Category: Help-U-Sell

Why Percentage Based Real Estate Commissions Are Nuts

We’ve been at it here in Hawaii for more than 10 years.  At what? you ask.  At providing real estate services that are priced fairly and reasonably; at pioneering a newer, better way of doing the real estate business; at not just selling real estate, but also changing the way real estate is sold.  We’ve gone from nothing to being one of the most substantial residential real estate companies on Oahu, which is a testament to the effectiveness of the program we offer.

We’re different.

Oh, we get the job done just like the best known companies on the island.  We offer full service that goes beyond our clients’ expectations.  We delight the people who work with us so much that most of our business comes from their referrals.  Best of all, we save our clients thousands of dollars over what they’d likely pay an old fashioned real estate broker.

We are not married to the old way of doing business.  Nor are we married to the old way of charging for our services.  Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties is the next big thing in real estate, a new way to buy and sell and the best way to save in the process.

Sometimes the best way to explain the difference is to put a pencil to it and run the numbers.  Here is short video that does just that:

If you are ready to be delighted not just by the real estate service you receive but also by the fee you pay for it, call us.  Let us show you a newer, better way to sell and buy real estate!

What % Do Real Estate Agents Charge?

I spend a little time each month to determine what search phrases real estate consumers use online to find real estate brokers. When I discover the phrases consumers are using, I sprinkle them throughout my websites (including this blog) and thus increase the number of times Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties shows up in search results.  In 2013, that’s just good marketing!

Most phrases are predictable:  ‘Hawaii Kai homes for sale’, ‘Mililani real estate’ and the like.  But sometimes I uncover something unexpected.  That’s what happened over the weekend.  Here is a Google search phrase that is being used a lot in one form or another:

“What Percentage Commission Do Real Estate Agents Charge?”
 

People want to know what they’ll have to pay a real estate professional to market their property — no surprise there.  But what jarred me this weekend was not the question, it was the word:  PERCENTAGE.

Seventy plus years of ‘that’s just the way we do it’ has trained the public to expect to pay a percentage of the sale price of their house to an agent when it sells . . . and that makes no sense whatsoever.

What does a percentage of you home’s value have to do with getting it sold? Nothing!

Think about it:

Here you are in your $525,000 house. Thankfully, you are not upside down. You have roughly $100,000 in equity. So you decide to sell, and list with XYZ Realty**, who charges you (and every seller with whom they work) 6%*. When your house sells (for full price), that’s a commission of $31,500!

I’ll give you a moment to catch your breath . . . before I point out that that may be 6% of the sales price, but it’s more than a 30% of your equity!

Meanwhile, your neighbor down the street also wants to sell, but his home is smaller. It’s only worth $450,000. He also lists with XYZ and agrees to pay the 6% Commission. When the house sells for full price, the homeowner is going to pay $27,000 — still high, but not nearly as high as your $31,500 commission.

Now, here’s the question of the day: What did YOU get for the extra $4,500 you paid to sell your house through ABC?

More Advertising?

More Open Houses?

A better Sign?

Oh, maybe your agent worked $4,500 harder! Right.

What you got for the extra $4,500 you paid is this:

Absolutely Nothing
In almost every case it takes no more time, effort, energy, money or marketing to sell a properly priced $525,000 house than it does a properly priced $450,000 house. There are some situations in some areas where a market niche, say, luxury homes, might take a little more time and might require additional or specialized marketing. But these situations are rare . . . and $4,500 extra dollars to sell your $525,000 house? That’s absurd.

It makes no sense today, made no sense yesterday, and will never make any sense at all.

At Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties, we charge home sellers a set fee. It’s logical. We’ve worked very hard to determine the hard costs of carrying a listing in Oahu.  We then add a reasonable profit to those costs, and . . . that’s it.

I hope next time you need to sell, you’ll do the right thing and call the set fee alternative, Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties. You’ll save a bundle (the set fee is usually thousands of dollars less than whatever percentage based commission you’re being quoted). And you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that, finally, for the first time in your real estate life, you haven’t been taken to the cleaners!

*Commissions, whether set fee or percentage based, are always negotiable. They are not set by law or REALTOR rule. They are set individually by office Brokers. Price fixing occurs when different Brokers get together and agree to charge the same thing. That’s highly illegal. Different Help-U-Sell offices charge different Set Fees, because the carrying costs of marketing a listing vary from market to market, as do the number of days it takes a properly priced listing to sell.

