For the first time in three years…

Posted on November 26, 2011 by Paul Scherrer

Sycamore Group has office space available!

Imagine spending your days in the Arts District of Carmel, closing deals in a sweet office environment… This space is absolutely perfect for a team or group of agents that would like to go with our unique OneFee™ commission model but would love to work out of our office instead of your home office. The photos are great, but you have to see it to appreciate how perfect this space is.

For the first time in…well, forever:
The real estate game is changing fast. Now, more than ever, the use of technology is altering how we do things on a daily basis. So to help you take advantage of the available applications to make your job easier and more rewarding, we’re giving a new Apple iPad 2 to anyone who signs with Sycamore Group before January 31, 2012.

So let’s review:
Great office space, the OneFee, a new iPad 2… Looks like it’s going to be a great year! Want to know more? Send me an email at paul@sycamoregroup.net or call me at (317) 255-7285.

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Go for the win, or settle for the tie?

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Chris Scherrer

A classic American drama unfolded on the football field Saturday morning. Two fourth grade teams had battled to all square at the end of regulation and ventured into overtime. There are two things you need to know to appreciate the gravity of the situation: Overtime rules in CYO football allow each team just one chance to score. After a touchdown, they have the option of kicking an extra point, going for the extra point by running a play from the five-yard line, or going for two extra points by running a play from the ten.

On this blustery October morning, both teams had scored their overtime touchdowns and the coach was faced with a decision: Should they go for one extra point to tie, or two points to win? The coach quickly (and easily) made his decision…

And this got me thinking: Would you go for the tie or the win? 

Most everyone has a visceral reaction to a situation like this. You know– almost instantly– what you would do in the same circumstance.  In fact, somewhere in your mind you’re already thinking of what you would have done; it’s nearly automatic. I don’t know what makes us this way. I’m not sure what wiring was set, or how long ago it was formed, that makes it so easy for us to make these calls. It’s interesting to me that not all of us would agree and neither decision would be the wrong one, but it does make me wonder how this internal wiring predisposes us for certain paths in life.

I’m willing to wager, if I took a straw poll of the 30+ agents here in the Sycamore Group office, an overwhelming percentage would have gone for the win. Some of this is the ability to take a risk, but some is just preparation and planning. If you’ve prepared well, if you know both the strengths of your team and the conditions of the opponent (or the market), then the risk is mitigated. You’re not necessarily going out on a thin limb, you’re really just leveraging what you know against what you don’t. It’s a calculated risk; an informed decision. But, in the end, there is risk in everything, and there is a certain amount of the unknown in any situation.

So would you take that risk?

Take the tie, or go for the win?

(Want to be surrounded by more people that think like you do? Give us a call at 317-216-3723 or send me an email at chris@sycamoregroup.net and I’ll reply very confidentially. Let’s talk about how you can make 100% commission on your winning attitude.)

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WWWBD: What would Warren Buffett do?

Posted on August 30, 2011 by Chris Scherrer

Living– and thriving– in the “new normal”
With unemployment hovering around 9% locally and the economy still struggling to emerge from this recession, I hear a lot of talk about the “new normal” in real estate. Most of it is advice about how to you should learn to live with it. Every time I hear that we should lower expectations and adjust our goals to match what’s happening in the market, I cringe a little. Instead, I think we’d all be better served by adjusting our strategy to be better able to identify new opportunities and ensure we’re best positioned to take advantage of them.

WWWBD: What would Warren Buffett do?
Warren Buffett sat in his bath tub last Wednesday night and decided to invest in Bank of America. Where other people saw a business in trouble, he saw an opportunity. Within 24 hours, the ink was drying on a $5 billion deal, the stock was up 10%, and he had already earned almost $1.3 billion on his investment. An analyst remarked that “this is a good deal for Bank of America, but it’s a great deal for Warren Buffett.”

To be sure, we’re not all Warren Buffett, and relatively few of us have the power to move the markets with our decisions. But the point is that Buffett saw opportunity where others saw weakness. He looked at all the same facts available to everyone else and came to a different conclusion. Most importantly, he was willing to make the necessary moves to put himself in the best possible position to take advantage of the opportunity he saw.

We’re not out of the woods yet.
The “new normal” we’re experiencing isn’t really all that different from all the “new normals” of history. It’s the nature of real estate– and business in general– that markets fluctuate. Remember when we were selling record numbers of houses? It wasn’t that long ago. That couldn’t last forever, and this won’t either. So whether you think we’re already at the bottom of the current trend or haven’t yet reached it, we should all conclude that the downturn will– at some point– end. Though not as many homes are being sold as in years past, there are still a lot of people buying and selling for all the traditional reasons: they need something bigger or smaller, they’ve had a job change, they want to move school districts. Some are even buying because they recognize that interest rates are at or near all-time lows, and buying and selling could be less expensive right now than at any time for the rest of our lives.

Is this the beginning of the end? Maybe; maybe not. It doesn’t really matter.
The question isn’t really about when the market will fully recover, or when the economy will be growing at a healthy pace. The question you should be asking is “What can I do now to make sure I’m in the best position possible when it does turn around?”

