Ray Carman – Auctioneer

This morning, while attending a home inspection done by my good friend, Geno Swick, owner of B4 Home Inspections, we had a discussion regarding the phone. I was sending a text message, and he joked that was going to start getting people hurt the more we tried to text and drive. And he is right!

This led us into discussing the old adage, “If you do not answer your phone, your competition will.”

This saying is sadly very true in our world and industry today. Everyone wants you to answer their call right NOW and have the information they are looking for RIGHT NOW! They say in order to succeed, you have to be available. Unfortunately, this is very true. If you do not answer right away, they can very quickly reach your competition in the business.

I will not lie, this concept bothers me quite a bit. I do like to be prompt and answer my phone if I at all can. But there are just some moments and times that I am not available to get to it right away. I may be in a meeting, I may be attending a function, or I might just be giving some much needed time to one of my daughters. The fact is, your call ( actually just took a sec to take a phone call in the middle of writing this ) is VERY IMPORTANT, even vital for the existence of this company and my personal business. We want to talk to you and speak to you as soon as possible, BUT, life does not always allow that to happen in the given moment you want it to.

I have learned to understand there are some people who require you to hold their hand through a process and live with them on the phone. I have also learned, that sometimes, these are the very clients you are better off referring to someone else (even if it is a close friend or a HUGE deal) if they cannot survive a moment with your attention on something else. Life has plenty of strings pulling your attention, the LAST thing you need is an overbearing customer/client draining you of the energy you need to do your work.

So, if I can’t get to your call right away, and you feel compelled to call the competition, I want you to know, form my point of view, I understand! Sometimes you HAVE to put the phone away in order to enjoy the life God has given you.

BUT, if I miss you, and you can wait just a few minutes (or hours), leave a message, I promise I will get back to you as soon as life allows, and it will be my pleasure and honor to serve you!

Ray Carman

If we were all honest, this is our goal! Watching the olympics this week, NO-ONE would say they were our there going for Silver! No, they all were there to take home the Gold!

This also is true in our industry selling real estate. We all, deep down inside, would like to be the #1 Real Estate agent in our area! Some even gun for the top spot in the nation. These are very worthy aspirations, and can mean huge financial rewards and continued success. If, however, they become our primary target, they can also be the path to least resistance and doing things that are not ethical or legal.

I would admit, I like to go for the gold! BUT, in the past two years, my understanding of “the gold medal” has change significantly. Sure, I would like the overwhelming success of saying I closed a home every day each year and exceeded everyone else in total sales value. I would have to lie to say that is not true. BUT, I have found that the true key to success in my business world is not necessarily defined by my sales value at the end of the year! But rather by the satisfaction of the customers I serve each day.

I can hear the chanting now, “Yeah right, that is just a cop out for someone who knows they never have a shot to become the top sales agent in Sumner County TN.” But, in the honest truth, that is no cop out. In fact, I believe the top sales agent would in fact say that at some point in their career, they too would have never dreamed they would be where they are today. And knowing this individual, I know that even today, as they sale homes right and left, their ultimate goal, and key to their success started with a simple desire to be sure their customer “THAT DAY” was satisfied!

So, in my own journey through Real Estate and Auctions, I have learned that in my efforts to be #1, I must first be #1 to the clients I have every given day, and be sure that at the end of each transaction, I have given y all to care for their needs! And if I never reach “top sales agent of the year”, I will be the top sales agent for the person I am serving today!

Two years ago, I started a new personal journey in Real Estate.  It began be leaving behind a well established (98 years) family Real Estate and Auction business to start a new company doing the exact same thing, but without the big bills of the store front office. To be honest, it was rather nerve racking, as all the business sense said this was crazy. For me, it was moving from the well known into the Great Unknown in the Well Beyond!

I had a mission, a burning question, and a desire to know if some ideas I had were true or just unrealistic dreams.