**The “XYZ Realty” referred to in this blog is fictitious and is used only for illustrative purposes. Any resemblance between it and any other “XYZ Realty”, is purely coincidental.

Preparation For Selling: Preparing YOU

You can find lots of information on the Internet about preparing your home for sale . . . in fact, just scroll down:  you’ll find one such article here!  But selling quickly for top dollar involves more than just spiffing up the house.  It also involves YOU, your mindset, your preparation, your choices and so on.

Make the Shift

If you’ve been living in your HOME for some time, you wear it like your favorite sweater.  You love almost everything about it.  Every blemish has a story. The few little defects have been in place so long you hardly notice them. Every corner of every room holds a pleasant memory.

And somewhere, deep inside, you expect everyone who comes into your HOME to recognize and experience all of that warm fuzzy stuff.  They won’t.

The day you decide to sell, your HOME becomes a HOUSE.  All of the sweater aspects evaporate (you were the only one who perceived them anyway).  It is now a PRODUCT, competing in the open market with other similar products.  And you must start to view it that way as well.

In my previous post, I drew a parallel between detailing your car and preparing your house for sale.  I think the analogy is good because we tend to become far less emotionally attached to our cars than our houses.  When it’s time to sell a vehicle, we prep it and GO.  You need the same mind-set when selling your HOUSE.

Open Up

Over and over I have seen home sellers create barriers between their HOUSE-product and potential buyers.  It’s usually subtle little things like NOT having a lock box (that makes access easier for REALTORS), like NOT having a for sale sign in the yard, like requiring 24 hours notice for a showing.  There are often good reasons for these little roadblocks – small children, ailing family members, day sleepers, valuables – but they still cut the pool of potential buyers AND make competing properties more attractive.

Before you insist that you can’t or you don’t want to or you’re not going to . . . ask yourself why.  Is there a temporary change you could make in your daily lifestyle that would allow you to remove the restriction?   Time on market right now on Oahu is very short.  Most properly priced homes sell in 30 days or less.  Most people can put up with even a drastic change for that short period of time, and it can make a big difference in sale-ability.

Do Your Homework

Ask your agent to walk you through the offer and acceptance process BEFORE you have an offer.  What can you expect?  What should you look out for? How will you work with your agent to sift through offers?  If you wait until you have an offer to start educating yourself, the process will drag and your comfort level will sag.

In addition to simply talking about the process, ask your agent to give you a blank copy of the standard real estate purchase agreement and the sellers’ net proceeds worksheet that will be used.  The time to become familiar with these important documents is NOW, before you’re having to make decisions based upon them!

Adjust the Bulls-eye

One of the biggest mistakes home sellers make is getting hung up on price.  It’s natural: we are born shoppers and when shopping we usually start with price.  But when it comes to selling your HOUSE, price is not the most important metric for judging success.  What really matters is your net proceeds or walk-away dollars.

When you list your home for sale, work with your agent to determine a target net for yourself.  Then when offers come in, you’ll be prepared to evaluate them properly.  Many times, in multiple offer situations, the BEST offer is not the highest.  If you stay focused on the right bulls-eye, you’ll be able to spot it.

Choose Carefully

If you are talking with real estate companies about what they can do for you, beware the marketing fluff.  It’s fine for your agent to tell you how wonderful he or she is and what a good job their company will do.  But where’s the proof?

Look for a tangible track record in a number of areas.  And the company or agent with the largest number of sales is not necessarily the best.  The kind of results that impact you, the seller, are:

  • Days on Market.  On average, how long does it take your prospective agent/company to sell a listing?  And how does that compare with the MLS average
  • Sale Price as a % of Listing Price.  On average, how far off list price do sellers listed with this agent/company have to budge to make a sale?  Do they have to come down 2%? or 5%?  And how does that compare with the MLS average.
  • Seller Savings. On average, how much do sellers listed with this agent/company save in real estate commissions over what they might pay any other agent/broker?  Ok, I know;  that’s a loaded question because Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties is the only real estate company in the area that has a better deal for sellers, that is focused on seller savings like no other company.  Our low set fee pricing and completely different business model delivers substantial savings to our seller clients again and again and again.  It is the track record we are most proud of!
  • Seller Satisfaction.  Does your prospective agent/company have raving fans?  Can they share testimonial letters from former sellers with you?  Are they willing to give you a list of references to check?  You know if you were hiring an unfamiliar babysitter you’d check references.  Why wouldn’t you check them when you’re dealing with your biggest asset, you home?  I am very proud of the testimonials we’ve received at Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties, and you can view some of them HERE.

