4. Research Example - Real Estate Roman Alvarado

Research

Goals
Sell more houses using direct mail
Improve overall marketing/positioning in emails, online marketing, magazine ads
Get inside their head

Insights Into Demographic:
Who Is Your Customer?
home sellers
The median age for FSBO sellers is 60 years. 65% of FSBO sales were by married couples that have a median household income of $94,000. https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics/research-reports/highlights-from-the-profile-of-home-buyers-and-sellers#sellingexperience
By comparison, The typical buyer was 47 years old this year, and the median household income for 2018 rose again this year to $93,200.
What Attitudes Do They Have? (Religious, Political, Social, Economic)?
What Are Their Hopes and Dreams?
What Are Their Victories and Failures?
Great source: https://www.reallynicehomes.com/home-not-selling-forum

VICTORY

Sold for what my agent predicted
Proper feedback from every buyer
accurate listing details
tons of showings
spent money on the essential upgrades and not a cent more
realtor paid for himself
Excellent CMA
Excellent marketing
Found the right buyer
“It's not about finding a buyer; it's about a buyer finding your house (and finding it attractive and priced to sell).”

Provided great feedback from viewings…

One of your realtor's jobs is to get feedback. This is where you find out what is going on. You have to find out the positives and the negatives of the viewings. If you post a link here I am sure people will review it.

good negotiation

http://www.city-data.com/forum/real-estate/1649340-argh-just-sell-my-house-already.html#ixzz6H2aoYDwQ
“This is very true. The house we bought was partially because of the seller's agent calling our agent and asking what it would take to sell the house to us. The house was towards the top of our list, not the very top, but once we were able to get some concessions agreed upon we placed a bid and eventually bought the house.”

FAILURE

unmet expectations
“We are struggling to sell our house. It has been on the market for almost 3 weeks and the EA assured us we'd have 15 views and 10 offers within the first 4 weeks. I appreciate that it is a sales patter but what we've had is very disappointing.”

no feedback from buyers
“Push them for feedback and talk to other agents, perhaps to line up a different agent to sell when your contract with the current agent ends.”

incorrect listing details
“One more thing - listing says double drive, but there's no picture of it and no clue where it is in relation to the front/back garden.”

No showings
“So, I've listed my house back in Iowa several weeks ago. Beautiful house, nice location, all that. Listed it for $163k....no showings. Listed for $158k...no showings. Listed it for $150k...no showings. WTF man.”

spent money on upgrades for nothing
“As for the upgrades, yes, it was everything from all new plumbing, a new bathroom, all new paint on every surface, tile over the cat-pee carpet, refinished hardwoods, new appliances and sink, new bathtubs with tile surrounds, new toilets, basement support beams, building a huge fence, replaced leaking double pane windows, new A/C unit, new fancy thermostat, added ceiling fans, on and on and on....”

Realtor value?
I am having a hard time explaining to myself what the point of an RE agent is. They have little legal responsibility, will not put anything on paper that will come back to hurt them later, will offer no opinions on anything (for fear of lawsuits), do not have a legal bearing on any of the

documents. Other than opening the door and providing the forms - what is their purpose and why are they paid so much?

Read more:
https://www.city-data.com/forum/real-estate/2496212-just-our-luck-re-agents-they.html#ixzz6H3RYroxz

Bad marketing
Even though there were 100+ photos to choose from, from all portions of the home/property, the agent chose multiple photos of one room and but no photos of another.

Read more:
https://www.city-data.com/forum/real-estate/2496212-just-our-luck-re-agents-they.html#ixzz6H3RpbvhQ

The description underneath (on realtor.com) was full of misspellings and sounded like a 7-year-old wrote it.

Our realtor was not even here for the showings (thank God?) and did not even have to put a "for sale" sign up in front of the driveway. Basically, his 3% of the commission was earned by sitting behind a desk and forwarding forms back and forth.

Bad comparative analysis (no knowledge of the market)
none of them came up with a price that was even close to what the place sold for (the last one we hired was closest to the selling price but came in $20K less than what it sold - it is us that insisted on the asking price despite everyone's "professional opinion" -

Read more:
https://www.city-data.com/forum/real-estate/2496212-just-our-luck-re-agents-they.html#ixzz6H3S3TCF4

Mistakes on paperwork
https://www.city-data.com/forum/real-estate/2496212-just-our-luck-re-agents-they.html
Our own agent never even opened the addendums, just forwarded them to us. You would think for $10K commission each, they would at least make sure stuff is all there in the legal paperwork (such as an addendum) and spelled correctly BEFORE sending the paperwork to their respective clients. This way, my wife and I basically went back 7 times to our agent to go back to buyer agent to fix things - each time the buyer agent "fixed them", she sent a new PDF to our agent, he did not even open it, just sent it to us, even though there was stuff in there he would have obviously seen.

