One of the gimmicks some agents use around the country is to “bid for listings.” Homeowners who want to sell and get the highest possible price will most often list with the agent who promises them the highest listing price. Well, we got away from that, but many agents are thinking that if they have a lot of listings, just maybe some of them will get sold, and the agent can survive in this market to live and sell another day. It used to be that “listings was the name of the game,” and you could list homes and let other agents sell them. What many agents are thinking now is that they just need more and more listings. It’s been a tough year for real estate brokers around the country as they struggle to explain (repeatedly) to their listing clients why their homes have not sold. Real estate brokers and agents around the country are coming up with new gimmicks to get listings. There are some gimmicks, however, that seem to have some promise. The goal is to sell the home, not to have gimmicks that the public finds entertaining for a few minutes in the news. Exposure without a sale is just wasted energy, right? Of course, someone will pipe up, “Well, it does get the guy some exposure and that’s promoting the home, right?” Wrong. Such gimmicks have never worked, and professional salesmen with experience under their belts will all share that. Jim Benson is offering the buyer of his $699,000 home a vintage 1967 Rolls Royce. This same idea was picked up again recently by a homeowner in Orlando, Florida. The other, which is called “Tuscan Estate,†is under $4 million and is about 7,500 square feet. One of the homes, described as the “Old World European Villa,†is priced just under $5 million and is about 7,800 square feet. A Phoenix developer mistakenly took the counsel of his real estate advisor and offered a brand new $200,000 Bentley to anyone who purchased one of his multi-million dollar homes. One of the more ludicrous gimmicks that has spread to a couple of places across the country is the offer of a luxury car to the buyer of an expensive home. Some gimmicks are just plain silly (not to mention expensive), and other gimmicks seem to have some potential, but closer insight by experienced professionals will tell you otherwise. Gimmicks don’t sell homes, but real estate agents can testify that gimmicks do get homeowners to sign listing agreements. Some homeowners have picked up on these gimmicks thinking that they must work. When homes don’t sell quickly like they did in 2005, many salespeople in the real estate industry resort to gimmicks.
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