“St. Joseph Statue Buyback Program” launched for thousands of expired real estate listings

No this isn’t a parody from The Onion, it’s the real thing — maybe even God’s work.  Nearly a decade ago, the practice of burying St. Joseph statues upside down to sell real estate caused me to write "Beyond Superstition: Doing Justice to the "Just Man". When an article on the misguided practice became the most forwarded story in the Wall Street Journal eight weeks ago, I decided to turn my "holy anger" into fund raising idea:

PROBLEM: More than 16,000 MLS listings have expired or been canceled across Massachusetts over the past eight weeks, representing billions of dollars in potential sales.  (UPDATE:  Expired & canceled MLS listings totaled nearly 29,000 during the 4th quarter of 2007, see graph.)

OPPORTUNITY: If you’re one of those discouraged sellers, particularly one who buried a St. Joseph statue, consider the following Special Offers:

1. Statue buyback / trade-in:  cost refunded to anyone who becomes a fee-for-service or referral client of The Real Estate Cafe,

2. FREE "for sale by owner" seminar,

3. 20% off the cost of preparing a "listing agent report card" (if you want to select a new agent),

4. 1/3rd of the referral fee paid to The Real Estate Cafe rebated to the seller.

To honor St. Joseph, we ask participating sellers to decide how another third of our referral fee will be donated to charities and causes of their choice.  Think "Pay-it-forward" meets real estate rebates.  Our sample client letter and Referral Rebate Redistribution Worksheet shows you how our "community commission" works.

St. Joseph never said anything (at least nothing recorded in the Bible), but if he weren’t buried upside down, here’s what we think he’d say about today’s real estate market: 

Practical wisdom from St. Joseph:  A generation ago, President John F. Kennedy said, "…here on earth, God’s work must truly be our own."  So pull that statue out of the ground, resist the urge to bury your OLD real estate agent upside down, and decide whether you want to sell on your own or need a NEW agent to relist your property in 2008.  Either way, become one of the enlightened sellers who will save billions of dollars in 2008 and do God’s work by sharing a fraction of those savings with a charity or cause of your choice.

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<a href="http://www.inman.com/blogger/2006/08/saint-statue-scrams-statues-of-st.aspx#links">Inman News – Real Estate News and Advice for Buyers, Sellers &amp; Investors</a>

ww.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/home/articles/0812letter0812.html

Time to turn superstitious tradition on its head.  Church basement seminars

link to http://www.AIDS2006.org

http://www.platial.com/place/98074

Leading indicators: Do sales of St. Joseph statues signal a housing slide?

Stjosephstatue_2About a week before Alan Greenspan began talking about froth
in the nation’s housing market, David Lereah, the chief economist for
the National Association of Realtors surprised some of the industry
faithful at their mid-year meeting in May by cautioning that some "Local Housing Bubbles Could Burst in Next Couple of Years."  According to an Inman News article by that name, Lereah listed eight "indicators a market may be headed towards a bust":

1.  Home
sales falling,
2.  Price growth below historical average,
3.  More than a
6.5-month supply of housing,
4.  Properties taking longer to sell,
5.  Job loss
in the area,
6.  Rising mortgage rates,
7.  Negative net migration, and
8.  Rising
loan-to-value ratios.

Time to add a 9th indicator to the list:  sales of St. Joseph statues are soaring

"…does St. Joseph know something the rest of us don’t about an
impending pop in the real estate bubble?" an article in the New Jersey-based StarLedger.com asked on Friday, August 19th. 

Real time “comps”

Link to recent press post Inman re "real time real estate."

Instead of developing a "CMA" type of report that describes sold data, I’ve
been using the "pending date" instead of the sold date.

 
Reason?  The market is changing so much on a daily or monthly basis,
that considering "comps" may not be as accurate if the sold date is used, as
much as using the "pending date."  If you develop a list of 6 houses that
sold in August to compare those sales with an offer you’re making today, then
what if the market has been in a decline since March?  How much of a value
difference may there be from properties that went pending in the spring,
compared to a property on the market now?
 
Some, if not all of those 6 "comps" could have sold last spring.  As
we know, listing agents and appraisers will often use the "comps" that best fit
the subject being appraised rather than an objective assessment of the sales
data.
 
So, next time you structure some type of analysis, why not use "pending
dates" instead of "sold dates" to make any comparison to a subject property
you’re trying to negotiate for on behalf of your buyer clients?
 
I suggested this to one of the "honest" appraises we typically use
here…he said he’s only using month old "comps" because there is an ongoing
decline in values here.

You get what you pay for…

Rona, maybe it’s not a question of what qualities sellers are looking for, but a question about how they are compensating their listing agent.

How motivated would the average person be to work on their own jobs if they had not been paid in 203 days, 251 days, or 716 days — the listing periods mentioned for three of the four condos described above?

Maybe the deteriorating customer service you describe will begin a discussion about how to compensation agents — whether buyer agent, seller agent, or  non-agents — to best serve their respective clients. 

More than a decade ago, the former chief economist of the National Association of Realtors predicted that:

"The next major revolution in real estate will be fee-based services replacing the blanket commission pricing that has dominated the industry for so long."

Do you think consumers would get better service if they compensated their agent by the hour, instead of commissions paid at the closing table?  (Before you answer  that question, consider this fact:  there were nearly 30,00 expired and canceled listing in the last three months of 2008 alone, which means that a lot of listing agents effectively volunteered to work on overprice listings.)

CARPE DIEM: Expired & canceled listings create “commission-free holiday” for buyers & sellers

Maoffmarket_junejuly10yrs
Massachusetts home buyers, if you have been waiting for housing prices to slide into your acceptable range, this could be time to "carpe diem."  As shown in the graph above (click for larger image) of MLS activity during June & June over the past 15 years (1994 to 2008):

  • The number of off-market properties — expired, canceled & temporarily withdrawn listings — surged to a new record of 16,319 properties just after midnight.*
  • In contrast, sales have fallen from a peak of 19,180 in 2006 to 12,335 in 2008 (as of 12:30am, August 1). 
  • That means that sales are down by about a third, while off-market listings have nearly doubled since 2005 when we first wrote that expired listings were a leading indicator of the real estate bubble.
  • Over the past three years (2006-2008), more properties have been pulled off the MLS than sold during June & July.  For every three listings closed in the past two months, four were pulled off the MLS statewide in Massachusetts.

What do these raw numbers mean to buyers and sellers?  Think of expired and canceled listings as a two-sided window of opportunity, or the real estate equivalent of a "tax-free holiday."  Sellers can accept an offer about 5% less than their last asking price and still net the same profit because they are no longer obligated to pay a traditional real estate commission.

Will this "commission-free holiday" be enough to motivate buyers to make offers, or will motivated sellers in Greater Boston begin making offers to well-qualified buyers as is happening in other markets? 

The Real Estate Cafe is advertising buyers on Zillow to make it easier for motivated sellers, particularly those who have received pre-foreclosure notices, to find them. If none of our buyers wants to purchase your home, we offer seller services "a la carte" on a fee-for-service basis.  If you’d like to learn more about how to sell your home "for sale by owner," we’re organizing a FSBO support group and invite you to see our "FSBOs on Steroids" presentation.  If you’re not interested in selling on your own, we’d also be glad to do a Listing Agent Report Card to help you select a new listing agent and try to negotiate a reduced commission.  Email for more details.

* Technical note:  Includes all residential property classes in
MLSPin:  single family, multi-family, condominiums and land.
Temporarily withdrawn listings available for 2008 only.

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