Get off on the right foot with buyers | Questionnaire can be potent tool for establishing clients' wants, needs

BY ALISHA ALWAY BRAATZ, WEDNESDAY, JULY 11, 2012 Inman News®

Handshake image via Shutterstock.

My last column focused on the three keys to successfully managing a buyer. One of those keys included embodying Perry Mason and investigating your buyer's needs and wants via a questionnaire.

This week, by popular request, I'll tackle how to create your own successful buyer's questionnaire -- or what I refer to as my buyer's guide (it sounds less intrusive and superfluous -- especially to the guys!).

Find the 'why' and they will buy | Instead of segmenting buyers, scope out their attitudes and feelings

BY DAVID FLETCHER, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 2012 Inman News®

Fortune teller image via Shutterstock.

Today I issue a wake-up call to real estate agents everywhere: Stop worrying about reaching specific market segments.

You don't need to know about Generation X, Generation Y, Millennials, or the up-and-comers or the down-and-goners.

You want to label your prospects? I have the only three you need: ready, willing and able. Your problem is not the number of prospects you are working with. Many of you have more than you can handle now. Find the "why" and they will tend to buy.

Spat over commissions as KW enters Des Moines market | Iowa Realty won't pay commission splits to rival's agents

BY INMAN NEWS, MONDAY, JUNE 18, 2012 Inman News®

Tornado image via Shutterstock.

By LISA WAHLGREN

A HomeServices of America Inc. brokerage in Iowa is refusing to split commissions with buyer's agents at a competing brokerage, and is paying reduced commissions to agents at another.

The move by Des Moines-based Iowa Realty has raised eyebrows, but does not violate local Realtor association or multiple listing service (MLS) rules, those involved say.

A fixer-upper purchase strategy Consider future value financing

BY JACK GUTTENTAG, MONDAY, JUNE 18, 2012 Inman News®

Fixer-upper image via Shutterstock.

You are attracted to a house that is perfectly located but it just came out of foreclosure and needs a lot of work to make it habitable. To swing the deal, you need to finance both the purchase and the required repairs. How do you do that?

I recently wrote an article dealing with the first part of this problem: financing the purchase of a house in such poor condition that it might prove unacceptable to lenders as collateral. A strategy for minimizing the risk of getting turned down for a purchase mortgage is described in Purchase a House in Poor Condition? on my website.

Websites that depend on agent dollars are doomed | Realtor Notebook

BY TERESA BOARDMAN, THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 2012 Inman News®

Dinosaur image via Shutterstock.

A couple of months ago I was contacted by the editor for a local news website. They syndicate some of my real estate content and we have had an ongoing relationship for many years.

They wanted to talk about having neighborhood pages with real estate listings on their website, and they wanted to get local agents to pay to sponsor the pages and to pay to advertise real estate listings on them.

Take your photo strategy beyond listings | Realtor Notebook

BY TERESA BOARDMAN Inman News®

St. Paul, Minn. Victorian home photo credit Teresa Boardman.

Home buying and selling activity started picking up a few months ago and is still going strong. But for me, it is also photography season.

I have an endless, inexhaustible need for photographs for blog posts and for advertising, and everything seems to look better in June. Some of the photographs I will take in the next two months will be sold next winter, and others will bring me clients.