Shobert Vartan - Real Estate Agent

Shobert Vartan Woodland Hills :
You have listed your home you have high hopes to be packing up and
moving shortly, so why are the offers not pouring in and is this your
agents fault or another reason?

Real Estate agents can facilitate the sale of your home and
generally they are a good investment in marketing your home at the best
possible price and in the shortest amount of time. Realtors do have
connections and they have access to the MLS system and the network of
agents that this represents. It comes down to having more contact with
potential buyers than you will have as an individual trying to sell
your own home.

However not all realtors are created equal. How can you determine if your realtor is doing the job?

1. Check the MLS listing on realtor.ca and ensure that your home is
listed and that there has been effort put into writing the most
appealing description possible as well as ensuring that all the details
are completed for your home. Having said this don't expect your realtor
to outright lie on your behalf. While he/she does work for you and it
is in their best interest to sell your home there is no point in
wasting their time or yours showing your home to potential buyers that
have been misled as to the desirability of your property.

2. Assuming that your realtor works for a company that maintains an
office website and with a realtor that maintains their own website (2
points to ascertain before listing with anyone), do the above check on
these websites as well. Ensure that these websites have the best
possible pictures to highlight the best features of your property. Do
not immediately assume that if your realtor has only posted one outside
shot of your home that this means that they are falling down on the
job. Depending on the type, age and condition of your home this may
have been a conscious decision of less is more. While the realtor has
no control of the size or quality of pictures on the MLS system, he/she
should have on their own website. Therefore ensure that pictures are a
minimum of 640x480 pixels in size and the quality is good. Pictures
sell homes!

3. Does you realtor check in with you on a regular basis? Regular
can have different meanings and will be related to the type of property
that you are trying to sell. If you are selling bare land the time
required to sell the property may be greater and therefore as there is
historically less action you may not hear from your realtor as often as
a home sale in a hot area. However you should be aware that your
realtor is still in the business as he/she should call at least once a
month and as often in a hot market situation as weekly to give you
progress reports.

4. In the case of home sales, has your realtor held an open house?
Now you should realize that open houses are generally held only for
properties that will show well. These are homes with curb appeal as
well as well maintained interiors, so if you have a small older home as
you will find often in PEI then your realtor may not see an advantage
in an open house. Likewise if your home is not kept clean and tidy,
your realtor will not want to put the effort into an open house. So do
your part and ensure that your home is viewing ready.

5. Finally although the web has taken a lot of emphasis off local
media advertising, there are opportunities to market your home through
ads in the local paper which will often have a real estate section as
well as other local advertising, cable TV channels, real estate
publication, mall based kiosks etc. Depending once again on the value
of your home and the likelihood of sale, based on value to price, your
realtor may advertise in these other ways

Realize that realtors are independent while working within a
brokerage. They are responsible for their own costs and some have
greater budgets to promote your home than others. However they will
always weigh the likelihood of a sale with expense and costs. If you
are asking a very high price for your home in a lower market your
realtor is not going to spend that much advertising it. Likewise if you
aren't willing to do your part and get your home ready for sale as well
as keeping it 'show ready' this will affect the amount of money and
effort any realtor will invest in your home sale.

Shobert Vartan Bio

Anyone that has spent any amount of time in the real estate
industry knows who Mike Ferry is. For those of you who don't, Mike
Ferry is one of the most successful sales coaches in the country, and
he uses an assistant. Her name is Monica Reynolds, and she is now
training real estate assistants. What does this have to do with you or
your interest in Real Estate Virtual Assistants?

If Mike Ferry uses an assistant, and Mike is telling you that you
need an assistant, then you need an assistant. What Mike may not
understand is that you live on a limited budget and hiring and training
an assistant just isn't something you are in a position to do at this
time. This is where a real estate virtual assistant, or REVA, can
really help your business to grow. Whether you close 10 deals or 100
deals a year, getting yourself the assistance you need is now within
your reach.

REVAs are not employees, but rather self employed assistants that
specialize in the real estate industry. An experienced REVA is familiar
with all the administrative tasks that are part of your business, and
she is available on a per project basis or on retainer. You only pay
for the services you need; not an entire years salary. The list of
services REVAs specialize in is quite extensive, but below is a
shortlist of services you may be struggling with providing for your
clients.

· Regular updates on their listings. Real estate virtual assistants
can pull all the numbers from website hits to the number of showings,
put them all in a list, and either call your sellers herself or email
them to you so that you can make the calls.

· Listing coordination. REVAS are familiar with the tools of your
trade. From creating an effective pre-listing package to putting new
listings on your website, complete with a virtual tour, you can rest
easy knowing that your clients will receive the best possible service
available.

· Closing Coordination. You just got a contract on your listing and
it is set to close in 30 days. It's nothing to worry about when you
have a professional real estate VA handling the details. Not only will
your REVA make sure that the seller is aware of the scheduled home
inspection, but she will also coordinate everything with the title
company to assure that it closes on time.

· Marketing materials just got easier when you hired that REVA. Now
all you have to do is let her know what it is you would like prepared
and it will be created and e-mailed to you for final approval before
being sent to your local printer for pick up, or before printing and
mailing your marketing materials out for you.

I'm sure you see the advantages available to you when you partner
with an experienced REVA. You can now generate business instead of
servicing your listings. You can now leave the office knowing that your
business is in the hands of a professional. So what are you waiting
for? Find yourself the perfect REVA and go prospect! That's what Mike
would tell you to do.