My mission was to incorporate some fresh marketing ideas with the grounded tradition my family had put into the business. In our ever changing world, it is rather difficult to stay with the curve, much less ahead of it. Yet, something in me was screaming that I could sell Real Estate with all the integrity and hard work I had learned from my family without the typical large expenses incurred by owning a major store front office and spending the advertising money in the traditional ways (news papers and magazines.) I had gotten to a point that I just HAD to know if this were true.

My burning question was, could I do this while maintaining my sales volume, and yet free up some time for more “play time” with my two young daughters? Could I do this without sacrificing the things that meant most to me? To be honest, it seemed crazy, especially since I was going to have to start from scratch and without any family support outside of my wife and kids! (a 3 yr old and 2 yr old think Dad can do anything)!

Two years have passed, and this is what I have learned to date:

1. YES, you can sell real estate, and effectively, without a store front office. I was given permission by my City to join the ranks of some “old timers” and run my office from my home. They also agreed other agents could work under me as long as they do not come “work” out of my house. ( I love my affiliates, but I do not want them working at my home anyway, so this stipulation has been easy to adhere to!) The Pro’s are you do not have all the bills and mortgage to pay each month that accompany a big office. The con’s one might say is not having a place to “meet clients” or have a traffic count each day for market recognition. There is also not the place to “retreat to work” when you need a place to be to yourself to do paperwork or type a post. I would also counter each of these con’s with the following: rarely do clients need to come to you to meet you. Typically you can meet them at their place or a neutral site and these can be found everywhere (restaurants, coffee shops, etc…). These same places can be used to retreat for work like writing this post as now many places offer free WiFi connections. For the “market recognition,” having an office does gain you some visibility, but the amount of “walk-in” traffic does not pay for the office by any means, and in these days, you are measured by your ability to sell and also the old method of “word of mouth” still brings in the largest amount of your business. If you have your signs up on properties and people see you moving those properties, you will gain plenty of office and personal recognition for your business to maintain and grow.

2. YES, my ideas in marketing have turned out to be correct. In my two years, I have purposely not run any ads in local papers or magazines promoting property. I have run only 4 ads in that time doing a self promotion of myself and our Auction services. Instead of these high cost ads, we have placed the properties on various websites (MLS, Realtor.com, Zillow.com, Trulia.com, Craigslist, and some others) and have seen great traffic to each property and a typical sales rate on the properties properly priced. I honestly cannot see any negatives to this approach personally, although some would argue that ads in the local papers brings you recognition in the local area. This could be true. But, with over 90% of todays buyers doing all their research online, they are not even picking up a paper to look at real estate, and therefore, your ability to be seen appears to be better online and through activity, than in the local papers and magazines. (If you remember this post, LA Times has now dropped their real estate section due to low traffic count and ad purchases by real estate professionals)

3. It has not been easy. Although the business has been tremendously blessed, there have been consequences. Some family relationships from the former business have been strained, and some even broken. It has required much effort to maintain the business and get it on its feet, much like teaching a child to walk. And when you are used to running (in the family business), it is hard to go back to a crawl and teach a new thing to go from scratch. And at times, it has been extremely taxing on my time. But when measured in a cup, I have experienced both my personal worst and best productive months during this time. I have been privileged to be joined by some great agents, and have seen my time with my family increase. And now, as bills continue to be paid, and business has been increasing, it seems as of weighed in the balance, it is possible to be effective in this business of Real Estate and Auctions without the huge overhead of a store front office and traditional marketing methods.

The days of tomorrow are here, and we are hoping to be a part of that future. If you would be interested in how we can help market your property, or would like to see if Priority One might be a fit for you in the Real Estate world, please give us a call or drop me an email, RayCarman@gmail.com.

And I will not let this post be complete without giving praise and honor to God for being the rock on which this company is built. He is our Priority and we strive to serve him in all we do! “Thank you Jesus for this opportunity to serve you in the world of Real Estate and Auctions!”

