Negotiation is the process of communication back and forth in order to reach a joint agreement. There is no "one size fits all" strategy of negotiating a real estate contract. Many of our clients have been very experienced negotiators, and we have learned a great deal from them, as well as from books on the subject. We would like to share some of our thoughts on negotiating with you. ... full article

Believe it or not, preparation is a better determinant of presentation success than knowledge, experience, or even talent. The best presenter is almost always the presenter who is the most prepared. Even so, there are a lot of conflicting ideas about what constitutes thorough presentation preparation. So what exactly is thorough preparation? Here are seven straight forward tips to increase the effectiveness of the time you invest in your practice. ... full article

The most important skill in sales is qualifying. It is the ability to separate the non-motivated buyers and sellers from the motivated ones who want to do something now. Top-producing agents know how to do this quickly and efficiently. They have a specific step-by-step series of questions that remove the unmotivated people from their lives. We are going to delve into the skill of qualifying buyers.We must develop a series of questions that will ferret out motivation. The focus is to find out their time frame and level of passion to move. One question that tests motivation is, "How long have you been looking for a home?" The longer the time the buyer has been looking, the lower the motivation. We have to wonder why a buyer has not been able to find a home in six months.
Are they looking for something that doesn't exist? Are their expectations too high for the marketplace? Do they just enjoy the process of kicking foundations? (When someone said to me that they had been looking for more than 90 days, I wanted to know what they were looking for and the reasons why they hadn't found it yet.) ... full article