What if? A business plan has a place in a Realtor's life

http://www.sba.gov/smallbusinessplanner/plan/writeabusinessplan/SERV_STRATPLAN.html

Accidental success, a compelling Hollywood story ingredient, is not as likely as planned endeavors to produce satisfactory results. A story in REALTOR, issue November/December 2010, about an agent who moved from financial services to real estate caught my attention today. Although her results appear impressive, I'm not interested in money she made, what made me pause was the URL http://www.sba.gov/ under the bold paragraph lead: Have a real business plan. Imagine that, the Federal Government as a resource for planning. The irony aside, the idea that smart information could be available for free on the internet made me look.

Whether starting new, starting over, or starting to get more focused, the business plan idea strikes me as brilliant. For 20 some years I planned a little and worked a lot; going where the winds blew and doing what I liked, and sometimes what I didn't like, all in the name of business. Looking back it appears the business planned me and I was a willing servant to the master. It's November 2010, the fall of the year and probably the fall of my career. Today I know enough to know what I do well, and what does me in. I'm making my plan and sticking to it.

The Business Plan Template from the Small Business Administration is eleven pages; not long but it will inspire deep thoughts. The promise is the plan will inspire the writer to tell a compelling story of their business, telling who, what, when, where, how, and why. My guess is "Why?" is not best answered as "Because I want to." When I am finished with this plan, there should be significant logic and discipline injected into the product.

What if I started a journey of business planning? Will I uncover a passion? Will I see what I has been hidden to me? "What if" is what keeps me getting up with the sun.

Price Trends----Going Down

Middleton appears to be weathering the real estate storm as well as any of the communities and neighborhoods that make up the Dane County real estate market. Of the properties that have come on the market since January 1, of this year, 106 have SOLD and 107 are showing a status of ACTIVE. That's a balanced market as I see it. The inventory provides choices for the consumer and the rate of sales suggests a seller has reason to be hopeful. Middleton is a good barometer of the local real estate climate because it has a broad range of housing stock representative of the majority of the communities and neighborhoods in the County.

I was curious to know if prices were holding stable or trending down. Considering it's November, I could make a reasonable guess, but having decided to put numbers to my expectations, I went ahead and did some quick crunching. This is what I think I see:

• Home prices are coming down for owners who are trying to sell
• The typical home owner is going to lower the price over the course of their time on the market at least once
• Below the median price, expect to see owners more active in price reducing
• The lower half of the market changes prices downward about 2 to 1 compared to the upper half
• Owners of higher priced homes are more reluctant to make price changes

I wonder if the reason the above median priced home owners are slow to adjust price has to do with their impression of buyer tendencies? If you believe your house will get looked at regardless of price because the higher qualified buyer is more likely to cross price points in search of the right house, you might hold on to your initial price longer I suppose. The lower priced home owners do accept the price barrier concept. I'm not sure that price barriers doesn't exist in the upper ranges. Except for the super rich, I think price points are considered more than some people might admit. Just an opinion.

In a September 20th blog entry, I noted that Buyer Enticing Pricing does impact time on the market. To accomplish the goal of selling, owners had success by reducing their price after the first thirty days on the market. Each 30 days seems to be a good time to evaluate the results. Once the right price was reached, offers came within 30 days.

If statistics matter to you, keep these facts in mind as you market your house, or as you consider making an offer.






With no limitation on price or listing date, 114 single family, non-condominimium, properties are currently showing a status of ACTIVE, no offer, in the RASCWMLS for the MIddleton High School geographic area. A random selection of 42 properties out of the 114, starting from lowest prices to highest, showed 24 had made at least one price reduction. The average number of price reductions for those that had made at least one is 2.25. There were 40 price changes in the lowest 20 priced homes, and 20 price changes in the 22 highest priced homes of the survey properties. November 3, 2010