In our May episode of Monday Market Minute, Carrie McCormick from @Properties discusses current trends in the market that you can use in your business. Carrie also talks about the creative ways buyers are using to stand out and she provide tips on how to present them to the other side. Carrie also shares tips on how she uses bullet-point cover letters to send to summarize the contract. Last, DJ shares his late-Mother’s Day tip.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Carrie can be reached at carrie@atproperties.com or by phone at 312.961.4612.
Please follow Carrie on Instagram by clicking here.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
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Welcome to get real, the largest podcast made for real estate agents and also by real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris. I am your guide and host through the show and today on the show is we have our monthly series called The Monday market minute with Carrie McCormick from the Carrie McCormick Real Estate Group here in Chicago at at properties. Carrie is a top 1% producer in Chicago with over 20 years of experience helping buyers sellers and investors. In fact, in the past 12 months out of 44,000 real estate agents in the Chicagoland area, Carrie is ranked in the top 15 in production not 15%, the top 15 Out of all 44,000 agents. She’s a true superstar and an expert in everything from first time homebuyers, veteran investors and luxury properties. She also works with a lot of developers like the place I just moved into that was one of Kerry’s relationships. And she is often chosen to represent these high end developments, please visit Carrie at her website, which is Carrie McCormick, r e.com. And also follow her on Instagram at Carey McCormick real estate. Carrie once again, welcome to the show.
Carrie McCormick 1:52
As always, I love being here. I’m glad that our markets keeping up with with everything that’s going on in the world. So it’s been very busy here in Chicago and all the listeners I’m sure it’s busy in your market as well.
D.J. Paris 2:05
Yeah, we hear from listeners every day. And everyone’s just saying how how active the market is. And there’s a lot of frustrated people representing buyers and a lot of really happy people representing sellers, right so so there’s there’s just a lot going on. And but very exciting times rates are still low. And a lot of people want to want to buy and guess not as many people want to sell, but we’re still seeing a lot of selling activity.
Carrie McCormick 2:31
Yeah, so we all are seeing and saying the same thing. And one tool that I use quite a bit for those that are here in Chicago is the Chicago Association of Realtors. And I’ll put it on my screen for those that are listening or viewing. The Chicago Association of Realtors puts out at a forum called fast stats which is very useful and helpful just kind of gauging the market from a data standpoint for those who’ve got data driven clients. And just reading this report of what they just put out, and again, we all are feeling the low inventory push right now and it’s creating a lot of stress and frustration on the buyers right now. And we just have to remind our clients who are buyers, everyone’s in the same boat it’s not just them. We’re seeing our buyers having to submit multiple offers on multiple property I should say multiple offers but there were submitting offers on multiple properties. And you know, it’s taking a little bit of time to get something under contract just because there’s so many buyers right now and in addition, there’s so much cash in the market which is unbelievable so we’re seeing a ton of cash buyers and for those who need financing or have financing we’ve got to be very creative in structuring their their offer one one that I saw that was really cute. I mean everyone’s kind of going to the extreme when you’re a buyer is you know what can you offer the seller of course price is always going to be number one. But then there’s some also there’s other creative things of course taking the house as is, you know, maybe doing an inspection but telling Mr. or Mrs. Seller, we’re not going to be asking you for anything. So again taking the home as is waiving mortgage or appraisal contingency is another big thing that we’re seeing. I’ve seen some extremes as as far as paying the sellers last year tax bill pay, moving fees, paying closing costs fees for the seller, paying to clean their house when they move out. I mean there’s all these scenarios and as I see offers come in and you know making a chart of you know what offer number one is giving you what offer number two is giving you what to offer number three is giving you and so on. And I’m constantly creating these columns of like what these buyers are willing to give Have, and some of them are getting even very personal. One interesting one that I saw recently was a video, you know, you know, a lot of write letters to the sellers explaining who they are, and you know what their situation is, which is great. But now we’re starting to see video testimonials or video letters to the sellers. There was one where the girl started crying. You know, she’s saying to the sellers, I just, we just got married, I just had my first baby, we sold our house, we have nowhere to go, you know, we’re presenting you this offer over asking price, we’re taking it as is we’re doing this for you, you know, A, B, and C, you know, we hope that you select US and then tears, you know, so it’s like, there’s, you know, stuff that I’ve never had 20 years in this in this market, I’ve not seen, you know, stuff like that happen. And it’s just it’s getting created creative, but it also is very frustrating for the buyers that are out there.
