely zero appraisal firms who focus exclusively in Brookline) walks into the door fresh from appraising a house in Dedham or Natick they are suddenly exposed to a polar opposite marketplace. While it might be inappropriate for the appraiser to listen to the arguments of the buyer or seller, they do work actively with the listing agent to explore the comparable market conditions.
3. When a mortgage deadline is fast approaching, brokers can quickly use their network of lending professionals to troubleshoot the issues. Set aside the two major firms who have lending arms, the volume each brokerage firm does with the individual lenders allows us to get calls answered sooner and problems taken care of the fastest.

These are many reasons, but they only scratch the surface. I never begrudge someone who feels a desire to try to sell on their own. One of the many reasons we buy property is so we can do with it what we desire. That being said, if it was easiest to sell on your own we would see well more than 1% of the properties on the market as FSBOs.

I'm off to Broker Tours today where there happens to be a $2 million FSBO on the market! To the FSBOs out there, I'd love to invite a dialog here on your view of the process. Agents, what frustrates you about FSBOs, and buyers let's hear your experiences.

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Not bad for the new kid in town...

William Raveis Real Estate, my brokerage, was just awarded the Banker & Tradesman Best of 2008 Gold Award for Residential Real Estate. For those unfamiliar with the company, Raveis has consistently been one of the top three offices in Connecticut for over 20 years. This year we were ranked #29 in the "Top 100" offices nationwide, and from that group one of only 17 that saw a growth in sales from 2006 to 2007.

There will be a lot more news from Raveis coming up, but for an office with only 5 years in Massachusetts, we're already the third largest office in the Commonwealth and growing. For sellers, it's important to select an office with upward mobility and recent success. When selecting a buyer's agent, it's critical to pick an agency that is showing strong market volume which indicates a current knowledge of your local market. I decided to come to Raveis a year ago from one of the "well known" national firms. I made the move for a number of reasons, the most important of which was a company-wide plan for this new market. While I've avoided commercial promotion on these pages, this is a wonderful recongnition of what has happened in the last year. Please contact me for more information.

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Pay me to put a plastic combo box on your front door.

We've all seen them, the lovely 6, 8 or 10 button combination lockboxes that many listing agents throughout the country use. Well, guess what...in Brookline they're the sign of an agent who does not work in our market. I personally don't get the lockbox thing. The premise is you hire me to sell your house (paying me 2.5%+) and I'm going to sit on my couch with my dog just allowing people to traipse through your home (and all of your possessions) unsupervised. We've studied the numbers enough to know that Open Houses are simply tools for a listing agent to meet potential future clients, so by placing a lockbox on your property I'm simply using you to market myself and when it comes time to actually sell your house, I leave it to that handy little gadget pictured above. Nothing tells you how to get to a supermarket or the best way to commute to work like those plastic little buttons. You can't beat the advice and neighborhood insight you get from an often rusted spare set of front door keys.

To you lockboxers....yes, you complain all the time about having to schedule "accompanied showings" here in Brookline. Well, guess what?!?! My job is to be there when you want to see the house. When you drive in from Wellesely, Somerville, Natick....or you work for dial-an-agent.com realty I can promise you that you have not immersed yourself in the neighborhood to know what has recently sold, what has failed to sell, and WHY your buyer should (or should not) buy in this neighborhood. We hear over and over and over again that "real estate is local." I've got pages and pages of stats on this blog that prove that. So, if it's so local and you're driving in from Metro-West, shouldn't you expect a local expert there to help give you the information needed to answer the important questions on the spot?

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World Series Trophy and Links

The World Series Trophy will be in Brookline tomorrow (Thursday the 26th).

In the news this week Mass housing prices have fallen 8.6% from last year, but Brookline's numbers are doing very well.

I was quoted in the cover story from the Homes section in The Boston Globe on Sunday. In essence, the question was whether or not an expensive garden would impact a sales price. My extended opinion is while it might not directly impact a sale price for a house it would help differentiate a house from competition in a crowded marketplace. From there, that might save the seller time and money in moving onto the next phase of their life.

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The Reality Disconnect

I've been fortunate enough to do some local traveling recently and it's caused me to focus in on a fundamental hurdle the Brookline market is facing.

How many Brookline buyers are current Brookline residents?

How many Brookline sellers are staying in Brookline?

Where are our buyers coming from and where are our sellers going?