Work through this little list and prepare yourself (as well as your home) for sale.  You’ll sell faster for more walk-away dollars, with less hassle if you do!

What Is Full Service Real Estate?

Consumers intuitively know what ‘Full Service’ in real estate means:

  • Expertise/Consultation (preparation for sale, pricing, planning, staging)
  • Marketing (which might include MLS, Internet, Open Houses, advertising, signs, flyers, etc)
  • Representation/Negotiation (weighing offers, avoiding mistakes, anticipating next steps)
  • Transaction Processing/Problem Resolution (making sure everything is done properly, handling problems as they arise)

The problem is that almost everyone in the business – traditional percentage-based brokers, discount brokers, flat fee brokers, fee for service brokers and so on – claims to do all of those things!

With so many different kinds of brokers laying claim to  ’Full Service,’ the term becomes almost meaningless . . . except that consumers don’t realize this.

With no clear distinction between different kinds of real estate companies, consumers have come to believe that ‘Full Service’ = ‘Full Commission.’

>>>(and therefore, ‘less than full commission’ = ‘less than full service’)<<<

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties is a full service real estate company.  We:

  • Help you set a good asking price
  • Calculate your estimated net proceeds
  • Evaluate the marketability of your property
  • Make recommendations for showing and staging
  • Market the property in a wide range of media
  • Manage signage and flyers
  • Answer the phone when it rings and provide information to potential buyers and to their agents
  • Facilitate open houses
  • Show the property
  • Help you analyse offers so that you can make an informed decision before committing
  • Arrange for inspections and help you meet contract deadlines
  • Anticipate problems and deal with them before they arise
  • Shepherd your transaction from contract to closing
  • Thank you sincerely for the opportunity to serve you
  • And more

Our business model is different from more traditional companies, from discount brokers and from limited service brokers.  It enables us to offer great savings to consumers along with that wonderful level of service.  This is one place where

‘Less than Full Commission’ ≠ ‘Less than Full Service’

Instead, Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties is a place where,

‘Sell Fast’ + ‘Achieve Your Real Estate Goals’ + ‘Save Thousands in Commission Expense’ = ‘Full Service’ + ‘Happy Clients’

We’d love for you to be part of our equation!

How We Market Homes

Home sellers often ask about our marketing plan. Of course, they want to know what we’re going to do to get their home sold.  What we’ve discovered is that there is a lot of misinformation about what constitutes good real estate marketing today, so we often spend time educating consumers.

Our number one goal in marketing is to generate leads. We want as many prospective buyers as possible to contact the office so that we have an opportunity to expose them to our inventory of homes for sale.  To this end much of our marketing includes pictures and descriptions of homes for sale; that’s what causes buyers to contact any real estate office.

But we also market for prospective sellers . . . and this is beneficial to our listed sellers as well.  You see, the more listings we have, the more signs we have in the market, the more houses we have for sale online, the more opportunities prospective buyers have to contact the office for more information. It’s simple math:  a few listings will generate a few leads;  a lot of listings will generate a lot of leads. We include information about our Low Set Fee and Seller Savings in our marketing because this appeals to prospective sellers.

That pretty much covers why we market:  to generate leads and develop an inventory of homes for sale (which will also generate leads).  Now let’s turn to how we market.

First rule of Marketing:  Be Visible! Which means to be seen . . . frequently.  At Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties we work every day to make sure our logo, our company name and our contact information is in front of as many Oahu residents as possible.  Much of this visibility is accomplished with signs:  For Sale Signs, directional signs, open house signs, office signage. Our goal, often accomplished, is to hear people say, ‘I see your signs everywhere.’

But visibility is not just about signs.  We have used magazines in racks at busy public places to generate leads for our listings.  And our weekly radio show has been running for almost 10 years, further establishing the Help-U-Sell name in Hawaii.

Today we live in an online world and we work hard to create useful, relevant online content about the local real estate market, the kind of content that is attractive to Google and the other search engines.  It’s not just about being on the Internet; we also want to be findable, visible.

