Lack of planning on your part?
When I worked in human services, this was on the wall of many an office:
“Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”The problem is that lack of planning on someone else’s part frequently causes an emergency on my part. In human service and in real estate.
Rona- Any insight on how the "National Open House Weekend" faired [sic] from the MAR and selling agents' points of view?
I will never ever ever ever speak for MAR.
The seller’s agents that I’ve been talking to are pretty darn happy, financially. The part they don’t like is the rush-rush and the stress of it all. I’ve been hearing “I can’t wait until April 30th” since the middle of March. Lack of planning on seller’s part was already creating emergencies on listing agent’s part.
One of my colleagues who represent sellers had four properties go under agreement in one week. For the kind of “normal” agents I associate with, that’s a huge number. “Top producing” agents who do a couple transactions a week on a regular basis have a gaggle of assistants helping out. Those with no staff are tired if they have two going simultaneously.
I have another listing agent-friend who is frantically helping his client prepare a house for sale this weekend, in order to benefit from the home buyer credit. She has to sell! Lack of planning on her part…
I had a similar rush-rush. There were too many open houses Sunday for Dianne Schaefer and I see them all. I handled four offers in the past ten days. Two went through inspection. One is heading to Purchase and Sales. That created a 65-hour work-week for me. (When I have a client making an offer that is accepted, I spend about 20 hours that week paying attention to the market study, writing the offer, negotiation, home inspection and renegotiation.)Because my clients react to inventory bulges, lack of planning on the seller’s part leads to an emergency on my part. Then again, maybe it isn't lack of planning. Is this a tactic?
So, what am I seeing? The spring tax credit deadline is making a bigger Sunday open house rush than the last one because, well, it’s spring. Also last week was a make-up week for Easter -- when there were sparse open houses. In my area* since April 1, 2010, 218 properties went under agreement. Their average time on the market was 73 days. In the first two weekends of October -- the other deadline-- 270 properties went under agreement. But, their average time on the market was 99 days. (source: MLS)
There have been 402 single family homes listed since Easter Sunday. Of those, 49 are marked with the red ACT, meaning an offer has been accepted. Another 32 are fully under agreement. That’s 81 out of 402, or roughly 20 percent. That’s a lot of tired listing agents. So the rush is more intense, but there is actually less business going on.
Is this bad planning, like people who are knee-deep in income tax returns today? Or is there method to their madness?
*My area = Acton, Arlington, Bedford, Belmont, Brookline, Cambridge, Concord, Lexington, Medford, Natick, Needham, Newton, Somerville, Sudbury, Waltham, Watertown, Wayland, Wellesley, Winchester.
