Take the Tours

Gail and I spent our first night in our new home yesterday. We have been preparing the home and "moving in" for the last three months. I had been joking with friends that we have a "sleeping house" and an "eating house". The last three months we spent renovating our new waterfront home and gradually moved everything into it save clothes and bathroom items. But walking over for sunset cocktails and dinner and then coming home to sleep was taking its toll. Now that we have moved out, our home on Gasparilla (Take the Tour here) will always be ready for prospective buyers to tour.
I did hold it open yesterday and had eight couples come through. Of those I believe three were actually in the market for a home. I will hold it open for tour today as well. One thing that always surprises me about open houses is the almost total absence of Realtors touring. I believe that in the few dozen times I held this home open a total of two Realtors came to preview for knowlege of the market. Future buyers seem to have no trouble previewing a house months before they atually decide to buy, but I believe agents that proport to know a neighborhood should see all the homes in their niche...and most do not. My advice to those of you that are trying to select a Realtor to work with; ask them how well they know the type of product you are looking for. Has the Realtor that is asking for your listing seen the other homes in the area first? Did they ever tour your home when it was listed with someone else?
At Market America our residential agents know condos. In particular we know waterfront and preconstruction condos. This is our area of expertise. We normally will have one agent that will "quarterback" a community and be the source for the inside scoop. But we all like to tour the project, know the floor plans, and in particular we like to show them to prospective buyers so we can see the condos from the buyers view point. If we can, we will have a sales meeting at a project so we can further immerse ourselves in the surroundings, the layout, and get to know the on site sales people. We do not like to have just one listing in a community. It is inefficient. It's inefficient from a marketing sense as well as from a knowledge sense.
We are starting to do work with a little advertised project called Rivers IV. After the entire team visits a project we have a focus group about it. What do we think about the location? The price? The name? How can we best market this community? Indeed, is it worth promoting to our clients? We have concluded that Rivers IV is a winner - we love the location, the pricing, and the quality. Let us give you a tour!
Other projects we have immersed ourselves in:
Paramount at the Shores in Gulf Harbour. Our entire team has been there on a number of occasions and in fact we will host a sales meeting there later this week.
Two weeks ago we were all at Grand Isle in Burnt Store. This is my pick as best buy for waterfront condos.
At The Citadel we host constant open houses. We can do that because we specialize in the community. We know the condo docs, the floorplans, the neighbors. The Citadel is a great buy and near the beach and beach trolly. Of course there are many fine communities that we do not promote. This does not mean that they are not worthy, it just may mean that we have not immersed ourselves them yet.
In a previous column (Click Here) I talked about the need to examine alternatives as a backbone of real estate investing. I have talked alot about this with my associates since I wrote that. The point was brought up that if you are always looking at your alternatives, you will be a much wiser buyer (or seller). If you are listing your home or condo with a Realtor, ask them about all your potential buyer's alternatives. You should know your competition or at least make sure your professional does. Ask your agent how many homes in your niche he/she has toured. How does your home compare? Are your prices right? Why would somone buy your home rather than another one? Is there something you should change?
When you are a buyer, if you look at a large number of homes by going to open houses, for example, you will already know your alternatives and when the right home comes along, you will be an informed buyer and prepared to make a quick decision.
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The commerical market here is very hot, probably as hot as the residential market was two years ago. I have found that there are many buyers out there looking for income property and land bank deals and not enough properties to sell them. Commerical deals do take a while to put together but I will be announcing some of my own projects for commerical condos. We will be announcing a project on McGregor Boulevard for office condos. These will be geared to the three to four person office and we are taking names for a private release now. Email Tatiana@ma-realty.com. Tell her you want to be put on the McGregor Condo List. We also have stand-alone buildings available preconstuction, completion before the end of the year. These are ideal for medical offices and you can design the build out. I like these purchases as an investor. Email me at Gregg@ma-realty.com for info.
My Cyperlin Center (www.CyperlinCenter.com) project is moving along very nicely. We have added a penthouse amenity level that will bring class A office space to a new level in the town. My feeling is that you live in luxury, why not work in it? Check out the new ad by clicking the above link. I have also added four 2500sf office condos to the mix and three of them are still available for reservation at $1,250,000 a piece.
Thanks for your comments and emails
Gregg