D.J. Paris 5:59
So I have a question. That’s, I’m so glad we’re talking about this. So you know, you had mentioned all these creative ways that buyers can stand out. And instead of just doing credits, to be able to say, hey, we will take the house as is, you know, we’ll we’ll pay moving costs or closing costs or taxes or, you know, a cleaning and how, as a buyer’s representative a buyer’s agent, how do you? How is what how do you think the best way to communicate that to the listing agent is to sort of stand out? Do you? Is that a phone call where you say, Hey, we have a bunch of creative ways that we we really want to stand out in this? Or do you just put it on the actual offer itself? Or what would you recommend to really make sure that the listing agent sees all these cool things that you want to offer?
Carrie McCormick 6:45
I think you’ve got to cover all of your bases, I think you want you definitely have to put it in the offer. Maybe it’s an addendum to the offer, because everything needs to be in writing, right? You know, it can’t be just me saying that we’re going to be doing XY and Z, you want it definitely to be in the offer in writing. So as it’s presented to the seller, they do receive it. So I do three things. One, it goes in the offer for sure it goes on an addendum, and it’s signed by the buyers. So again, it’s part of the offer package. Number two, when I submit the offer to the seller side, I create sort of a cover letter, if you will, which it’s you know, think about the old resume days when you’re searching for a job. It’s kind of giving a summary, a quick summary of the offer. I’m a bullet point kind of gal. So I like just to do a quick bullet points of what we’re offering. And some you know, some of the extras, and then I follow up with the phone call. I think, you know, communication is absolutely key people like to do business with people that they like, it’s important in our industry, you know, to have these relationships. And that’s why it’s important for, you know, people like myself that that happened in the market for a long time. And we’ve got these good rep reputations and relationships with other brokers, we know you know how the deal is going to go. So there’s a lot involved in it right now. But you just have to remain professional put your best foot forward in obviously.
D.J. Paris 8:17
So question. So as a as a listing agent, how often because the whole idea of a cover letter is such a great idea. I’m curious as somebody who’s who’s been doing this quite a long time and also doing it right now, when you have listings, how often do you get those sort of bullet point cover letters? I don’t I’m curious how common that is?
Carrie McCormick 8:38
Um, not that often, I have to say, I mean, that’s just something it’s really kind of stemmed from, you know, just me trying to be organized and doing a summary and just how my brain operates. So I kind of invented that for myself. But when I see offers come over from other brokers, you know, everyone operates very differently, right? It’s right or nothing’s wrong, it just again, it’s very preference. But what I find too, is that some brokers will give, you know, a little summary of the offer, but it’s really just, you know, price closing date, and I don’t know, financing or something like that. But you still have to go through the offer. And then I find, you know, oh, wait a second. It’s contingent on the sale of their home. Oh, wait a second, they want a warranty. Oh, wait a second, you know, yes. Like the broker doesn’t list all kind of the negatives. And their summary they only list the positives. You know, so I do think is just again, putting a nice cover letter together really just helps streamline and make the process a little bit more easy. And that’s what everyone’s looking for.
D.J. Paris 9:41
Yeah, it’s such an awesome it’s such an amazing idea. I don’t know why we’ve never I’ve never had this conversation on the show before. But what a smart idea to list out all of the here’s what we’re offering. Here are the challenges we have and putting them in a bullet point format is so great because we Looking through a contract, or looking through an offer or, you know, contract, it is it’s it’s frustrating it none, none of its organized, it’s all over the place. It’s written in legalese. And, of course, the listing agent is going to have to double check everything in there. But if you can list everything out on that, on that front page, I know just from an organizational perspective, visually, it’s so much easier just to see I mean, it seems like a small thing. But I think for listing agents that are dealing with all of these multiple offers, boy that would make that would make a buyer’s offer stand out a bit.