In discussing these questions with people in my office it's clear that only 10%-20% of the clients we work with are "second-time" Brookline buyers. It makes sense that someone who lives in the "average" condo in Brookline - a $475,000 two bedroom - or the "average" house - a $1.1 million 3 or 4 bedroom needs somewhere to "step-up" to. These two average properties point to some of the fundamental difficulty. How many buyers can move from the average condo to the average house? Very few, if any.

So, the difficulty buyers and sellers are having right now is the realities they live in are in a disconnect. Buyers coming into Brookline are coming from a real estate environment VERY different from what we have here. They might hear the stats from qualified and experienced agents, but they still have to go home and experience the reality of their own neighborhoods. In most cases those other realities are stagnant sales and crumbling prices. Somehow, speaking as an agent, we need to rebuild the trust in buyer agency as a highly experienced and trusted resource. Buyers also need to do their homework and find someone they can trust to work with. Yes, there are so many internet resources out there to help introduce home buyers to the property in their search area, but nothing can substitute for the experience of a well versed professional.



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What were they thinking?

I wonder occasionally whether or not certain people live in a bubble (not the real estate "bubble"). A new listing came on the market in Brookline recently that was originally purchased in 2006 for more than $100,000 less than its current asking price. Now, as much as I champion the Brookline housing market, it is critical for people in this market to be realistic. There is nothing that has happened to this market over the past two years that would justify an almost 30% appreciation in price.

The frustrating element is one of my "peers" in the industry has taken on this listing and is going to present a case to the home buying consumer that this is an accurate listing price. They have also allowed the seller to think that they have an opportunity to sell their home for this much money.

I don't see the gain here on any side of the process. While I hope these sellers find a willing buyer, I don't know what data, if any, an appraiser will use to justify the mortgage amount needed to purchase this home. I know buyers out there are doing their homework, but sellers seem to generally be too willing to sign up the highest listing price they hear. The unfortunate end result in these situations is the property doesn't sell. It sits on the market for ages and the sellers finally dramatically reduce the price far below the proper selling price because of a market stigma. After that, any neighbor who has to sell their condo is negatively impacted by the artificially low selling price of the original listing. All around this is bad news, but unfortunately it happens way too often.


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Can I buy without my Buyer's Agent?

The following question gets posed very frequently:

"Can I buy a home I saw without using the agent who showed it to me?"

The answer is (consult an attorney in specific cases) you are free to buy a place you want, but that agent very likely has a right to the "co-broke" commission either way.

So, my question is: What do buyers gain by not having their own representation?

Why is it that buyers frequently decide to go it alone? I've heard all of the snippy "the agent is only in it for the maximum commission dollar" arguments, but let's get serious here. What is there to gain by not having any representation? I'm asking here, not stating opinion. I think many "experienced" agents who gained their experience before Buyer Agency really came into its own are still adapting to it and I want to hear from you where you think agents aren't serving the buyer.

The Listing Price Fallacy

What exactly is a listing price? We have many conversations about prices of homes and negotiations with buyers and sellers often get contentious when discussing listing prices. Why?

We all know that a listing price is the price which sellers hope to get. In fact, the listing price is the only price that a listing agent can suggest offering without failing their fiduciary responsibilities for their client (which is the failure of "dual agency"). That being said, why is it that all properties don't sell for 100% of the listing price then?

The "price" of a house is not controllable by the seller in any way. "Price" is determined by the value association the interested buyers place on it. So what is an "asking/list price?"

The list price of a property must be seen by sellers as nothing more than a marketing tool for their property. It is the goal of every seller, with the assistance of their agent, to market the property in a way which will attract the highest concentration of potentially interested and qualified buyers. Once interested those buyers, with the assistance of their agent, will compare the relative value offered by that property to what is currently available on the market and then make the value judgment. This value judgment is a subjective analysis tied to the desires of each individual buyer. Your house might be the only one with two deeded garage parking spaces, but if you live in a one bedroom and are attracting young professionals who don't own multiple cars, the $60,000 cost of two garage parking spaces might not be worth it to the buyer. That $60,000 might get them an additional bedroom elsewhere. So, in essence, your listing price has to reflect your current competition, the perceived value of your home relative to the market and many other factors that unfortunately a seller does not have control of. The only thing the seller can control is the condition of their property. If your home is presentable and you have maintained it well you can create a competitive advantage for yourself. You cannot move your home from a busy street. You cannot knock down or replace the building next door. Unless you know someone powerful you cannot make yourself any closer to public transportation.

