Archive for the 'Fun' Category
Looking for a Past Owner
We’ve been getting a lot of calls to our home phone number in the last few months. We don’t really give out, or even use, our land line very much, so we’re always suspicious of who’s calling us when it rings. We typically think it’s a telemarketer, even though we’re on the Do Not Call list.
But recently it’s not telemarketers on the line. It’s collections agencies. And the people calling us are looking for someone that owned our house 2 owners prior to us. That owner last lived here about 8 years ago. Based on the conversations we have with the callers they seem to think we are covering for the person they’re looking for. These discussions are a lot of fun. They usually go like this…
Amy B: Hello?
Caller: Hello. Is Mr. So and So there?
Amy B: No, Mr. So and So doesn’t live here.
Caller: Is this the phone number for 123 Main Street?
Amy B: Yes, this is the phone number for 123 Main Street?
Caller: And Mr. So and So doesn’t live there?
Amy B: No, Mr. So and So doesn’t live here. He lived here 8 years ago, but has since moved away.
Caller: Well, can you give me his new phone number?
Amy B: No I cannot. I don’t know Mr. So and So.
Caller: How can you not know him? He lived at this address.
Amy B: He lived at this address 2 owners before me. I’ve never met him, don’t know where he lives now and have no contact information for him. Is there something I can help you with?
Caller: No, thank you. *click*
We’re getting these calls about twice a week. They’re annoying. It bothers me that the person on the other end of the phone always thinks I’m hiding Mr. So and So from them.
Have any other readers had this issue? I guess I shouldn’t be complaining. The collections people haven’t started knocking on our door looking for him. Yet.
We’re All Number One
That’s right, everyone, it’s awards time in the real estate industry!
This is an exciting time of the year for agents as we are recognized by our brokers and get to compare our performance to our peers. The focus is usually on the overall production, or the total value of all the property sold during the year. Once the calculations are done, there will be ads in the real estate section of the paper touting our amazing achievements (snark intended).
Adding to the fun is that there are many different ways to tally production. The challenge for each individual agent is to find just the right combination of criteria to make them the top performer; Numero Uno. Some people like to look at the total volume of sales in specific towns, so any deals done outside of those towns don’t count. Other agents will only consider listings. Still others may filter out the agent teams to only consider individual agents. Or count the number of deals instead of the dollar production. The game can be complicated.
Like everyone else, we’re curious to see where we rank. It’s data, after all, and we love looking at data. Our peers are the agents based in West Hartford. We count all of their deals that appear in the Multiple Listing Service, no matter where in the state the property is located. It’s not a perfect measure since sometimes agents share deals, but it’s the official public record. Finally, we do not separate the teams from individuals since the reality is that we’re all competing against each other.
After pulling data from the MLS (deemed reliable, but not guaranteed), we found that there were over 300 real estate agents based in West Hartford that did at least one deal in 2009. Note that we only included the 10 top offices in town – the big franchises plus smaller offices that have a big agent. There are apparently 45 real estate offices in West Hartford, but most of the 35 excluded offices have a single broker/agent.
The chart below shows how many agents finished the year with production in specific ranges. For example, there were 10 agents that finished the year with total production of between $4 million and $5 million.
The chart shows that most of the agents based in West Hartford sold less than $3 million in property last year, and nearly half sold less than $1 million. At the upper end – the “Top Producers” – the results were very spread out. The true Number One sold just under $22 million, then there were four agents in the mid-to-upper teens, two in the $11 millions, and then the chart takes over from there. In general the top producers are consistently the same agents, though the exact rankings may change from year to year.
We finished in 17th place, out of 325, officially selling about $7.7 million. Even though we’re not Number One, we’re pretty high up on the list and are happy with our performance. Especially since we believe our business is still in the growth phase as we work to continue building a brand and extending our reach.
As an added bonus, we’ve done well enough to start making claims about being Number One! So let’s see, which title would be most impressive…
Number One on Kenyon Street in Hartford – both in number of sales and total production!
Hmmm, kinda specific, maybe we can do better.
Number One West Hartford agent that had a baby last year!
Once again that might be a little too specific – how many West Hartford agents had babies last year? Not many. Hmmm … okay, here’s the winner …
Number One West Hartford agent under 40!
Showing Your Holiday Spirit
Over the past month, Amy and I have received two postcards from a company offering to professionally decorate the outside of our home. The mailers were of high quality and showed a full color picture on the front of a finished project – presumably the home was ideally and most tastefully decorated. The back of the card had an invitation to check out their special offer at my very own personalized area of their website; the URL even had my name in it.
The postcards have left me with a range of thoughts…
- They’re trying to make me feel bad about our holiday decorations! What’s wrong with our decorations? Are there too many? Not enough? Are they tacky? What’s the rule of thumb for spreading holiday cheer? Oh wait, we don’t really decorate the outside of our house, there are just two wreaths on the front door.
- I wonder what they would recommend for us? Our house doesn’t look anything like the McMansion on the front of the postcard, but maybe they would still do the widely spaced white lights following the roofline and other architectural features – it looks kinda classy.
- Don’t visit the customized webpage – showing any sort of interest will unleash the marketing hounds! My guess is that they don’t have a picture of our house or any recommendations on there, but you never know.
- Wow, that’s a focused business model! I wonder what these people do for the other 11 months of the year? How many people are there out there that are willing to pay for professional help to decorate their home, especially now? My take is that Americans are less inclined to worry about “keeping up with the Joneses” now that “saving” and “thrift” are popular. But the company sending the card appears to be a large organization if they can afford to send two mailers to me, and they have the technological infrastructure to create a personalized landing page on their website. So there must be a market for their services.
I think that decorating for the holidays should reflect each homeowner’s personal flair. I’m sure there is a place for a professional service, but my sense is that most people are content to handle the chore themselves. Over the next couple weeks we’ll look for interesting and inspired holiday displays and try to post some pictures of our favorites. Feel free to write in with tips if there is something that you particularly enjoy!