Carrie McCormick 10:31
And I’ll give you another little tip that I came up with. And I think it’s important for a seller to understand the strength of the buyer. And you know, of course, all buyers are writing these love, like calm the love letter to the seller. But it’s great to hear again, the buyers story of you know who they are and where they live, and what their plans are, and how much they love the house. But everyone’s doing that everyone’s facilitating these incredible love letters. And it’s, it’s really, to me, it’s kind of lost its purpose to some degree. So what I’ve added on to the love letter is, you know, again, it’s the nice things about the home, but the the end of it is what’s truly important, is the team behind this buyer, the team consists of the real estate broker. So I say, like this buyer has is working with me, of course, in has a broker of 2021 years, I’ve navigated all the ups and downs, I know how to have a smooth transaction. In addition, we’ve got this lender, lender X has x, you know, years of experience, this is our pre approval letter, they you know, I’ve got a relationship with the lender, you know, you can be assured that, you know, we’re going to we have a smooth process. And then we’ve got the attorney, you know, here’s an introduction door attorney. So I’ve created this little team atmosphere, if you will, to say to the seller, listen, we’re all connected in this side, we’re a team here with this buyer, we will get it across the finish line. We’re all just not meeting for the first time. This is, again, a team effort. So I’ve included that in my offers as well. Again, I don’t know if some sellers appreciate that or not. But the truth of the matter is, we’re in a challenging environment with appraisals and, you know, quick closes and high tensions and frustrations. It’s really important to have an incredible team to help navigate the process.
D.J. Paris 12:30
Yeah, I wouldn’t want to I wouldn’t be as comfortable working with an attorney who wasn’t specifically a real estate attorney right now. Right? I wouldn’t want to work with a mortgage lender who I didn’t know, personally and who didn’t have quite a bit of experience because right, you’re right, right now it is a high stress time to get things closed. And also I wouldn’t, I don’t know that if I had a choice of, you know, if if two offers were identical in price and terms, and one broker has 20 years experience and another has to well, you know, my buyer might select the one who or my seller might select the one who has 20 years because they do have that experience. So I think that’s a really strong point. highlight your strengths right now. And and also Yeah, and I think also just giving the listing agents, some comfort that you will get this over the finish line is is really, really important. And, yeah, it’ll stand out. I think you’re right about the love letters. I know, there’s even some controversy around love letters where maybe some people, some firms say oh, maybe that’s not even a good idea, because it might violate fair housing, there’s, you know, personally, I don’t, I don’t know that it’s that big of a deal. But it is it is something that everyone’s doing. And so if you want to stand apart, love letters don’t even really make you stand that much apart anymore. But, but videos are such a great idea and, and just highlighting everything that you as the agent can do for that for that seller, I think in the listing agent is really the most important thing. So I had a quick thought about Mother’s Day, which was just obviously this this while two weekends ago, and it was a two week at two weekends ago. Things are moving so fast. I forgot when Mother’s Day was so anyway, I was I did a tip. I do a little tick tock and Instagram thing where I do a little 15 Second tip. And so prior to Mother’s Day, I did this tip, but it didn’t get published correctly. So the tip actually didn’t happen until like, late on Sunday on Mother’s Day, which was I was telling Realtors how to sell it how to celebrate Mother’s Day with for their clients. And I realized my tip didn’t didn’t really go out in time for anyone to take action on it. So I thought about it. And I thought well, you know, who are the most unappreciated members of society? Well, I mean, that’s a debatable topic, but certainly mothers are up there at some capacity. Mothers are oftentimes not paid for all the work they do and it’s a full time job and it’s we all know how difficult it is. And so I was thinking well, okay, I had to send this Mother’s Day tip out late mother’s day night, people were really gonna be taking action on it. So I made a video the next day that said, hey, just because it’s the day after Mother’s Day, doesn’t mean you still can’t say and everyone, you know, a happy belated Mother’s