Recent Blog Posts by Constantine Isslamow

Open House Safety Tips

An open house can be a great sales tool, but it also exposes you to numerous unfamiliar people for the first time. Stay safe by practicing these guidelines.   Call the local police department and ask them to have a squad care drive by during your open-house hours. Check your cell phone’s strength and signal prior to the open house. Have emergency numbers programmed ...

Coaching Tips & Strategies #24

  LISTING STRATEGIES (5) “You know the market, you know how to market and you’re a great negotiator.” But how are you at verbalizing your negotiating skills? (Example, Step One – Negotiating Skills): “Mr. And Mrs. Seller, in your opinion, who do you feel the primary person is that I negotiate with when getting your home sold?” The typical answer ...

Coaching Tips & Strategies #23

LISTING STRATEGIES (4) Let’s talk about the “Listing Presentation”.  It’s the one time that you have to verbalize your value proposition and someone else gets to measure whether you are worth it or not. Buyers are easy to work with...they call on a sigh, you set an appointment, you ask them if they like the house, they say yes, you fill in the blanks on the contract, ...

Coaching Tips & Strategies #21

Tip #21 LISTING STRATEGIES (2) What “benefits” does the seller want from the home-selling experience? It’s not that complicated however, it is very important that you stay keenly focused around this at the listing presentation. To sell the house. The highest price. The least amount of inconveniences, and The least amount of hassle. How do you communicate to a seller ...

Coaching Tips & Strategies #20

Tip 20 LISTING STRATEGIES (1) Why do we want take more listings?  Think of the following benefits. Schedule Management:  You can work with a buyer for hours, days and even months, and never get a sale.  When you are working with buyers, you are working for all the other Sales Representatives in your marketplace trying to sell their listings.  When you work with sellers, ...

Coaching Tips & Strategies #17

  Showing and Selling Property The culmination of your previous efforts has arrived.  Your abilities you have been practicing and the strategies you plan to use is now ready to begin. Here is the process of showing and selling a home to a buyer: Allow the buyer to look at the home at their pace.  Don’t smother them and don’t walk into small rooms.  Allow ...

Coaching Tips & Strategies #16

The Home Tour You’ve completed all of the initial steps before you start showing property, it’s now time to set-up your home tour and schedule showing appointments. Here are the critical steps: Less is more:  The more homes you show a buyer, the more confused they get.  Drill down to the specific wants and needs of your buyer.  This information is gathered during ...

Coaching Tip & Strategies #15

SHOWING THE HOME Now it's time to get them into the car and start the homes tour .... ??? Of course, that will depend on your market-inventory knowledge. Certainly you can convert all kinds of incoming buyer calls to appointments, but if you don't know the current inventory, you're going to waste a lot of your time, the buyers time, and look very unprofessional. Knowledge is power, do you have ...

Coaching Tip & Strategies #14

INITIAL APPOINTMENT So congratulations, you have converted an incoming buyer call to an appointment.  Now what? Are you going to charge right out the door and start showing houses?  I sure hope not. Approach the buyer in the same fashion that you deal with a seller. Do you have a buyer presentation?  Do you have a buyer qualification process that you use? Do you have a buyer ...

Coaching Tip & Strategies #13

CONVERT THE CALL When you get that incoming buyer call, they are full of questions and just want answers. How do you gain control of an incoming call?  Is it by providing answers or when you ask questions? Just find out what the buyers needs are, then deliver based on those wants and needs. Here are a couple typical mistakes I see when a buyer calls in.  The agent goes into sell mode, ...

Coaching Tip & Strategies #12

PHONE CONVERSION So what is the benefit for a potential buyer to take the time and schedule an appointment to meet with you? "Would you see value in viewing pictures of the inside of all the homes that fit your search criteria, rather than to drive around and call agents and schedule individual appointments to see the inside of each home?" "Would you see value in reviewing a current snapshot ...

Coaching Tip & Strategies #9

Working with Buyers (4) What does the buyers home search process look like? Median number of weeks searched: 10 Median number of homes seen:  10 How much time are you spending with your buyers?  If you're spending more than 10 weeks with a buyer are they a real buyer or someone wasting your valuable time? The length of the typical home search rose from eight weeks in 2007 ...

Coaching Tip & Strategies #8

Working with Buyers (3) What information sources do buyers use in their home search? 87%  Internet 85% Real estate agent 62% Yard sign 48% Open House 47% Print Newspaper Advertisement 30% Home-book magazine 22% Home Builder 10% Television 7%  Billboard 5%  Relocation Company Evaluate your current strategies to capture buyers.  How would ...

Coaching Tip & Strategies #7

Working with Buyers (2) What else does the repeat buyer want from their real Sales Representative / Broker? Tell them what comparable homes are selling for - 11% of buyers want this from their real estate Sales Representative / Broker. Help determining how much they can afford - 11% of buyers want this from their real estate Sales Representative / Broker. Help find and arrange financing - 2% ...

Coaching Tip & Strategies #6

Working with Buyers (1) Rather than racing blindly after as many buyers you can come in contact with, wouldn't it be valuable to know what the expectations and behaviour of today's buyer?  This series of tips will focus on the buyer's expectations, wants and needs; and the strategies and the tactics for you to use to secure more buyer closings. The first two tips will provide you with what ...

Coaching Tip & Strategies #5

How much are you going to invest in your business for the remaining year? Your first consideration is "How much did you invest in your real estate business last year and what was your return on your investment (ROI?)  Secondly, what were the dollars that produced "results"!  Start making a list of your activities, dollars spent and what were the results! Here is your measuring stick and ...

Coaching Tip & Strategies #4

Action steps to accomplish your Business Plan Let's not make this a complicated process, the only magic pill is not reinventing what you do, just make a decision to some specific action steps and be consistent. Start by sticking with what has been successful in the past, what has worked before and make sure that you're consistent.  Interesting, it really isn't that complicated a process but ...

Coaching Tip & Strategies #3

Do You Know the Sources of Your Business? There are two sources that generate business, human resource or activities and financial resources or dollars you spend to generate business.  You must give thought to "Why and What Benefits would it be to me, to source my business? Look at every transaction that closed in the last 12 months and determine the source of each transaction. How ...

Coaching Tip & Strategies #2

WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT PRODUCTION? To consider a Top Notch Business Plan you need a baseline and statistical information to start the process.  Here are some of the tough questions relevant to begin the process. How many transactions are you going to close? What is your average sales price going to be? What is your totals sales volume going to be? What is your average commission ...

Crystal Edwards completes CREATE 21 training program

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:                                                                                                                                                      ...

100 Days to Greatness

For Immediate Release CENTURY 21 United Realty Inc. Brokerage Teaches the Fundamentals of Working by Referral with 100 Days to Greatness® Comprehensive training program by Buffini & Company helps Agents kick-start results Peterborough, March 14, 2009. CENTURY 21 United Realty Inc. Brokerage will begin offering Buffini & Company's 100 Days to Greatness® program to help both ...

3rd Quarter Membership Statistics

3rd Quarter Membership Statistics 2008    Third Quarter, 2008 Based on information provided by the 91 real estate boards, 10 provincial associations, and one territorial real estate association, membership in The Canadian Real Estate Association at the end of third quarter of 2008 totaled 100,110 (includes 1,183 affiliate/other members). As 2,834 of those were reported as members by ...