What does this all mean? You must take your desires as sellers with a grain of salt. We all want the highest offer possible. The way to get this is to pick a competitive listing price, not necessarily a high listing price. Competition raises prospects for everyone. The stronger you can compete in the market the better your results will be.

A day in the life of...

Everybody knows that if somebody got to live a day in their job they would suddenly have significantly more respect for that job and the people who do it. I happen to work in a field that fills its own section of the newspaper, gets the "most emailed" status on Boston.com on a regular basis and generates millions upon millions of dollars in advertising revenue for all sorts of people and businesses. I spent a whole sick-day (we don't actually get those) on my couch watching real estate tv shows on about seven different networks. Obviously people are interested, and many think they know what goes into the process. What gets overlooked often is that the majority of the country hasn't actually worked with a REALTOR in the last 5+ years. For some, jobs don't change much in 5 years. I can tell you right now that the way I have to do my job has changed a lot in the last 5 months. So, I'll risk boring the 30-50 people who will see this today by describing a day in the life of a REALTOR.

6:15 AM - Up with the dog and a check of the Broker Open House schedule for mid-day.

8:00 AM - Tessie goes to Doggy Day Care every Wednesday to free me up for Broker Tour and our in-office afternoon round-table training session.

8:15 AM - I can't speak for America, but I run on Dunkin'

8:45 AM - Arrive at the office for "floor time." To ensure informed people are available to answer the phone in our office we each have 1-2 three hour time slots a week in which we sit at the front desk and take "floor calls."

9:15 AM - Confirm final list for Broker Tour and make sure my listing is positioned well on the list.

9:30 AM - Prepare Sunday Globe Ad. We try to advertise 3 out of every 4 weekends in print and then distribute to all of the various sites. Our Globe ads usually generate 1 out of 8 open house guests each weekend. This is a major expense and a big answer to "where does the 5% go" question. Unfortunately Globe ads are seen more by sellers checking up on their agents and less by the buyers who might be interested in taking a look.

9:45-10:45 - Scan the major listing search sites like Craigslist, Trulia, Zillow, etc... and make sure that the listing information is accurate and up to date. While I do this I cross reference the MLS listing and the LINK (Downtown Boston MLS) listing. If I get the listing into LINK by Wednesday the open house will be featured in the weekend version of Boston Homes.

10:45-12:00 - Review of new, price changed, expired, withdrawn and under agreement property on MLS. While Thursday is a good day to add most property, the savvy agents will post on Wednesday to get a pre-Open House buzz going during broker tours. Also, since most Globe ads are due by the end of the day a lot of the price changes will go into the computer system today. I use the new information to touch base with my selling clients to use for pricing comparison. For my buyer clients I try to put in initial phone calls on listings that look like they might be potential matches. Without the benefit of going to weekend Open Houses to view available property it is critical that I know as much as possible at all times what has changed about the marketplace. The two listing presentations I've done this week would not have been possible without knowing this information off the top of my head.

12:30-2:00 - Broker Open House at my listing. This once or twice monthly opening is essential to allow brokers to not only preview the listing and hopefully mention it to their buyers, but more importantly to gain their feedback on pricing and condition. I build a list of comments that I try to convey to the seller. These comments help us make any changes in advance of the open house leaving my sellers in a good position to compete with the other listings in their range.

2:15-3:15 - Weekly office round-table discussion about market strategies and difficulties. This week we discussed methods for developing an appropriate amount of urgency on the part of buyers or sellers who might be on the fence.

3:30 - 4:30 - Returning phone calls on showing requests and feedback from my buyers' viewings of other listings over the weekend. Friday - Sunday get very busy so Wednesday and Thursday are the only prep days we get for the weekend. Tomorrow morning I'll have to produce all of my print marketing for the Open House and showings. I'll also be in a meeting of the Greater Boston Association of REALTORS Tech Committee, so this phone time is a critical element to ensuring my schedule is freed for my clients.

5:00 - 7:30 - This is the time left open most days for after-work showings. Most buyers in the initial phases of their search don't take time off from work to view property the first time. Any time they become interested in a specific property a daytime second showing will usually occur.


While every day is different in real estate, and most days are a reflection of the needs of the specific clients I am working with at the time I try to stick to this template as much as possible. In the past the prevalent attitude was less focused on the constant evaluation of active listings because listings didn't remain active that long. Today the average days on market is close to 100 and there is a constant effort needed by all parties to make sure that time frame stays as small as possible.

