If you are considering selling your home or investment property Peabody Real Estate will help you get the best price by following three rules that go against the grain in the real estate industry.

Rule #1:  We never represent “sellers.”  We represent “clients.” 
Selling a house or income property is always a choice.  Too often people sell in a weak market because they feel they have no choice.  By offering refinancing, property management, maintenance, and renovation options to our clients Peabody Real Estate ensure that our clients are selling because it is the right choice for them not because they see it as their only option.  Example:

A physician who recently relocated out of the DC area considered selling, but instead refinanced at 4.625% on a 7 year ARM and rented to a military family who relocated to the area.   This client is now collected rent in excess of his mortgage and expenses and can sit on the house indefinitely while collecting cash and having someone else pay his mortgage.  The rental agreement has a termination clause should the owner decide to sell, but the situation has worked out so well that the owner decided to take the house off the market and even passed on subsequent unsolicited offers above appraisal value.  Some day he may sell, but only if he wants to at the price he wants.  Real estate agents who earn their living solely on sales commissions have an inherent conflict of interest – their incentive is to make a sale, not to act in their client’s interest.  The two are not the same. 

Peabody Residential is first and foremost a property management company.  Selling is always an option to consider as part of the sound management of a real estate portfolio, but selling is never the only option.  The first rule of selling is to never be a desperate seller.

Rule #2:  Part of selling a property is getting it ready to sell.
Because Peabody Property Management does both maintenance and landscaping we are in a position ensure that a property is in condition to show before a buyer arrives.  Often the return on investment for small items such as fixing a door or ensuring the lawn looks great can be phenomenal.  In some cases getting a house or investment property ready to sell requires addressing issues that are more than cosmetic such as a fixing code violations or completing an eviction.  Being able to address these issues ensures that our clients are strong sellers and not desperate sellers.  Peabody Property Management has the maintenance and landscaping staff to address all presale issues large and small at a cost that produces ROE (return on investment), not ROE (real estate owned).  Example:

An out of state seller dealing with another Real Estate agent learned that her agent showed her house several times to perspective buyers with trash all over front lawn because wind blew a neighbors trash down the street.  At no point did the real estate agent pick up the trash or make arrangements to deal with the situation because she felt that picking up trash was not part of her job.  The homeowner has since spoken to us.  We are happy to say that after that conversation neither picking up trash nor anything else related that property was part of her former agent’s job.

The maintenance and landscaping divisions of Peabody Residential allows our team to get a property ready to show quickly and efficiently.  One of our team members even has a certification in staging from the National Association of Stagers.  Yes – something that ridiculous actually does exist.

Rule #3:  We are compulsive about putting or clients interests first.
Everyone says that they are driven by the interests of their clients, but what does that really mean?   We believe in Karma and therefore we always put the interests of our clients first even when it means a financial loss to us.  Example:

In the recent economic downturn a client turned to us to help sell his home.  He was in a desperate financial situation and facing foreclosure.  In order to get the job done we waived all of our commissions and fees entirely to allow him to accept the best offer he could get and to get concessions from others.  It is a lot easier to get concessions from others including getting a bank to accept a short sale when you are waiving your commission entirely.  While the idea of commissioned sales professions accepting zero commission is extremely unusual for the industry, it is not unusual for us.  We have done it 5 times in the past 2 years.  In 2 of the 5 cases the home owner was facing foreclosure and in the other 3 instances was simply under financial strain and had to move on.  Ironically in each of these instances our clients was so appreciative that they went out of their way to refer work to us resulting in a situation where our pro bono work has proven to be profitable. 

Maybe Karma is just word for generating good will by putting other people’s interests first.