Archive for the ‘michaelsaunders.com’ Category
2
Posted by Michael Saunders on May 15, 2009
To complete the conference, Matthew Haber—Director of Interactive Marketing—and David Gumpper—Director of Technology—moderated panels of breakout sessions to address the rising significance of social networking and technology in real estate.
Titled “Expanding Your Friendly Future,” Matthew’s panel included panel speakers Eric Bryn, Marc Rasmussen, and Anand Pallegar. Together, the panel discussed the importance of managing your online reputation through your social networking channels by touting the effectiveness of today’s most popular technology options: blogging, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. “You don’t have to understand the technology,” said Eric Bryn to those who may be unsure of transitioning to a technology-based business. “You have to understand the application of the technology to get the most out of your profession.”
Eric Bryn gestures during the Social Networking panel
David Gumpper’s session, titled “Connecting With My Customers,” highlighted the advanced new features of Outlook 2007. The Contacts feature in Outlook 2007 is actually a full-featured database, where each client contact can be tagged with categorical information, allowing useful mail merge lists to be quickly and comprehensively compiled in short notice. With this, our agents can take advantage of technology to keep in close contact with their clients and enhance their relationships electronically.
Posted by Michael Saunders on May 15, 2009
“In order for the world’s economy to come back, we have to bring it back,” said second speaker Steve Harney about the task ahead of the agents in the room. Also a sought-after national speaker, Steve authors a monthly informational presentation for top professionals titled “Keeping Current Matters.”
Michael Saunders and Steve Harney share a moment at the 'Reinvent Yourself 09' event
Speaking at the Michael Saunders & Company ‘Reinvent Yourself 09′ event at the Chelsea Center in Sarasota, Steve’s dynamic, vocal approach reaches the very back of the room with the strength of his message, which proves both eye-opening and straightforward. “While all other brokers are cutting back on their resources, Michael Saunders & Company is having a conference on enhancing their services. You have proven you are the best.”
Further, Steve challenges the room to work with their customers to price properties with consideration for the market demands. “We have seen a disparity between the sold price and the listed price of the homes in this area,” said Steve. “It is up to you to price your properties realistically to turn this market around.”
“This was the best titled conference I’ve been to in two years,” added Steve in his closing remarks. “We all need to reinvent ourselves to steer through this market.”
1
Posted by Michael Saunders on May 15, 2009
Renowned national speaker and trainer, Matthew Ferrara is known for his enthusiastic style. A driving force for applying real estate technology innovation, Matthew has helped thousands of real estate professionals reinvent how the real estate industry works as they take advantage of new and existing technologies. To further complement the day’s theme, Matthew expressed the importance of recognizing the fundamental differences of today’s consumer, and the value behind utilizing technology and social networking channels to reach them.
Matthew Ferrara gets dramatic
In today’s event, Matthew stressed the importance of recognizing the transition from traditional marketing approaches to the more technology-based consumers of today. “One of the most fundamental changes in the market is to always follow the consumer,” said Matthew about the. “When the consumer changes, market conditions change as well.”
In the presentation, held at the Chelsea Center in Sarasota, agents learned how it is now necessary to leverage technology to create competitive advantages in the real estate market. “Social networking is the new prospecting,” added Matthew, “Relationship management is the modern method to gaining the trust of your customers.”
Posted by Michael Saunders on May 15, 2009
Foreshadowing the information-packed day ahead, company CEO and Founder Michael Saunders opened the conference by stating, “Get ready for a morning and afternoon that will knock your socks off!” By all means, Michael was right, as agents were treated to a day filled with some of real estate’s most dynamic speakers and panelists.
To a packed audience consisting of over 400 company agents, Michael gave a somber reminder about the challenges to be faced in the coming months. “After navigating through a storm for the last four years,” added Michael in her opening remarks, “we find ourselves with a job to do. As we see buyers gaining more confidence, we are optimistic and focused on how to steer past this storm to the bright opportunities ahead.”
Michael kicks off 'Reinvent Yourself 09'
While the future of the real estate market is the central concern for all in attendance, the event’s theme was focused on engaging technology to better communicate and understand the needs of homebuyers and sellers. “Do we need to communicate with our consumers in a different way,” asked Michael of the crowd. “Yes, and that is what today is all about. You will leave here with the tools you need to effectively communicate with today’s consumer.”
