Keith’s Musings Vol. 4: Shifting Market

A shifting market is the time for creativity, problem solving and thinking outside the box. I was in a meeting once where they said “Keith… there is outside the box. Then there is you, you threw the box in the driveway and ran over it with your truck”. Not sure if he meant it as a compliment but I took it as one.

So this morning here is just a quick journal brainstorm on some creative ways I can attract buyers to my listings. None of these are new. All of these have been done before. It is about doing them and (maybe more importantly) promoting them. If you’re doing a seller buy down you’ve got to shout it from the mountain tops. Make that be part of what makes your property different than the other 3-4 choices the buyer has.

Seller Buy Down

Often you can get more for a buyer in a rate buy down of $5,000 than you can in a price reduction of $5,000. Same amount to the seller often much more powerful for the buyer.

Lender Buy Down

Same as Seller buy down but lender pays.

Seller Second

For someone with equity in that first time homebuyer space they could create multiple offers with this. You could take a 3% down buyer and turn them into 13% or even 15% if the seller had enough equity they could just carry the paper and be the only home being offered that gives the buyer more buying power. So long as the note performs the seller actually gets 100% of their desired price plus interest carry.

Home Fund

A product through NextMortgage that allows crowd sourcing for down payment. AND for a first time homebuyer we match $2,000. That is a free two grand for your first time home buyer.

Bonus Buyer Conversation not tied to a listing:

All In One Loan

This is another program from NextMortgage that is basically a big giant HELOC and pays off faster than conventional 30 year fixed. And it also allows the owner to tap the equity in the home whenever they need it. So your high net worth people who might want cash flexibility in the next two years heading into recession this could be something your buyers are interested in.

This will be/is paramount as we continue to slow down. I mentioned a bit yesterday that sellers are often slow to accept the new reality.  You’ve got to help them self-discover that new reality.

And I say self-discover for a reason. That is my first mindset piece I think about when approaching this. Look, we don’t know for sure what it is going to sell for. We have a more educated, experienced  and informed idea than the seller but we don’t KNOW know. They don’t either. So this should be an experience where we talk, share and explore what the right marketing price should be together. Since it’s really worth what someone will pay on the day you’re ready to sell it. Prior to that it’s educated (or not so much) guessing.

Keith