Lead Generation is all about Target Marketing, Yes, we want everyone on the island to know that Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties is HERE and that we can save them money.  But we especially want to get that message to the people who have a need to buy or sell NOW and in the near future.  So we have to ask ourselves: where do prospective buyers and sellers go when they begin the process?  And now, more than ever, the answer is pretty obvious:  Trulia and Zillow.

These large national real estate portals do a somewhat flawed job of presenting information about housing in our local market. Their data tends to be inaccurate because they are not HERE.  However, they have done an excellent job of marketing their home search capabilities to buyers and sellers.  That’s why we have invested in Premiere Agent and Pro status on these portals.  As a result, we are contacted daily by people who find us on Zillow and Trulia.  One of the first things we do is to get them into a LOCAL search tool with the most accurate data, so that they can participate in the search process without the flaws of the national portals.

Client Base Development means we look backward as often as we look forward.  As we move contacts and leads to contracts and closings, we work hard to make sure the people come through the process delighted with the service they received.  We hope to earn their help in further developing our business by telling everyone they know about us. We are very grateful to have so many thoughtful and, frankly, glowing testimonials – most of which we never sought.  It tells me we are on the right track and haven’t forgotten that the consumer is at the heart of our operation.

But we’re just as grateful for the fact that a sizable portion of our closed transactions come from former clients returning to buy or sell again, and from the friends and neighbors they refer to us.  That’s how we grade the success of our company:  if the customers we work with are so pleased with the service and the value they received that they become lead generators for us. . . well, we know we’re doing something right! You can’t get better marketing than the testimony of a well satisfied client!

The Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties Mission

We are pretty passionate about what we do at Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties.  Helping people realize their real estate goals while saving thousands of dollars . . . well, it’s more than a job;  it’s a mission.

We see ourselves as anything but ordinary.  We have a better idea, one that works better and costs less, and we are very proud of that fact.  We’re not just selling real estate, we’re changing the way real estate is sold.  This sense of participating in something bigger than the job is a driving force for everyone in this real estate company.

When you talk to any of us at Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties, it doesn’t take long before the passion oozes out.  You see the fire in the eyes and notice the quickening of speech.  It’s the kind of thing that’s almost impossible to keep tucked in — as if you’d ever want to.  I think this passion for the mission is one of the reasons our crew is so successful when they get face-to-face with a potential client.  The client sees the excitement, feels the passion and it’s hard to resist.  The fact that our people believe so strongly in what they are doing is one of our greatest strengths.

Here’s the important thing about this:  you can’t manufacture it.  You could go to sales seminars for a month and still not be able to muster this kind of excitement about what you’re doing if what you’re doing is . . . no big deal.  Believable passion for the work comes from knowing that you have something really special to offer, believing you bring something of great value to your customers and seeing your biggest challenge as simply spreading the word about what you do.

Every time I walk into my office, I swell with pride for my people and the great job they do.  They are a very special bunch!  So, whether you live in Kailua or Mililani, Hawaii Kai or Pearl City, when it comes time to buy or sell real estate, do yourself a favor:  make a call to this extraordinary team!

 

Why Everyone Doesn’t Do It The Help-U-Sell Way

As a Help-U-Sell Broker I have the pleasure of delighting sellers when they learn about us. So often, when I lay our program out before them, they get almost as excited as I am. Often, they say:

‘Wow! This is amazing! Why doesn’t everyone do it this way?’

The answer is too complex to share with a seller on the verge of signing a listing agreement, so I usually take the question to be rhetorical, and reply, ‘I don’t know . . .’ or ‘Beats me!’

But there is a reason. It’s a stupid reason, but it is the reason:

Our industry is organized around the notion that the average agent should make a decent living.

Thirty years ago or so, Brokers (not Agents, Brokers) made a shift in their business models. They put the accent NOT on serving buyers and sellers but on recruiting, retaining and serving agents. In a sense, the Agent became the Broker’s client.

Today, Brokers go to school not to learn how to better serve buyers and sellers, but to learn how to recruit. Keller-Williams, Exit and a host of other companies have invented new wrinkles in their operating systems to reward agents who bring other agents into the company. Basically, they’ve found a way to get their agents to do the recruiting for them.