2
Posted by Michael Saunders on May 15, 2009
Agents from throughout Michael Saunders & Company were abuzz with enthusiasm at yesterday’s groundbreaking conference – ‘Reinvent Yourself 09′ – where our guest speakers and panelists ushered in the tools and approaches necessary to meet the needs and demands of today’s consumer.
Deborah Beacham with Glenn Johnson and Bob Dennison of SRQ 360
“I am delighted that Michael Saunders & Company makes the commitment to continuing education for agents,” said Deborah Beacham, who recently received kudos for representing the highest sale in Sarasota for 2009. “As agents, we learn that every transaction is different, and by attending these events we gain the information that our customers deserve.” (more…)
1
Posted by Michael Saunders on May 8, 2009
Working your way to the top of the industry is no easy task. Keeping yourself firmly planted in the summit requires a constant drive to enhance your skills and educate yourself on both the demands of market and your clients to stay ahead of the competition.
With this in mind, we at Michael Saunders & Company provide our agents with the educational resources needed to help ensure they are performing at the high level expected by their customers. On Thursday, May 14, our agents are invited to attend the company’s most valuable educational event, where some of the highest-regarded speakers in the real estate industry will present business-enhancing information exclusively to Michael Saunders & Company agents.
Michael Saunders, founder and CEO of the company, opens the event, followed by Matthew Ferrara-a driving force in real estate technology innovation-and Steve Harney-author and sought-after speaker on producing top results in real estate. Additionally, the event includes two Breakout Sessions. The first of which, titled Social Networking, Exploring Your Friendly Future, is moderated by the company’s director of interactive marketing, Matthew Haber. This session is directed by experts from Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, Michael Saunders & Company, and AtLarge, Inc., to share their experience with today’s most popular networking web sites and how they can benefit our agents.
(more…)
Posted by Michael Saunders on May 22, 2008
Promises don’t sell homes. It’s the performance behind every pledge that gets the job done. That’s important to remember when you’re planning to sell your home and are interviewing prospective listing agents from competing companies. You will likely be promised everything under the sun—from marketing superiority to a wealth of international connections—in exchange for the privilege of selling your home. Which is fine, so long as each promise is underscored by a proven ability to perform.
When faced with the final decision of which company to choose, ask yourself: Can they walk the walk? Is their record of performance enough to suggest they are the company most able to deliver on every promise while ultimately finding a buyer in the most reasonable timeframe?
When you interview an associate from Michael Saunders & Company, you have before you a professional whose efforts on your behalf will marshal the full service and support of a company that brought buyers to the closing table for nearly 40 percent of its own listings in 2007 and 2008 (year-to-date). Not surprising really. Once listed with Michael Saunders & Company, your property is immediately exposed to more than 500 of the area’s best networked real estate professionals—who blanket the region from 16 strategically located offices and gather weekly to exchange property information. Plus, in an era where 88% of today’s homebuyers begin their property searches on the Internet, your home will be featured on the most widely-viewed property Web site in Southwest Florida. That isn’t all. In the past year alone, MichaelSaunders.com has experienced a 51% increase in overall Web visits, a 109 percent increase in visitors from European countries and a 72% increase in visits from Asian countries. This on top of 45% more visitors from every state in the Union. (Source: Google Analytics, May 2008)
When you interview an associate from Michael Saunders & Company, you have before you a professional long fortified with just the sort of far-reaching international connections that many companies are only now beginning to cobble together. Cementing cross-border alliances doesn’t happen overnight. They require considerable time, effort and travel—not to mention major financial commitments. Almost from the moment she established the company, Michael Saunders began crisscrossing the globe to establish and nurture these vital relationships; not simply to help out in challenging times, but because she has a lifetime’s appreciation of the region’s global appeal. Well before year’s end, she will have sung the praises of Southwest Florida before international assemblies in Madrid and Milan (in July), Rome (in September) and London (in October).
Through long-established ties—including leadership roles at the very top—with such revered international brokerage networks as Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, Luxury Portfolio, EREN (The European Real Estate Network), Mayfair International Realty, and Christie’s Great Estates, Michael Saunders & Company can truly claim the widest and most direct pipeline to a world’s worth of qualified buyers.
