With real estate having dropped so far, you’d think that agents would be doing everything they can to serve potential buyers. Alas, this does not appear to be the case as evidenced by the abysmal nature of most real estate ads I’ve read. Here’s a list (a work in progress) of some of the most frustrating things about ads. Mostly it centers around a lack of information; but it’s also the way the information is presented–often in a way that seems to condescend towards the customer.
1. Put up 3 lines of information, the last of which is “serious inquiries only”. Yeah, you want the perfect buyer to be the very first person who calls, and you want them to buy at your asking price. You want to eliminate all the tire kickers. How realistic is that? You sir/mam, need a serious reality check. How many times have you walked into a store without buying something? I suppose you bought the first house you looked at? You never pick up a package of meat in the grocer’s cooler to see if it looks fresh? Just put it right on the basket, do we? Get a clue. Provide us with enough information, and don’t peg yourself as difficult to work with right out of the gate by posting this “serious inquiries” garbage. Honestly. Buyers are not there to waste your time. Real estate is a major purchase that requires significant research and review of many properties before a purchase is made. You cannot change that fact by putting two words at the end of your 3-line blurb.
2. (bare land only). Don’t put the APN (Asessor’s Parcel Number) in the ad or tell us what the zoning is. Make us guess. Make us go to the planning office’s web site and try to look up the APN based on the address (if that’s possible) and then find out about the zoning.
3. (trailers/mobile homes). Only tell us the price of the trailer, and don’t tell us the space rent.
4. (condo or HOA community). Similar to (3), don’t tell us the HOA fees.
5. (arguably, this is a generalization of many other rules) Provide as little information as possible. Ideally, you should only tell us that you have property for sale and just put your telephone number in the ad.
6. Provide a picture of your smiling face, but don’t provide a picture of the property.
7. (bare land only). Don’t mention that it has no water rights.
8. (bare land only). Don’t mention that it’s unbuildable. Just put “buyer to determine buildability”. Best combined with (2) and hope that the buyer won’t be smart enough to search the planning office web site and will thus become the “next sucker”.
9. Put “needs TLC”, “fixer upper”, or “contractor’s special” in your ad. Pretend that we’re still in the era where most ads were 3-liners in the newspaper classifieds so there wasn’t space. Nevermind that sellers of cars were able to describe what needed fixing with a stock set of abbreviations such as “nds brks, ac”. You have the ability to post 100 times as much text now without even stalling a dial-up connection, but be sure to totally ignore that and not tell us what actually needs fixing. Just convey what is, literally, 1 bit of information. Real bonus points for “TLC”, which means “Tender Loving Care” and has become, quite possibly, the most annoying way to convey just one bit of information that has ever been devised.
10. Refer to your property as a “great investment” or say “why rent”. Numbers determine whether or not we should rent, and whether or not something is a good investment. Be sure not to include any numbers such as the PITI based on market interest rates and the prior tax year. It would probably contradict what you just said.
11. Don’t tell us there was a meth lab on the property. I’m not kidding. This really happened. I found out via Google, not the ad for the property. My understanding of the law is that you are required to disclose the presence of a meth lab on property before you rent or sell it. However, the disclosure may not be required until… closing? I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer. I think these disclosures should be required in the ad, in simple checkbox language for various categories (ie, flood zone? no. Meth lab? yes). In case you’re wondering what a former meth lab does to property, the answer could vary. Cleanup may be as simple as removing all carpets, and painting. It may be as complicated as demolishing the house, carting topsoil to a hazardous disposal site, and re-doing the septic system. Costs could range from a few thousand dollars to God only knows what. Don’t you think we ought to know before we call you up and say “I’d like to have a look”?
12. Inform us that your trailer is in a “five star park”. Ohhhh…. Reeeally. But of course. Who confers this rating? Michelin ratest trailer parks? That’s news to me. Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon? Oh, and the blackwater hose in space 8 sprung a leak again. You need to look into that.
