Ray Lane: Hi everyone, it’s Ray here and welcome to another edition of See Tucson. And today we’ve brought back our special guest from last week, Tony Ray Baker, who’s going to talk to us more specifically about selling a home right now in Tucson.
Ray Lane: Tony, welcome back to the show and as we know things are a little bit different right now when it comes to buying and selling homes, but especially as a seller, what do we need to be doing these days?
Tony Ray Baker: Hi Ray, thank you for having me back. Yeah, it’s very interesting. You know, the you think we are in a great seller’s market right now, but there there’s some inherent issues that have come along with the situation and as we talked about last week, the inventory has been declining since 2016-2017. So we’re going way down and the buyer poll is up. It’s going this way. So that would make a seller’s market of course and it sounds great but there’s some problems and I’m seeing a lot of DFT’s which means deal fell through. It’s an acronym and means the deal fell through right and that means the closing doesn’t happen.
Tony Ray Baker: And that’s a problem because that causes Financial loss, loss of time a lot of stress for buyers and sellers and the other thing is every single entity involved in helping them get through that process loses time and money. So it’s frustrating because you don’t want to see that happening and there are some things that could be done to stop it. But, you know covid-19 and the situation are causing some weird things.
Ray Lane: So let me ask you this then: if I’m a seller, what can I do right now to kind of you know, make sure that I get the most out of this and get my home sold, even though you know things are a little strange right now.
Tony Ray Baker: Yeah, that’s a great question. So most likely whereas what we’re seeing is every sellers probably going to get 8 to 18 offers and and that sounds fabulous and and it sounds great, but it’s not. So it’s a lot of work for the seller to go through trust me, but there are things that they could do that. I’ll give you some tips. Then that would help them weed through this quicker and make sure that before they even get to offers that they’re doing everything, right.
Tony Ray Baker: So back in the old days. It was all about photographs and staging and all that stuff that can that is more imperative than ever and one of the reasons is because a lot of our buyers are actually not Not looking at the house in person. They’re looking at it with the video, right? So I would say the probably one of my first tips would be make sure you have a really professional agent hire someone that’s been in business for a long time has a great reputation. I’d be on Google reading everything about their checking out every review written get to know that agent online before you hire them. And then I think that the next component for me is making sure that you can you interview this Your agent knows these things that they’re I would ask them. Are they hiring a professional photographer. They need to do a floor plan.
Tony Ray Baker: They need to do a 360 degree virtual tour. Now that’s a that’s absolute and the reason is is because I can put people into a walk at your own pace 360° tour. Yep. I can put those buyers online doing that and they can like the house or hate the house immediately from a walkthrough. So that would limit how many people come to the house for safety purposes, but what I’ve also noticed it just sold the house for 1.1 million. And the reason it’s sold was because the buyer and their kids walk through the house so many times in the virtual walkthrough, they fell in love with it drove out to the house verified that they liked it and they bought it.
Ray Lane: Wow.
Tony Ray Baker: So I think hiring the agent that knows how to use all of these Technologies is going to be super imperative to a good sale. I would ask if they know. Know how to do Facebook if they’re using Instagram. Are they using Tick-Tock? And I know everybody thinks that’s a kids program, but I’ll tell you right now I can get 200 views of a house on Facebook. I can get 500 to a thousand on the same video on Tic Toc right now.
Tony Ray Baker: So are they posting on those platforms? And then experience is is what you need for negotiating and there’s a bunch of issues happening right now. We’ve got covid 19 contingencies and that requires additional Clauses in those contracts. I have a seller right now that is being held up for a from a move into another country. And so we have to write special Clauses for that buyer to understand that until that seller can get the okay to enter that country. They’re coming to they cannot sell their home. Yeah, right and then we’ve got So many other problems going on with Just For example, the deals falling through because people are showing up with video camera buyers are in a panic trying to get these houses without arriving into town and seeing them and then they look at them on video with the agent write up an offer show up to the house during the inspection period and they find out they don’t like the house so that deal falls.
Tony Ray Baker: So there’s a bunch of stuff. There’s even more than I’m telling you. I think if a seller were to at least go through that those tips that process I think that that would set them in at least a better position and have a much better chance of getting through the process.
Ray Lane: Nice. Now when it comes to all the imagery the videos the 3D tours how involved should the homeowner be because you know, certainly you should ask that of the agent beforehand, but you know, if the agents not doing those kinds of things is that something that the homeowner should push for very hard.? Is it something that they should take into? Their own hands and get done if that’s the case?
Tony Ray Baker: Yeah, I wouldn’t even I would even sorry. There’s smoke in the air somewhere throats driving me nuts today. Yeah, I wouldn’t even go that far. I would actually I would if I was hiring an agent right now to sell my home. They would already have told me that they’re going to do a 360 degree virtual tour. They’re going to do a floor plan. So people can look at that on paper that they’re going to do professional photography. They’re going to post it all over social media.