How far down do we drop the price?
“We are selling a home we built-in 92. Did all the issues found on the home inspection before we put it on the market, painted the interior antique white, new hardwoods throughout and a 30-year architectural roof. it's a 4 bedroom, 2 full bath cape, family room 25x27, a deck of 12x24 2032sqft on .29 acre-we are in the Hudson Valley. We listed it 27 days ago for $325K. We had 4 showings the first weekend. Then not a peep. So we dropped it down to $319900 on Monday. Nothing. We've not sold a home in 29 years, so this is like starting all over again.

I know it's a slow time of year to sell. I get that. But how far down realistically do we go as not to show we are desperate to leave here.”

Read more:
https://www.city-data.com/forum/real-estate/2675659-dropping-price.html#ixzz6H3TfccOG

“How much do you think we should go lower again? How often should we if we don't get people in to look at the house? Since we owned the property outright when we built and what it cost us to build the house ourselves, we are going to make a profit any way we look at it. But I'd still like to be able to put a small nest egg away after we purchase our next home-we are contingent after selling this one.”

Listed too high – no information
“Are you priced at what the comparable sales tell you? You could drop to $250k right now and sell it quickly if that's what you need to do. But, if your comps are showing $225k, you still won't sell at $250k. We don't know if you are priced right at $319,900 as you gave no further information.”

Read more:
https://www.city-data.com/forum/real-estate/2675659-dropping-price.html#ixzz6H3UGal6G

Exit clause slipped in contract
“I am so nervous..our prospective buyers are coming by today sometime...the parents are buying the house for their daughter and son in law, and in the contract, it's contingent on the daughter liking the house..guess they must be from out of town. I don't think the price is an issue, we countered them at 9,000 more than they offered, but all is riding on the daughter liking it.”

Read more:
https://www.city-data.com/forum/real-estate/383156-nervous.html#ixzz6H3UXtaFf

Not being proactive
“My house has been on the market 5 1/2 months. We dropped our price after about a month, showings increased after that (surprise! ;-) ) We've had no offers though. However we've had at least 4 buyers see the house for at least the second time, and their agent tells ours that they "loved" the house, ours is the "top of their list", "best house they saw", etc. My listing agent passes that info onto me and that's it. Is there anything that she could do at that point to encourage an offer, or find out more details of why they aren't making one? Of course, the buyer's agent isn't going to give any info that would hurt their client, but should my agent be trying to get more info? She seems to be rather passive and just sit and wait and see if they ever make an offer. Maybe...is that all she can do? “

Read more:
http://www.city-data.com/forum/real-estate/539650-listing-agents-how-aggressive-you-after.html#ixzz6H3ZfLJkx

Selling in a slow market
I know it's a slow time of year to sell. I get that. But how far down realistically do we go as not to show we are desperate to leave here. We don't have a mortgage as the house is paid off. But both of us are so underemployed and we work to pay bills and nothing else-not even a night out at McDonald's is affordable right now.

What Outside Forces Do THEY Believe Have Prevented Their Best Life?
What Are Their Prejudices?
Sum Up Their Core Beliefs About Life, Love, and Family In 1-3 Sentences.

Other Existing Solutions:
What is the Market Already Using? (List Out)
FSBO
low-comission brokerage (1% percent)
buyself.com
Flat fee mls
FSBO.com
other agents

What Has Their Experience Been Like?
Confusion
FSBO – need a checklist to keep track of all the tasks – to become prepared and informed
Lots to do if you are selling on your own
Like saving 6% commission – if you can manage extra work
Got close to CMA price – but need a reference guide
Must take time to understand the home selling process start to finish
Still have to use agent to list on MLS

What Does the Market Like About Existing Solutions?
save money on commissions??
We are in control
We can take our own photos… update our own listing… pay closer attention to detail…