What do you Expect from a Real Estate Website?

Today I was asked to attend a vendor presentation about real estate websites in my role as Vice-Chairman of the Greater Boston Association of REALTORS Technology Committee. It got me thinking about what agents and brokerages use for websites to speak to consumers. There is a "Web 2.0" initiative going on throughout the National Association of REALTORS. The industry as a whole needs to keep up with the technology in order to stay relevant in the mind of the new generation of consumers.

So, what is it that the "new generation" wants? In the interest of full disclosure, I'm 27 years old. I believe I might fit in the "next" new generation because many people my age aren't yet buying homes. When it came time for me to have a website I invested significant capital in "branding" myself. My first website in the business was nothing special at all. It had a search tool and a mechanism for daily email updates of MLS changes. It had some stock photography and little sections for me to tell about myself. There were no blogs, widgets, ect... In fact, the mapping tool was still Yahoo! Maps which I think stopped being relevant in 1999. Now most sites have similar next-generation map search tools, don't require log-ins, and give you minute by minute updates. So, for my website I decided to tell a story about me. I no longer view myself as the gatekeeper to the property information. You will not come to me simply for property or open house information. You will hopefully come to me because I am a specialist in a very specific segment of the market. My goal is to provide you a window into who I am so you will in turn be able to feel comfortable contacting me.

My pet peeves in agent sites are things like:

Servicing: Arlington, Belmont, Boston, Boston-Allston, Boston-Back Bay, Boston-Beacon Hill, Boston-Brighton, Boston-Charlestown, Boston-Dorchester, Boston-East Boston, Boston-Hyde Park, Boston-Jamaica Plain, Boston-Mattapan, Boston-Midtown, Boston-Mission Hill, Boston-North End, Boston-Roslindale, Boston-Roxbury, Boston-South Boston, Boston-South End, Boston-The Fenway, Boston-Waterfront, Boston-West Roxbury, Brookline, Cambridge, Everett, Malden, Medford, Natick, Needham, Newton, Newton-Auburndale, Newton-Chestnut Hill, Newton-Newton Center, Newton-Newton Highlands, Newton-Newton Upper Falls, Newton-Newtonville, Newton-Nonantum, Newton-Waban, Newton-West Newton, Quincy, Quincy-North Quincy, Somerville, Waltham, Watertown

Seriously?!?! Are you "servicing" anything? The site I pulled this from has no picture on it other than a mug shot (a.k.a. an agent Headshot) and has no differentiating content. Yes, this agent is "well known and trusted" just go ahead and take their word for it. They'll tell you exactly why you should live in Allston or Everett or West Newton because that's what their little auto-generated service area message tells you.

So, consumers: What are you looking for in a real estate website? For the many agents who read me: Why have you decided to go with one type of site over another?

Who "sells" the house?

I am currently in the middle of an in-depth training program to become a "Certified Home Staging" expert and an interesting discussion came up in our down-time today. Many times a homeowner will call an agent, sign a listing agreement and then tell their agent to go "sell" their house. My question to you is... who sells the house?

Here is my take on the question:

You, the homeowner, have a product that you are bringing to a competitive market. You control the "product" but I control the image of that product. So who is more directly responsible for having the house sell (or not sell)?

Well, one way to look at my job as a listing agent is to break it down into four primary functions.

1) I must take the house you own and position it competitively within its market.

2) I must facilitate access to your home and focus on refining the public exposure and marketing of your home.

3) Once an offer is presented I must present the merits of the offer within its relation to your goals and the current market conditions. I will then present you the data from which we will build the case for your counter-offer. Finally I will deliver the counter-offers in a manner consistent with maintaining an amicable relationship with the potential buyers and their agent.

4) Finally, I will facilitate and manage the conditions agreed to within any offer and subsequent Purchase & Sale Agreement. This includes inspection contingencies, fire department inspections, appraisals, mortgage contingencies, and a pre-closing walk-through.