Day, you know, because you were probably, you know, our listeners were probably celebrating if they’re lucky enough to still have their mother around, probably celebrating with their mother, or maybe their wife or anyone, you know, in their life, who’s a mother. But so we’re probably busy on that Sunday anyway. But what if we had a second Mother’s Day, right, and, you know, there’s never, never a bad idea, there’s never a bad reason to have another celebration of how important mothers are. And so I was thinking, as a realtor, if you missed a Mother’s Day, and if you didn’t send out an email or text or, you know, tell your clients who are moms or, or whether they have children or pets, I think really doesn’t matter. But doing something to sort of honor them as mothers, you can do it again, you can have a second Mother’s Day in it, it could be a week later, it doesn’t have to be, you know, six months from now. But I think it would be fun to reach out to everyone and say, hey, you know, moms only get one Mother’s day a year. I know it was a few weeks ago, I’m having another Mother’s Day and I’m gonna maybe drop by a little second Mother’s Day gift, or I’m going to just whatever, it doesn’t even have to be a gift. But something like that have a second Mother’s Day and do something for your your mom clients, because they really should be celebrated more than once a month, once a year anyway. And so I just thinking that was a cute little idea. If you missed a Mother’s Day, and you feel like oh, crap, and I have to wait all the way till next April to do this again. Or may. You know, now you can do something a week from now. So it’s unexpected, and people will be really excited and flattered.
Carrie McCormick 16:41
That’s cute. I like it.
D.J. Paris 16:44
Awesome. Well, for everyone, by the way, who is listening who is in the well, it really well, wherever you are in the country as a realtor. If you have clients that are moving to Chicago, Carrie would love to speak with them. Carrie works with clients of all types. And she is been doing this for a long time. And she is very well respected. But also for anyone out there who was looking for a realtor and looking to work with Carrie she represents all all over Chicago and has vast knowledge of all the different neighborhoods and suburbs. But Karen, what what’s the best way that either a realtor could reach out to you to team up? Or to send some referrals your way or any one of our listeners who might be looking for a new agent? How should they reach out?
Carrie McCormick 17:28
Yeah, thank you. Anyone that knows me knows I work 24/7 I’m very much phone gal. So please call me at 312-961-4612. Or of course, if you want to email me carry ca RR ie at@properties.com.
D.J. Paris 17:49
And we should also mention that you take a look at Kerry’s website, I’ve always recommend to our audience too. If you’re going to put a website together as a, you know, online calling card or online business card, it really should look cool. And I know that not everyone’s aesthetic tastes are the same, but I really liked Kerry’s website. So take a look, Carrie McCormick r e.com. And also, for another look at her aesthetic. Take a look at her Instagram account. She is widely considered as having one of the most effective real estate Instagram accounts in Chicago. And it’s Carrie McCormack real estate and she is constantly putting great content on there. And she does it all herself too, which is even more amazing where a lot of people, you know, simply just hire firms to do it. She does it herself. And she does an exceptional job of it. And she has a huge following there. So take a look, Carrie McCormick real estate on Instagram. Carrie, thank you once again for being on the show. All these years Carrie has been coming on and we are so grateful to have her because her insight into how to navigate this kind of market is so valuable to our audience. So I’d be half of Carrie and myself. We want to thank the audience for continuing to support and watch and listen to our show, please tell a friend think of one other agent that could benefit from listening to our podcast and send them a link over to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com. Again, keeping it real pod.com Or just have them pull up a podcast app, we’re on all the major streaming platforms and podcast apps and search for keeping it real and hit the subscribe button that’ll help us keep creating new episodes. And on behalf of the listeners and myself, we want to thank Carrie for taking time out of her incredibly busy day to help our audience learn more about how to become a better realtor. So Carrie, thank you so much.
Carrie McCormick 19:42
You think thank you.
D.J. Paris 19:44
Alright, we’ll see you next month.
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