Recently I have noticed several advertisements for an Estate (Yard) sale. In fact, my wife just recently attended one here in the area. People were their by the droves she said, and they had hired a company to come help manage the sale and price the items. This brought to mind a question for me in regards to the Pro’s and Con’s of both methods of settling an estate. Me, being an Auctioneer, of course I have a slight bias toward one over the other, but once you write down the comparisons, it starts to make sense.

1. At the Estate Sale, you get to control the price on each item sold. At Auction the price is set by the competing bidders!  One could consider this a Pro for the Estate Sale, and in some cases it very well is a Pro. Being able to set your price and negotiate on your terms is a huge plus. But, at Auction, many times a competition for a piece can actually drive a price beyond what you were thinking. This is an upside in an auction. To be fair, I think it also necessary to mention that at auction, many times a “particular” item for which you expected a certain price will bring below its value, but this is often offset by many other items which you thought had very little value bringing more than you imagined, thus offering a balance to the scale. The Pro’s and Con’s balance here!

2. At Auction, everything is sold in one day! This is a point I make to anyone weighing their options. I cannot recall the number of times I have been asked, “What will we do with what is left, or, With won’t sell?” My response is usually the same, ” When we are done, you might start to wonder if we are going to leave the house intact!” This is a great benefit to an Estate Auction in that everything is sold in one setting. Many times at an Estate Sale, at the end of the weekend, you are slashing prices in hopes someone will take everything off your hands, and what you have left you are left wondering what to do with it. This of course is after you have been “cherry picked” on all your good items. To me this defeats the purpose of “setting your own price” (see #1) because you end up cutting them as your time winds down. Pro for the Auction!

3. Advertising cost! I know this plays big in the minds of people when it comes to an Estate settlement. And the truth is, it is MUCH cheaper to run advertising for an Estate Sale than it is an Auction. That would be very difficult to cover up. Pro for the Estate Sale.

4. Attracting the right crowd! This plays into the previous paragraph. When you are handling an Estate, it is imperative that you attract the proper crowd in order to obtain the prices you are hoping to receive for your items and property. With the advertising for an Estate Sale in the local newspaper section for Yard Sales, you are going to attract the “Yard Saler’s” as my wife likes to cal herself! And with this crowd, you will have your bargain hunters and trained negotiators! When you allow an Auctioneer to properly advertise your Estate Auction (yes it will cost more), he/she is able to focus your advertising toward to the “crowd” who will be most interested in your items and property. You will have a broad coverage for those same people mentioned above, but you will also get direct coverage to those who have an interest in your specialty items (farm equipment, Antiques, Firearms, Unique Collections, etc…). This means by spending more to attract the right crowd of buyers, you increase your opportunity to obtain a higher price for your merchandise and more competitors bidding for the same items! Pro to the Auction.

1. Real Estate and Personal Property. At an estate sale, many times you will have a home, farm, and personal property to offer. And, many times, people attempt to offer both in the same day by employing the Estate Sale method. I do not have a percentage on hand, but by all experience I have had, rarely can you sell the property for what you think it is worth, and you are sure to gather in offers from folks trying to “get a GREAT deal.” At Auction, this is true as well, but your investors that make the auction circuit are seasoned investors who know their values and have years of experience dealing with auctioneers. On the flip side, you also have a seasoned Auctioneer who is well aware of your market value on your home or farm, and they have been striving to bring in the “Using Bidder” to bid against your investor. This is the recipe for having a great sale, and not having to wait for the property to make it through the Private Treaty rounds while it competes with an over filled market in these down times.  Pro for the Auction.

There are many more arguments that could be made for both sides, and I think you should choose the path you are more inclined to walk. Both have their ups and their downs, but when placed in the scales, and balanced with the emotions involved, I think an Auction is a great value for your money.

I would love to hear your opinions on the matter! What are your thoughts, reasonings, and opinions?