Trulia is My Secret Weapon

Something hit me yesterday, kind of like a brick being thrown from the driver of a Toyota Prius with Road Rage... you get the idea, it's like a slap in the face only harder and well bigger. Trulia could very well be my secret weapon. I'm sharing this with you because... well, frankly NO ONE will read my blog so I can could tell you all kinds of secrets and no one would know. OK on with the actual post...

(for those wondering, the pink highlighting is my browser's doing as I have some functions on there, like analyzing no-follow tags... I'm kind of a geek)

I was sitting with a Seller yesterday explaining how we missed the market and his price is just too high evidenced by the lack of showing. I took him down the yellow brick road of marketing to explain that yes indeed his home is on Craigslist, postlets, realtor.com, and yes it's even on Anne Smith website even though she's a competitor. The engineer in me decided to even explain the whole IDX process and I continued to pummel him with details which is my normal process. "Wow, them with an overload of information" is my motto, or if you prefer my Wife's version of what I do, she says "You like to show them how smart you are."

In any case, the Seller was wanting to try it for a little bit longer... then it happened. Either the caffeine kicked in or my sugar levels had gotten right (it was after lunch) and I asked my seller to do test with me. (For our purposes we'll look at Buford, GA Real Estate)

See the purpose of the visit was to present a new CMA (from our MLS data) and to get a price reduction. I never misled this seller, I was blindsided by the market on this particular home as well. It wasn't until I took him to Trulia that he started to believe me...


Here's the steps:

1. Look for your home in a $25,000 price range.
2. Which home(s) stand out?
3. Now look under the "Price Range" button there should be a button the bottom of the next row that says, "RECENTLY SOLD" - Click that box and uncheck the one on top.
4. Mr. Seller what do you see?

EXACTLY!

The moral of the story is the Trulia can be your new secret weapon. Let's be REAL, Trulia probably won't help me sell any more listings, but neither will Realtor.com or any other site. The value of these sites has been the lead generation. However, Trulia has just earned my respect because (drumroll, please) Sellers will often not listen to your advice but will gladly do whatever they see on HGTV, Trulia in the same way can be that "objective" voice that we need.

I may scrap my CMAs altogether and just start doing CMOs (Comparative Market Overview).



Of course thankfully, Trulia isn't perfect... My seller's still need me...
Note: The homes above are NOT comparable to the address listed above, for those not swimming in my stream of consciousness.