In ordinary residential real estate today, it’s all about the agent: how to find more, get more, keep more agents. The Broker believes his income stream is dependent on agents, not on buyers and sellers, and that belief colors the entire operation.

So who are these average agents (the ones everyone is working so hard to recruit)? Nationally they do seven or fewer deals a year. Really. Think about that. What kind of service do you think an agent doing only seven deals a year brings to the table for a buyer or seller? Compared, say, to one doing 25 deals? Who’s going to be sharper, more up-to-date, better able to negotiate and solve problems as they arrise?

But, because the ordinary Broker’s business is dependent on his getting and keeping as many seven-deal-a-year agents as possible, he has to find a way to make doing seven deals a year appealing. He has to find a way for the average agent to make a reasonable living.

There’s a two-step formula for this.

First, charge outrageous sums of money for your services and do it with a percentage based commission so that your fee is tied to the sale price of the house. That way, when your agents sell more expensive property, they bring in more cash. Never mind that in most cases, it takes no more time, effort or money to sell a more expensive house. Just be glad you get paid more when you do.

Second, give the lion’s share of that bloated commission to the agent. You’re going to have to pay them really well so that they can appear successful even though they’re only doing seven deals a year. If they appear successful, you’ll be better able to attract more seven-deal-a-year agents who also want to appear successful.

Ok. I’m overstating the case. But I think you see the lunacy in this system. And it is lunacy, madness. The ordinary real estate business is so off track, it may never be able to right itself. It is so lost that the moment Google or Microsoft decides to jump into the business with both feet, automate it like Schwab did the brokerage business 25 years ago . . . well, your friendly local real estate agent could become extinct. . . like the dinosaur.

Thankfully, there is an alternative.

  • It is a system where the Broker is IN the real estate business, where his or her client IS the buyer or seller, where the agent is part of the Broker’s operational system to provide excellent service to clients.
  • It is a system where the Broker’s income stream is dependent on how many buyers and sellers he or she serves, where growth is driven by careful marketing, not by recruiting.
  • It is a system orchestrated by the Broker to drive ever increasing numbers of leads into the office, leads that are handed to the agents who are charged with the important task of turning them into happy clients.
  • It is a system that nurtures truly successful agents, who outperform their ordinary competitors in spades.
  • It is a system that charges a reasonable Set Fee for the service it provides, a fee that is much lower than the percentage based commission charged by ordinary brokers
  • It is a system that offers sellers a menu approach to services and pricing, where one size does not fit all, and where the fee paid has a direct relation to the tools it took to affect the sale.
  • It is a system that delights customers because: it works, and they save money.

It is Help-U-Sell.

*By the way, in case you missed it, in 2012, the median gross income for an agent was $34,900, according to NAR. That’s gross, before expenses.

What Change In The Stock Brokerage, Music And Travel Industries Mean For Real Estate

We often look at the history of the securities business in the last 15 years and draw parallels to real estate.  Remember?  We used to have to contact a broker to trade a stock and we paid a percentage based commission for the privilege.  Stock trading was mysterious, complicated, beyond the grasp of most people and the commissions were, well, just the cost of entry.

Then along came Charles Schwab with $15 flat fee trades.  Consumers loved it and the industry took note.  The forward thinkers not only shifted to the new model, they enhanced it by putting powerful analytic information into consumers’ hands on the Internet.

Sound like the real estate business?  You bet.

The same kind of change happened in the Music business.  Remember when we used to go to the music store to buy vinyl LP records, and then CDs?  That’s how music was distributed.  The whole industry was built around the idea of making and marketing these plastic objects called ‘records.’

But then, technology made it possible for people to take the records, digitize them and then share them (often illegally) over the Internet.  The industry reacted not by looking forward at how they might capitalize on this,  but by looking to the courts, suing the most prolific pirates.  Meanwhile, Steve Jobs – a music industry outsider – quietly invented the Ipod – nothing more than a solid state drive with a simple user interface – and the ITunes store for making digital music accessible to consumers.  For 99 cents you could buy a song . . . and, today, that’s what we do.

Just as in real estate, we had a music industry fighting to preserve the status quo . . . and losing; because you can never preserve the status quo.  It is impossible. In both cases we have industries struggling to keep information out of the consumer’s hands . . . and losing, because you can’t stop the consumer.

Want another example?  How about the Travel industry.  Not too many years  ago we used to call a travel agent to book a plane trip or a vacation.  They had all the information:  schedules and fares and so on; and they earned a nice commission for helping us navigate this mysterious process.