Tony Ray Baker: This all needs to be done and they need to help them stage they need to make sure their honey do list is ready to go. You know, the idea is to limit the amount of time people are in your home right now. And the reality is we want to make sure that they’re going to get through that process. The other thing I would look at by the way, which is another tip if I was a seller I’d be talking to my potential agent about how they handle the loan process. And
Tony Ray Baker: that seems weird because you’re the seller but the reality is is that I can find out so much information by calling the lender involved with the buyer and I will also tell you that most of the agents probably now recommending to their Cellars only to accept offers that have a local lender, a local appraiser and a local underwriter and if you’re using anything with little rocket gimmicks And online quicker than everybody else, if that buyer is using that type of lender. They’re probably not getting their loan their offers accepted over and over and they don’t know why because sellers are Savvy and know we want local companies working on these on these transactions right now. So yeah, there’s it’s there’s so much there’s so many little nuances change this this time around.
Ray Lane: Well, you know, you mentioned one thing that I’ve always found interesting and you mentioned the staging NG and you know when we watch you know these, you know do it yourself buying selling TV shows and whatnot. They always bring in these stages and put in really expensive furniture and whatnot. How how far should homeowners be going when it comes to staging is it just cleaning things up and keeping it tidy or do you really want to go all out and have people come in stage the actual home?
Tony Ray Baker: Depends on the house and it depends on the price. how far that goes? If for us my background is design, so it’s really easy for my team to go in with the seller and make recommendations using their own furnishings and maybe moving some things around maybe some packing some stuff up into boxes and getting them ready for their move. So there’s that that kind of staging we also have a hired Stager who can do that with our Sellers as well. If the house is vacant we might put in some minimal staging just to make it a little more, you know comfortable.
Tony Ray Baker: So I might go that route if it’s a million-dollar house then yeah, it could be we need to upscale some staging and put in some real Furniture. It’s a very thin line there you’re walking because we’re talking about taste and you certainly don’t want to insult the self are right, but honesty and transparency with a seller will go so much further than anything. Else and I think that that’s a trust level you get with the seller as long as you’re on the same page and we all know what working together to get to the same goal.
Tony Ray Baker: Then you know staging is important and I think just understanding how a photographer is going to walk through that house and how that’s going to work. That’s another part of staging is I look at how the photographs are going to come out. So I move furniture to make sure that they’re going to make those photographs look great.
Tony Ray Baker: Our ultimate goal is, let’s face facts, I want to get as few people into the house for safety purposes. I want to get as few in there as quickly as I can and get that buttoned up and into a, you know, an active contingent as quick as we can for for the buyers out there on the seller just so that we can get through the process.
Ray Lane: Great and the you know, the one thing we talked about last time it was mentioned here a little bit as well is that the inventory is really falling. So if you are somebody thinking of selling a home, is this really the time To just jump in and do it because you know, there’s so many buyers and so few homes right now?
Tony Ray Baker: I’m so glad you asked that I was talking about this last year. And and the amazing thing is is that our seller Equity positions are the highest in history. And yeah, these sellers have more money in their homes than ever before so There’s a really cool thing that’s happening. It’s a win-win for sellers who become buyers and that is this the seller sells their house. They have massive amount of equity they can take that equity and use it as the down payment on the new by let’s say they have a three-bedroom and they need a four-bedroom and they like to throw in a swimming pool.
Tony Ray Baker: Now they buy upgrade they upgrade to the new house most likely based on these interest rates being at an all-time low and Equity position at an all-time high. They’re going to put down 20% Scent and they’re actually going to probably have a payment almost identical to the one they just left behind that’s like taking a pinto and getting a Ferrari for the same payment an amazing place for sellers right now. Also, yeah, it’s a if you have the if you’re okay with the covid-19 situation and you under have somebody that’s paying attention to safety protocol and you’re okay with making the move it you can’t go any quicker as far as I am concerned because right now we have buyers trying to buy and that’s a perfect, you know place for a seller to be
Ray Lane: Beautiful. All right. Well with that, is there any other tips that sellers should think about before we get out of here today?
Tony Ray Baker: Yeah. I just I do your homework. I believe you might if you’re going to interview an agent if you’re going to interview me find out who I am online first. Google my name, Google the agent’s name you’re going to interview but do your homework. Read the reviews, ask your friends who they recommend and these are these are things that are important right now. You got to get a good, strong, professional person with you on this.
Ray Lane: Beautiful. Well Tony, right? Thank you for bringing us all of this great information. Now if anybody wants to reach out and speak to you about selling their home, how can they find you?
Ray Lane: Thank you. Yeah, just call me at (520) 631-8669 That’s my cell phone. You can text me there as well. And my email is Tony Ray@SeeTucsonHomes.com. And that is our website as well, SeetTcsonHomes.com.
Ray Lane: We appreciate that and thank you for joining us this week. And of course if you’re ready to start selling your home, well now may be a good time to do that because there’s a lot of buyers looking for homes in the Tucson area. So be sure to reach out to Tony Ray Baker or to somebody that you trust but get out there do your research speak to friends. Family and start the process so that you can get the most for your home when you make a sale.