Read More From Shobert Vartan

The following two advertising methods serve well for real estate
entrepreneurs who do not have the time to be out in the field posting
door-to-door flyers, post-it notes or hangers as their form of
advertising. Using bird dogs and voice broadcasts to home owners allow
you to maximize your time by not leaving the office and yet still
achieving the end result you need.

You can find people that are willing to go out and find you
motivated sellers. Some of them are investors that have more deals than
they can handle. Others are those that like to drive through
neighborhoods and find vacant fixer-upper houses in need of repair.
Bird dogs are willing to either sell you the lead for a small fee or
give you the lead and get paid anywhere from $500 to $2,000 once you do
purchase the house. By finding a couple good bird dogs that are working
on a commission only basis, you can really find some motivated sellers
quickly.

Another method to find motivated sellers is to do a voice broadcast
to all home owners in a specific neighborhood. Provided you comply with
the current do-not-call regulations, you can send voice broadcasts out
informing people that you are interested in possibly buying their
house. This method is surprisingly inexpensive, and it can be very
quick and effective when you have a good quality message that you are
sending. You can choose to have different messages for when the
broadcast connects to a live person or when the answering machine picks
up. On the voice broadcast message, include the 24-hour recorded
message number so that potential sellers can get more information about
your business prior to speaking with you.

If you implement these two methods, it won't be long before motivated sellers start calling you about buying their house.

Shobert Vartan Profile

The Real Estate Business is a tough game. Given the difficulties
faced by potential buyers to jump through the hoops that the banks and
building societies are laying down in the current financial downturn,
it's difficult to remain positive, especially in a country like Spain,
whose unemployed are the highest in Europe as of the last quarter of
2009. However, there is a new breed of buyers entering the market who
have very few problems when it comes to employment, entertaining the
bank's needs and a thirst for a new home.

Older European cities such as Barcelona, for example, have shot to
the top of many lists as THE desired place to live and work in recent
years. London-based Real Estate Company Cushman and Wakefield published
a report in 2009 with great details about the Business Cities in
Europe. Barcelona had overtaken "European Business Capital" Brussels
into third place, and CEOs of companies interviewed regarded Barcelona
as the number one destination for their employees in terms of quality
of life.

The Economist also paired Spain as a whole country on a par with
Sweden in it's life expectancy index - a joint seventh, with life
expectancy as high as 80,9 years old. The Mediterranean lifestyle has
long been touted as a stepping stone to a healthy and happy lifestyle
and its secrets go back hundreds of years. Barcelona - the capital of
Catalonia - is no exception to this rule, with a fantastic gastronomy
paving the way for the likes of top chef Ferran Adrià, and his El Bulli
restaurant which was voted the best restaurant in the world for an
unprecedented four times in a row in 2009.

The accolades keep on coming. Not only does Barcelona have more
UNESCO World Heritage sites than European favourite, Paris, it was also
voted 5th best city in the world by Time Out travel guides in 2009,
too. Not to mention the city as a stage to host some of the most
important business conferences and congresses in Europe and the world -
taking as a prime example the 3GSM World Mobile Phone conference held
each February in Barcelona.

Barcelona is working hard at branding itself, and it looks to be
succeeding. The city's mayor recently revealed plans to bid to host the
2022 Winter Olympic Games. The city owes a lot to the 1992 summer
Olympic Games - widely regarded as the best and most successful in
recent times, until Sydney provided the world with another fantastic
games. Even then, similarities with Barcelona were numerous, and if
successful, it would be the first time a city has hosted a summer and a
winter games. All of these factors lead to a good mood in real estate
for Barcelona, who may just pull Spain out of the recession with its
business model.

Shobert Vartan Profile
Quite often, we get calls from luxury real estate marketing
professionals asking us for an image makeover in the form of a logo, or
a new website that will assure their success in the new age of social
media marketing. They think that is the definition of branding.

The new opportunity on the World Wide Web is to express your unique
voice as an expert in some uncontested market niche and to become the
market leader in that niche. People are looking for answers to their
most perplexing challenges. They seek a voice that is special, one that
they can identify with, a voice that is compelling and follow-worthy.

This voice cannot be made up by some marketing image maker and
cannot be modulated to please others; it has to be the voice that
reflects the authentic you. Your voice is your "DNA"!

For example, there is only one dragon fruit (see photo above). It
is unique among cactus fruits. In Taiwan diabetics use the fruit as a
food substitute for rice. It is also credited with alleviating
respiratory ailments. Other cactus fruits do not have this claim to
fame.

Fabricated images are doomed, at some point, to fail and fade away.
Hype and spin cannot disguise the lack of substance anymore. The
internet has imposed transparency on all fronts.

Branding is not buying a new outfit or simply having a graphic
designer design a new logo. It is discovering your voice and promoting
the unique attributes of it. Once you have discovered it, you must
stick to that which you are. Life becomes a binary world: what is on
your path and what is not on your path-what is on your brand signal and
what is off signal. The design and the logo are dictated by the brand
not the other way around.

One of the best definitions of a brand was given by Lisa Price,
founder of Carol's Daughter beauty products. Because of her
understanding of branding, she was able to take her business from her
kitchen to the nation at large. She has attracted some of the world's
most famous "spokes beauties", such as Halle Berry, Jada Pinkett Smith,
and Mary J Blige, to sing her praises.

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