I’ve heard these ads on the radio. Basically they guarantee that they can sell your house or they’ll buy it from you, or something silly like that.

I suspect – “suspect” being the operative word – that they take your listing and give you the guarantee only if it applies to a price that they dictate, which will be below the market. I could be wrong, but that’s my guess. Nothing else really makes sense.

On that note, if you’ve got a 3,000 square foot house in La Jolla, I GUARANTEE that I can sell it for $300,000 or I’ll buy it from you. Any takers?

I dealt with them on two instances…

1 – There was a buyer of mine lastyear who liked a Battiata home. We submitted an offer but the seller didn’t take it.. We came in about 5% under asking. The home never sold. Matt (Battiata) was very nice to deal with over the phone and I hold no beef against him.

2 – I had some clients in Vista who used him to sell thier home. It never sold so they called me. I took the listing and priced it significantly lower then the price was when Battiata had the listing and the home sold. I also got to have the listing in the spring where Battiata had it through the winter and fall. Also Matt was VERY nice to me and let me use the same pictures he took (which he did not have to do) on the listing. I would also surmise that he did indeed advise the sellers to lower the price while he had the listing and they were most likely stubborn so most likely no fault to him. So they were sufficiently softened up by the bad market when they came to me.

So overall my dealings were positive with Battiata. In both instances I worked with Matt.

SD Realtor

Dave I agree about your assessment. Anyone that gaurantees a sale in this market has to have a serious hook on the end of that sucker.

SD Realtor

SD Realtor, sdrealtor, and other realtors…

I’ve got a question for you:

If every seller you had was willing to sell at a 5% discount to the cheapest subset of the most recent 2-months’ sales comps (legitimate, recent comps – not comps from a year ago), on average how long do you think it would take to sell these houses?

Maybe I’m nuts, but I bet that homes that are legitimately priced 5% below the “real” market will move within a few months despite this crappy market. My suspicion is that everyone crowds around the comps (many of which are old) – with little or no discount – and they just chase the market down instead of getting a little bit ahead of it and getting their property sold. Is this what you’re seeing or am I nuts?

(Sorry to hi-jack the thread.)

Good post…

My answer is kind of lame but it depends on the submarket. If the home is in glutted places like Eastlake or downtown condoland… A 5% hit may not get you there but after a few of them yes you will sell… If it is a place that is more desireable then yeah standing out from the crowd, and assuming your home is a true comparable would in my opinion get it sold much faster.

Yes you are right it is clumpy at the recent comp level. Sellers cling to 1 or 2% like it is make or break. I would agree that in most cases, it is a good idea to take a little bad medicine now to get sold and get out of dodge. Unfortunately most sellers have emotional attachments, feelings of entitlement that they should get what thier neighbor got in 2005, depression about the market and other disconnects from reality… as other symptoms that dictate a need for either psychological counseling or just a kick in the butt from thier high school PE coach who shouts get off the matt, take a salt pill, and suck it up and do the right thing!

SD Realtor

Good post…

My answer is kind of lame but it depends on the submarket. If the home is in glutted places like Eastlake or downtown condoland… A 5% hit may not get you there but after a few of them yes you will sell… If it is a place that is more desireable then yeah standing out from the crowd, and assuming your home is a true comparable would in my opinion get it sold much faster.

Yes you are right it is clumpy at the recent comp level. Sellers cling to 1 or 2% like it is make or break. I would agree that in most cases, it is a good idea to take a little bad medicine now to get sold and get out of dodge. Unfortunately most sellers have emotional attachments, feelings of entitlement that they should get what thier neighbor got in 2005, depression about the market and other disconnects from reality… as other symptoms that dictate a need for either psychological counseling or just a kick in the butt from thier high school PE coach who shouts get off the matt, take a salt pill, and suck it up and do the right thing!

SD Realtor

No personal experience with him but in general i think the mega agents provide very poor service to their clients. They just collect listings and dont provide complete analysis of what is going on in the market. The work is generally pushed down to the least capable person possible. You never get to talk to the figure head. the truth is most of the claims thye make and brilliant marketing systems are pre-packaged systems created by someone acroos the country that are being implemented according to the creators directions. Most of what they offer has perceived value to clients but most agents understand it has very little real value. I just don’t see how someone can possibly provide good service to 5o clients.

As an example, one of these guys up by me is collecting listings. He takes out full page ads in the U-T every Sunday claiming “it’s not the market, it’s the marketing”. Last time I checked, he had about 50 listings and ZERO of them in escrow!

For the record, Battiata’s doing better. He has 61 active listings and 10 in escrow. Most of the properties he has in escrow are short sales and I suspect half of them wont make it to the finish line. He’s closed 5 sales in the last 60 days. Also 90% of his business are low end properties.