The answers vary for everyone, but there are two fundamental ideas: cut expenses and increase income. For real estate agents, changing brokers is just about the only way to accomplish both at one time. If your current broker is charging you a variety of office, administration, and advertising fees AND taking a percentage of your commission, you can greatly decrease your expenses and increase your income with one phone call. Our OneFee(™) structure might just be the best way to improve your position. If you want to see how it works, run your numbers through our free savings calculator. If you like what you see, give me a call at 317-216-3723. I’d love to have a quick, confidential discussion about how Sycamore Group Associates and our unique OneFee(™) structure can help you cut expenses and make more money.

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Negotiating: Love it or hate it?

Posted on June 10, 2011 by Chris Scherrer

Some people LOVE to negotiate. They love the thrill they get when they “win” in a deal. They live for the time when they need to buy a new car and wouldn’t be caught dead doing it at CarMax. For them, it’s simply part of the fabric that makes them who they are. I have a friend who would dicker over the price of his groceries if he could. Other people (including me) consider negotiating as a necessary evil; it’s something we have to do, but given the choice or the opportunity, we’d prefer not.

Where do you fit?

It would seem that real estate agents are more likely to fall into the first group. After all, negotiating is a part of our lives: We negotiate commissions with our sellers, we negotiate the price of the house, the conditions of the sale, the results of the inspection. Aside from working directly with clients to help them find the right house, negotiating is likely our next highest time-consuming activity. And for quite a few of you, at least once a year, you’ll find yourself negotiating with your broker over things like commission splits, marketing fees, office rental, your share of the office supplies, phone use, and on and on.

But my experience – and my conversations with other agents like you – tells me this may not be the case. In fact, I think most agents feel that negotiating is part of the job and you do it well, especially when it’s on behalf of your client. But sometimes, after fighting tooth and nail for every concession you can get (or, for the seller, that you can avoid!), you find you don’t have a lot of energy left to fight for yourself. And really, when the broker is dictating the terms of the agreement, you start out on uneven footing, many times “winning” things that you don’t need or don’t use.

This is one of the primary reasons we created the One Fee™. With our structure, you pay a low monthly fee and nothing else. Your commission is yours to keep. There are no additional transaction fees, or office rental, Franchise fees, or anything else to worry about. We keep our overhead very low by eliminating “amenities” – “amenities” offered by other firms that give you little or no benefit. No national advertising campaigns to support, no huge office building to subsidize, no big administrative staff to pay for. We provide all of the brokerage services you actually need at a fair cost you can afford, so the reward you get for working harder is all yours.

I think you’ll find our approach refreshing. Certainly the 29 other agents here at Sycamore Group do. (Feel free to call one of them and ask about it.) Then, if you’d like to learn a little more about negotiating a little less, let me know.

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The real estate market is a little crazy right now…what should you do?

Posted on May 19, 2011 by Chris Scherrer

You might be feeling that the current market is crazy. Out of control. Completely unpredictable.

You’re right.

Things are undoubtedly strange. Everything seems great one month and so quiet the next you can hear crickets. You spend each month waiting to see what outside influence is going to swoop in and turn your best laid plans aside… But while the market may be in turmoil, it’s not insane.

Author Rita Mae Brown said “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” I was thinking today about how true that is… and how often each of us do that very thing. You might be guilty of it right now. Have you considered, with all the market volatility, that now might be the perfect time to exert more control, instead of less? That now might be the very moment to do something completely different than what you’ve been doing, even if it worked in the past?

I know lots of people who are struggling. People who feel like they’ve cut all the fat out of their business and it still doesn’t feel like enough. “I’m running as lean as I can,” an agent recently told me. “I’ve cut my staff, eliminated every variable expense I can find, and I’ve cut back on marketing as much as I dare.”

I wondered about his fixed costs. “Have you looked at those?” I asked. You see, many people think of fixed costs as just that: fixed; immovable; unchanging (and unrelenting!) But if your fixed costs include brokerage fees like franchise fees, desk fees, and commission splits, then you should start considering them unnecessary, because they can all be lowered or eliminated.

Years ago, long before this crisis began, my brother and I realized that we could provide brokerage services at a lower cost and pass the savings back to agents. We invented the One Fee™, which is a flat monthly fee and nothing else.

Under our unique model, the commission that you worked for is yours. You keep it– all of it– every time you sell something. If you’re reading this and you’re doing the math in your head, you’ve already realized that we’re talking about a difference of thousands of dollars, and all of it coming directly off the bottom line and going back to where it belongs: with you.

That simple solution, the One Fee™, is how we’ve been doing things at The Sycamore Group for the last 7 years, and how we still do it now, in this market, when things feel just a little crazy. If you’re still paying huge commissions on what you sell, now is time to stop doing the same thing and expecting something different to happen. You can take control of your fixed expenses by identifying those that are unnecessary… and then you can eliminate them.

We have a savings calculator on our web site that shows just how dramatic this difference can be. But sometimes it helps to hear what other people think. For that, I refer you to our agents themselves who can tell you how it feels to get a commission check for 100%. Or, if you just have any questions, you can give me, Chris Scherrer, a call at (317) 216-3723 or send me an email. I look forward to talking with you.

Posted in General, Real Estate, Real Estate Broker, Real Estate Commissions, Selling Houses | 1 Comment