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

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

Recently I was reflecting on what it took to be successful in real estate and life. My mind recalled a movie from the early 1980's called Buckaroo Bonzai. One of the characters in the movie had a saying that caught on in my circle of friends at the time. The saying was "where ever you go…there you are." Now it was a cute little saying at the time, but the truth is most of us have to struggle to live it.
How many times have we gone to show a property, list a home, go to work, spend time with our family, and we weren't really there? "Where ever you go…there you are." But are we really there? We are certainly there in physical body, but are we mentally there?
Let me share with you the four rules of real estate. ... full article