Real estate pros find creative ways to assist clients close the deal

A fawn danced across the back yard of a beautiful home while real estate broker Connie Hoos showed it to a potential buyer. Wow. Staging can't get any better than this.

In addition, the home was picture-perfect and sits on waterfront property, enhancing this recent showing even more, she said.

"When you go out at night there, you hear the birds. You see herons; and there's wildlife everywhere," said Hoos, who works at Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Arlington Heights. "The backyard is paradise. It's like being on vacation, but you're at home in your own backyard."

Although Realtors will not always have the perfect house and staged setting - or be lucky enough to have a young deer scamper by - they must come up with creative ways to get houses sold in today's real estate market. So what are professionals doing?

"We're going back to the basics," Hoos said. "It has worked for many years and gets us in front of the buyer. We're doing open houses again, which a lot of agents aren't doing. It puts us face-to-face with people.

"We're looking for first-time homebuyers because of the $8,000 tax credit, and money that's available is geared toward them. FHA allows for 3 percent down. We recommend that sellers consider the FHA buyer or even pay closing costs because this is one of the few ways that you can buy a house with less than 20 percent down.

"We're offering first-time buyer discussions so we can educate people on how easy it is to purchase a home. People are often surprised that they can even buy a home without 20 percent down.

"We reach out to people. We've had informal get-togethers with tenants in apartment buildings where we work with a loan officer to answer questions about financing. We've tried different things."

Libertyville-based Cambridge Homes takes the concept of meeting with potential buyers to a more formal level by hosting homebuyer sessions at their communities to help people through the selling process.

Seminars are geared to the clientele at each community, said Dave Smith, vice president of sales and marketing for Cambridge Homes

"For first-time homebuyers, we simplify the process," Smith said. "Getting a loan is not about just getting a loan, but having a better FICO score and a better interest rate. If their credit score was good before, it may be only considered fair today.

"At active-adult communities, people may pay cash, so their FICO score may not be an issue, but maybe they need help selling their home."

Homebuyers Club, exclusive to Cambridge owner DR Horton, helps people move their FICO scores up. A lot of people have challenges to overcome before purchasing a home.

Cambridge may have a Realtor, lender or someone from its Homebuyers Club at a lunch meeting to assist their clients in the home-buying and selling process. At Carillon Club, the company features a staging professional to give buyers and potential buyers tips on staging homes they want to sell.

"Homes are selling," Smith said. "We sold two houses at two different communities where people had sold their (old) house in one day. So the market is changing. We had 51 sales in June, a phenomenally great month."

Laura O'Connor of Laura O'Connor Design in East Dundee has been kept busy organizing staging seminars for real estate agents and homeowners.

"We never did this before," O'Connor said. "It's a sign of the times, but it really does help. We've been working hand-in-hand with Pulte and Del Webb. They spread the word, and we come to the sales center. We've had 20 to 30 people at these seminars.

"It's a Pulte perk. If you want to buy a Pulte home, they'll help you sell your house and get you into a new house quicker. So they're willing to set up the space and notify potential buyers of the seminars. We've had a lot of positive feedback."

The Realtors love it because they can go back to their clients and give them some pointers on what to do or call O'Connor to help with clients. With staging, the objective is to get the house sold.

A lot of people think their house is perfect, but if they have a purple wall, they need to neutralize it and paint it beige, she said. Buyers want to visualize themselves in the home, so the seller needs to depersonalize the space.

For Realtor Bob Kopp of The Roman Realty Group in Geneva, it's all about the facts. "I show sellers statistical information and bar graphs. I'm kind of a numbers guy," he said. "There are data that show trends for each community, so these are objective numbers."

Kopp believes there are two important concepts in getting homes sold right now. "One is price," he said. "Prices have been trending down for some time, and sellers need to recognize this. It is critical not to price homes too high.

"Second is the condition of the home. Sellers need to do all the little things they didn't have to do two and three years ago. People love to walk into a home that is well staged with no clutter. That's made a huge difference in the house getting sold."

Janice Burke, a Realtor with Coldwell Banker in Carol Stream, uses a similar strategy. "When I meet with sellers, I have facts and a marketing plan. We're partners; they hire me for my advice and experience. We have to price the home to sell, and I can't let the seller dictate the price. I take control, give them my advice and put my plan into action.

"Part of my plan is staging. A lot of Realtors overuse that word, and they don't have a clue. I'm a certified stager. It's more than just putting a pretty flower in a vase on the table.

"Sometimes it's making the customer feel uncomfortable with what I tell them. If someone has been in their home 30 years with wallpaper everywhere, I'm going to tell them it has to come down, and if they have old carpeting, it will need to be replaced. We need to get it looking better than the competition."

Burke tells of a situation in Bartlett where she listed a home that was priced $100,000 more than it should have been. It needed updating on the inside. It was loaded with dark paneling and wallboard. The seller painted the entire house and replaced the carpeting, and it made a huge difference.

There's another house on the market now where sellers turned their third bedroom into a huge walk-in closet, and the Realtor was marketing it like that, Burke said. "I would have said, 'This has to go.' "

Licensed home inspector Chris Johnson says he is receiving more requests for pre-listing inspections these days. Johnson is the owner of CJ Home & Mold Inspection Inc. in Schaumburg.

"It's always better to pay for your own inspection so you know the condition of the house before you put it on the market," Johnson said. "This will make the whole sales process easier. You'll find out about any hidden problems and get them corrected in advance on your own terms or present the house as is with the problem and reflect it in the purchase price.

"Otherwise, when buyers hire their own home inspector and there is a problem, it can cause the buyer to get cold feet and the deal can often fall through. At best, surprise problems uncovered by the buyer's inspector will cause delays in closing, and usually the seller will have to pay for repairs at the last minute, or take a lower price on the home.

"Some people may be selling their house down the road, but they get a pre-listing inspection because they want to get all their ducks in a row so there are no surprises."