What Does the Market Dislike About Existing Solutions?
A lot of people trying to go the FSBO route do so in an effort to save money on the realtor fees that they would incur once the home sells. Unfortunately; a lot of the times this effort can be misguided, as the majority of FSBOs fail. This is partly because the realtor is actually going to be positioned and trained to help you get the best possible price for your home. https://www.upnest.com/1/post/avoiding-the-fsbo-nightmare/
https://www.upnest.com/1/post/why-the-majority-of-fsbos-fail/
Knowing when to list your home is another crucial pitfall of trying to sell a home by yourself.
Put simply; you can avoid the FSBO nightmare by leveraging a realtor's expertise and data access to make sure you know when the right time to sell your home is. Taking their advice could mean the difference between selling and having your house stagnate on the market.
We are selling our home by owner. We paid $450 to FSBO.com to list our property on the MLS. They assigned our house to an agent that is completely incompetent. The listing eventually got on the MLS (after weeks of calling and emailing), but he took the info from the previous MLS listing for our house and it doesn't show the addition of another bedroom, flooring changes, and added square feet THAT WE PROVIDED HIM IN THE DOCUMENTS HE ASKED US TO FILL OUT. The sign they gave us for our yard has a non-functioning phone number on it!!! The number on the MLS listing goes to this agent's voice mail. But he won't even return OUR calls. We cannot get him to respond to us. I tried calling FSBO.com directly to complain about the agent, but they won't return our calls either.
http://www.city-data.com/forum/real-estate/2403936-fsbo-mls-nightmare-agent-help.html
Read more:
http://www.city-data.com/forum/real-estate/2403936-fsbo-mls-nightmare-agent-help.html#ixzz6H3fBNiuT
FSBO: Information available only for select home sellers in specific areas… for example, few people who live in single family homes in small rural areas.
Not flexible
FSBO: Must be available to show property… some advice is to “ be ok with agents Harassing you 15-20 times and on holidays... it’s nauseating”
FSBO: Need to do ALL the following-up
Need to get on the phone
fsbo “Using his systems for contacting, following up and showing value to For Sale By Owner clients will get you clients that you can convert to not just short-term profits, but to clients for life!”
Are there Horror Stories About Existing Solutions?
Does the Market Believe Existing Solution Works?
They think they can save on commissions… and do it all themselves… but really they don’t understand the process of selling a home… and all the little things that go into getting the right price and a quick sale
If Not, Why?

Curiosity:

Has Someone Tried to Solve the Market’s Pain Points Before In A Very Unique Way?
What Was The Result?
Is There A Conspiratorial Story Behind Why Old Solutions Didn’t Work?
Monopoly on real estate
real estate agents are a cartel…
MLS controlling all the properties on the market…
Are There Any Older Attempts to Solve the Problem (Pre-1960) That Are Unique?
What Happened? Were they successful but forgotten? Or were they a failure? Why?
Examples:

Tesla in the energy space. Big energy didn’t want his solutions, he was discredited and shamed. His inventions and discoveries were thrown into the ash heap of history until now.
U.S. Army tried to cure foot fungus during WWII, surgeon general was on a desperate race because troops were missing service time. Finally succeeded by using Undecylenic Acid. But today we forget how effective it is.

Corruption:

Is There A Belief That the Market’s Pain Point Used To Not Exist, Or Used To Not Be So Bad?
Is There A Belief That It’s Been Recently Exacerbated By Outside Forces?
If So, What Are Those Forces And What’s The Reason Behind Their Presence?

Examples:
Diabetes and obesity used to be uncommon, but now they are common. People blame big corporations, processed foods, lazy Americans, sugar, etc. So many of these interests are commercial and greed that have forced or tricked people into an unhealthy lifestyle.

This isolated group of people doesn’t struggle from whatever condition/pain point that most of us do. In America we DO suffer from this pain point. The reason why is that we are exposed to these outside forces while this isolated group isn’t.

This renegade person doesn’t suffer from the same pain point as the rest of us. The reason why is that he’s managed to stay free from outside corruption, while the rest of us haven’t.

Examples:
http://www.breitbart.com/
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/04/17/macron-europe-migration-destiny-africa/
https://conservativetribune.com/

Authority Figures / Influencers:

When looking at an authority figure or influencer’s website, article, Instagram post, blog, etc… Did they explain any science behind how the problem works, or how the product acts as a solution?

Where to look:
Amazon Reviews (1 and 5-star reviews)
Forums (most replies)
News Stories (plus comment section)
Google
“How to”
“How does”
“What is”
“Best ways to”
“Natural ways to”
“Why do”
“____ Benefits”
Yahoo Answers
Facebook (most likes and comments)
Competitors’ Sales Letters