Tales from the Techside

Correct me if I am wrong…

I do not want to get into the entire media is painting an inaccurate picture of the marketplace debate. Ultimately, I defer to the market professionals as they are in the best position to make those observations. However; I will admit I am confused, not by the media but by marketing.

On the MLS and in the local market I am observing an explosion in inventory; houses are hitting the market much faster than they are selling. The question follows, why am I receiving an average of 5 postcards/mailers a week from different agents encouraging me to list my house with them. This is the source of my confusion. As wouldn’t the message be better received and their marketing resources better spent if they encouraged me to buy instead?

I guess the thought process is if you are going to list your house then you are going to buy a new one. However, people do not need encouragement to list; rather they need encouragement to buy.

A better approach I believe, would instead of telling me that five other homes are listed in my neighborhood and I should hurry up to be number six, is that there are opportunities to upgrade. In addition, some supporting information that sold the opportunity to buy, would seem more appropriate than I can list your house because I have X number of listings in your neighborhood. From my outlook, I read you can list my house and I have X competing homes on the market around the corner from me.

If I were looking for encouragement to buy, I would want to know the following.

1. What is going on with interest rates and financing.

2. Why this is a buyer market (if it is),

3. Identify potential upgrades.

Ultimately, it seems to me if you have a motivated buyer, you have a motivated seller. Moreover, as I said in the beginning of this post please correct me if I am wrong it just seems a bit backwards to me.

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