How many travel agents do you know today?  Really:  they have become largely extinct!  And how do we book travel today?  We go to the Internet where all the information is housed and make our decisions for ourselves.  Unfortunately, the pricing model for travel has not changed significantly . . . which makes me wonder:  who is getting that commission today?

And here we have real estate:  an industry that justified its percentage based commissions for decades largely by hoarding information.  Then along came the founder of Help-U-Sell, Don Taylor (and by the way, he came along a good ten years before Charles Schwab had his epiphany).  He saw a way to do the real estate business not for a nonsensical percentage based commission, but for a Low Set Fee.  He saw all of this hoarding going on and decided that Information Without Obligation would be one of his new company’s core values.  The maturation of the Internet twenty years later put that value on steroids . . .

And how did the Industry react?  It ran in terror for the hills, dug foxholes, locked up the valuables (the information), put its fingers in its ears and refused to hear what consumers were saying.

Even today, with a real estate market undergoing upheaval, with change swooping down around us like a Tsunami, how many of the big national brands are talking about their pricing model?  Um . . . none.

Even today, when consumers can (with the click of a mouse) get all the information REALTORS used to hoard, how many are talking about how we can use that fact to streamline the process and make the experience better for the home buyers and sellers?  Um . . . none.

At Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties, we embrace the new way to buy and sell real estate.  We want our buyers and sellers to be as involved in the process as they want to be and give them all the tools and information they could possibly need to have a stellar experience.  Our approach to the business is not mysterious and it makes sense . . . just as our Set Fee does.  Think of us as the Charles Schwab/ITunes/Orbitz of real estate, and then call us when it’s time to buy or sell.

 

Who We Are

We are Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties, and we serve all of Oahu, including Hawaii Kai, Kailua, Kane’ohe, Ka’a’awa, Mililani, and the North Shore.  We are the alternative to the 6% (or 5%, or even 4%) real estate sales commission.  When you sell through us, you’ll be charged a logical low set fee that will save you thousands over what you’d pay an ordinary real estate broker.

The Help-U-Sell® Brand stands for something.  It represents the ability of the average consumer to receive expert assistance in a real estate transaction while saving significantly over what they’d spend with an ordinary REALTOR®.  It proudly represents a new approach to the real estate business, a better model, a new deal.  This reputation for exceptional customer service, coupled with savings has enabled us to build Brand awareness not just in the Conejo Valley, but nationwide.

The Help-U-Sell Vision Statement expresses how we see ourselves in the competitive environment in which we operate:

We are the premier provider of professional licensed real estate services, empowering consumers with access to information and choice, while offering a set-fee for service.

Great care was taken in crafting the Vision Statement to truly express who we are.  The language is very precise:

Premier Provider – We are an elite corps, the cream of the crop. We are neither discounters nor a limited service option.

Professional, Licensed Real Estate Services – We are fully licensed in Hawaii, are members of the local, State and National Associaions of REALTORS, and aspire to the highest levels of professionalism in the industry.

Empowering Consumers – We give our Buyers and Sellers the information and tools they need to effectively navigate the complex world of real estate sales.

Access to Information – We don’t ‘hoard’ information or hold it hostage.  We freely give our buyers and sellers as much information as they need to make an informed decision.

Choice – We present our clients options, help them evaluate them and then tailor a solution to fit their particular needs.  We do not embrace one-size-fits- all solutions.

Set Fee for Service – We price our services logically and fairly.  Our pricing makes sense to the consumer and we tailor our pricing to fit the services they use.

The five Help-U-Sell® Core Beliefs are the backbone of our identity.  They guide the way we relate to our customers and clients, our fellow brokers and each other.

We Believe In

  • Integrity:  We conduct our business with honesty and transparency, and share information without condition. 
  • Consumer Choices and Empowerment:  We present options and help our clients evaluate them, enabling them to make informed decisions.
  • Consumer Savings:  We strive to ensure that every consumer choice results in savings.
  • Broker Control and Profit: In our office, the broker is the business. The broker generates the leads, develops client relationships, and ensures successful transactions.
  • Systems Orientation: We create and implement systems for accomplishing recurring tasks.

We are different.  We bold.  And we are ready, willing and able to save you serious money on your real estate transaction!