These are four major sections of the transaction, and each one of them has many smaller functions tied to them. For example, we need to make sure that we are pricing realistically for current market conditions. It would make no sense for me to give you numbers from April to price a November listing. You need better data than that. Second, bringing in a staging expert (someone certified) to consult with you and present a multi-tiered plan of attack for presenting the house to the public is critical. You, the seller, will be tasked with taking the staging tips and pricing data and coming up with an appropriate listing price based on how much work you're willing to put into the presentation of the house. While we're doing the "pre-launch" work we will most likely bring in someone to draw up floor plans and hire a professional photographer to highlight the feature elements of your home. We will also start working on a catered event designed to draw interest from your immediate neighbors. We might use this event to demonstrate some of the creative staging elements we have tried to incorporate in your marketing plan.

These, and so many other critical details, are just part of the listing package we agree to. As with so many contracted relationships, work must be done by both parties to ensure we make the strongest impression possible. If you are wondering why your house has not sold yet, take a look at some of these and match them with the efforts you've made on your behalf. Remember, at the end of the day I am tasked to facilitate and represent the sale of your home, but you are the one selling. Make sure you're taking an active role in the process!

What Commission Do You Charge?

It is amazing how many conversations about real estate start with that question. It baffles me to this day that this is the one field in which people think they can make a decision simply by how much money the professional practitioner will "charge" them. It gets asked other ways, like "what's your fee" and "how much will it cost me" but at the end of the day, it speaks to a backward mentality.

Let's run through an exercise here: You get a big bonus at work this holiday season and you decide you want to buy a fancy new car. Let's say you spend $80,000 on that car. When it comes time for that first service are you going to go from random mechanic to mechanic and ask them what their rate is? You'll most likely take it to someone who you have heard has specific expertise with that model car, and you'll most likely pay a lot more than the random mechanic who would have done who-knows-what to your car.

An even better example is picking a place to eat dinner. Do you open the yellow pages, start at the A's and call asking "what's the price of food?" First, there are steaks and lobster which will be a whole lot more expensive than burgers and fish sticks. There will also be places which will give you $7 steak and I seriously doubt you would feel comfortable eating it. The simple "what's the price of food" question just makes NO sense. If you feel like a steak, you're going to the Capital Grille or Abe & Louie's.

So, what commission do I charge? It's impossible to know. I need to see what type of house or condo you have, and then we need to have a serious discussion about your pricing before we can determine how in-depth we need to get with your marketing campaign. From there, we build out a marketing calendar and we decide which types of floor plans and virtual tours you will need.

The one important thing to look at is the agent representing your sale does not get 5-6% of the sale of your house. All agents should be cooperating with buyer's agents. This usually takes half of the commission amount. Next, most agents split their commissions with their offices who pay for Globe and Boston Homes ads, certain Open House materials and other incidental costs. I will say, on average, I am looking at maybe 1.5% of the overall sale price of your house before I even start doing my own personal marketing efforts for your house (floor plans, fliers, post cards, catered broker tours, etc...). Remember, all of these things are paid up front whether your home sells or not. So yes, maybe there is someone out there willing to give you a "rebate" or "charge" you a lower commission, but I assure you the Globe isn't charging them less than me for advertising and the floor plans I pay for aren't offered to them for less money either. By hiring that agent for less money, I will ask you.....how much will that cost you?

Open House Advice

Today many of you will search open house listings, visit an open house or speak with an agent about a house you saw in the paper or online. As you have those conversations with agents, please remember a few key facts about Open Houses.

1) When you call an agent about a property they have advertised that ad becomes the "procuring cause" of your contact with the property, and your rights to use a buyer's agent have been lost.

2) When you visit an open house and do not sign in as working with an agent, that open house becomes the procuring cause, and again your rights to use a buyer's agent have been lost.

3) When you search Boston Homes, the Globe or Boston.com you need to remember that you are not seeing a large portion of the homes currently on the market. Since Open Houses don't usually lead to the sale of that specific property offices are cutting back more and more on their weekend advertising. The open house is almost exclusively seen as a tool for agents to generate contacts with potential buyer clients these days. This means the office, as property sits on the market longer, has to take a good hard look at how many properties go in the weekend publications.

These three facts make it critical that you employ a buyers agent. You need to have a contract signed with this agent to make sure you get your full protection. This contract, except for the most rare situations, is free and the obligation (99.9% of the time) to pay your buyer's agent falls to the seller. I suggest you use this weekend to interview an agent or two. The top agents today will not be sitting in open houses, they will be out viewing property for clients or in the office writing offers for their clients. Remember this as you go out, and make sure you stack the cards as much as you can in your favor. Happy Sunday!

Go Sox! Go Pats!