Different Than Normal Day
Most Realtors tend to sell real estate in an area they choose, or where they live. Some focus on one town or zip, others go farther afield. For the most part I generally sell in Barrington. I have no desire to expand into other areas just to say I sold more homes than another agent. Every now and then I break my rule and go wondering off into the far yonder. Yesterday was that day. Why? Simply because my web site attracted a buyer looking for horse property, with a budget that ruled Barrington out but McHenry County in.
Plus her cause is nothing if not great. Horse rescue or fostering. Why wouldn’t I help?
I spent the prior two weeks emailing back and forth trying to get my soon to be clients all the information they needed to make a short list of properties for their visit from out of state. We ended up with eight on the short list from Marengo to Harvard, Woodstock to Crystal Lake and most of it out of town so to speak. Gathering information from sellers must be done via their Realtor. I am not permitted to contact them direct, unless the seller is a “For Sale by Owner” and there were two of those. It was a struggle. You would think that horse property owners would make sure their properties were marketed correctly. For example there was no or very limited:
- Information about barns.
- Information about fencing.
- Knowledge of where the horse trails were.
It was like pulling the sword out of the stone! Suffice to say even though I was getting some responses, it was not really good enough for buyers who had never even visited the area and had no knowledge of the surroundings. My soon to be clients knew I was Barrington based and focused, but we did the best we could and left the rest to our actual visits.
Eight properties visited in 7 hours was quite a schedule. McHenry County is not small, man I even saw cows yesterday! I drove over 100 miles. I walked acreage from 5 to 23 acres, looked in more barns than houses, saw innumerable cats (mousers), a few dogs, plenty of horses. It really is the countryside.
A little like good ole England where I come from, although no doubt we have more cows there!
Feedback From Buyers After a Day in The Country of McHenry County Illinois.
My thoughts mixed with comments from my buyers.
I was depressed at how many of these properties were presented! Not all, there were indeed two I thought were extremely nicely presented for sale both inside and out. Then half were good in one aspect but not the other. The remaining few were simply “Do you really want to sell?”
OK so we’re not looking at million dollar properties, many were between $200K and $300K. Small fry right? Wrong. Have you ever lined up $200,000 dollars side by side? It’s a lot of money! Borrow it and it’s going to take you 30 years to pay it back. So now it’s time to sell and you expect buyers to come along with stacks of cash or take a very long term debt and your home is neglected, your walls are simply dirty. My goodness, layers of wall paint showing because the dog had been sleeping against the wall for so long he’s rubbed the layers away and we can see all the color changes! I get that you may choose your horses over your house, but you cannot expect a buyer to say no worries, we don’t care. They usually need a house to live in and price alone is not going to make them jump with joy.
Of the eight, we canceled the last showing due to high taxes. Of the seven there was one property that had high expectations. It was right next to the riding trails. Dismissed! That was the filthy house. Such a shame, it might have been a quick sale for the owner. Did they get good advice? Do they care? I don’t know if they’ll ever realize how easy it would have been to sell! Now down to six there are two that have great potential. Homes were sized right, nicely presented, the acreage was all looked after, even paddocks that were left to grass but tended, were better than overgrown fields of weeds where we had a hard time even seeing boundaries.
You see it all matters. All of it is considered by buyers. Buyers may have different goals and priorities but it still all matters.
Buyers Want Value!
4PM
Home at last. My feet and legs got a good workout yesterday. So did my car! Glad I drive an SUV, Tahoe to be precise, I can see a lot higher than cars and that helped spot houses behind hedges. My GPS wasn’t being particularly kind to me. Twice I ended up over shooting a property or arriving a mile earlier than it said. My client took the lead for a couple, his GPS was playing nicer.
It was hot so I took a shower and crashed on the sofa for a bit. All day driving, showing, walking in the heat is not my favorite thing to do, give me snow and I would have been 100% happier. Plus it’s quite tiring, no I lie it’s very tiring!
After a short rest, time to get to the computer and answer emails, the listing Realtors wanted to know how it all went. They are all hoping for a sale. 6 are disappointed, 2 are now hopeful.
My clients gave me real strong thankful handshakes, truly appreciative of the time and effort. I was so busy I never even got to snap off a photo, it would have been nice to get those cows, they had lots of babies!
Give me a call if I can help with anything. 847-363-3686.
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