Last but not least, when you interview an associate from Michael Saunders & Company, you have before you a professional whose company controlled one or both sides of the largest residential transactions in the Sarasota MLS for each of the past five years. In fact, in Sarasota County, it takes the combined market share of the next four leading competitors to equal the 35.1 share of market that Michael Saunders & Company achieved in volume sales of $1 million-plus properties. (Source: Trendgraphix, May 2008). Likewise, for $3 million-plus properties, the combined market share of the next four leading competitors (36.5%) fell significantly below the 43.6 share achieved by Michael Saunders & Company. Across all price ranges, Michael Saunders & Company has a market share of 24%, more than the combined share of the next two leading competitors.
Performance in real estate is an art best displayed by knowing how to price a property correctly, market it globally, and hasten its sale through skilled negotiations and the ancillary services of MSC Mortgage and MSC Title. Why settle for less? Why risk performance anxiety when you can relax and enjoy performance art?
3
Posted by Michael Saunders on May 6, 2008
Just as every ailing person must submit to the appropriate medical interventions to restore good health, so too must Florida’s overstressed real estate market. Wherever prices inflated radically during the real estate boom of 2004/2005, there must now be a meaningful correction before healthy appreciation can resume anew. That’s the sobering news facing every Florida market targeted by too many overconfident investors who bought at “high noon” during the boom.
There’s good news too. Sarasota-Bradenton is the toast of Florida, having been the first market in the state to take the painful but appropriate initiative of convincing sellers to lower prices—mainly by tempering unrealistic profit expectations born of the boom. In doing so, we have already accomplished what many Florida markets are just now realizing must be emulated. As a result, for the first quarter of 2008, Sarasota-Bradenton has enjoyed a sustained upturn in unit sales of both single-family homes and condominiums; a trend that appears to be gaining traction as today’s best opportunities become irresistible to previously uncommitted buyers.
Chart “A,” tracks monthly unit sales for the past year in Sarasota-Bradenton. Since bottoming in January ‘08—with 490 
single-family units sold—there have been three successive months of solid gains. These statistics show that March sales of existing single-family homes broke the 700 barrier for the first time since July ‘07—finishing at 709. The same trend holds true for condominiums, whose unit sales bottomed in January; then started upwards again, breaking the 300 barrier in March for the first time since May ’07—finishing at 313. All of this in spite of the incessant drumbeat of doom and gloom surrounding mortgage defaults and foreclosures that has seized Wall Street and dominated coverage in the mainstream media during the same period. Clearly this increase in local sales, occurring as it has in defiance of persistently negative news regarding the broader market, speaks to a healthy resurgence of buyer confidence in our market.
In Sarasota, one of the continuing bright spots reflected by the March report was the strength in pending sales, which stood at 674—the highest level in the past year—and have been edging upwards since December 2007, when there were only 374. Pending sales represents the number of signed contracts in a month and are the leading indicator of closed sales to come. There is a direct correlation between pending sales and closed sales that are reported a month (or two) later.
Chart “B” tracks movement in the median price over the same period and its downward trend explains why unit sales are up. Median price represents the market’s midpoint; half the homes or condominiums sold for more, half for less. Having posted a 
6.5% decline in the fourth quarter of 2007, followed by a 3% decline in the first quarter of 2008, buyers are now confident that today’s best-priced properties present an acceptable threshold through which to re-enter the market and make long-deferred purchases while interest rates are still low.
Although these rates are still hovering at historic lows, the general home buying public has yet to see the benefits of fresh cuts in the Fed’s prime lending rate manifested in even lower mortgage rates. Indeed, rates of late have inched upward as the supply of available money has steadily dwindled since 2004/2005. This is especially true involving jumbo mortgages—any amount over $417,000—and loans for second homes. As well, some of the nation’s largest banks have shied away completely from offering loans for condominium purchases—although Wells-Fargo, our financially solid partner in lending through MSC Mortgage—still has loans available for creditworthy condominium buyers. With new and tighter restrictions cropping-up daily, it makes sense to borrow now and take advantage of today’s excellent buying opportunities rather than risk the possibility of slightly lower prices with greater restrictions on borrowing.
With tourism in Southwest Florida still humming along at record levels and local home prices back into realistic focus, buyers have rediscovered their confidence, are finding true value in the homes they want, and are ultimately succumbing to a lifestyle second to no other in Florida. Finally they’re starting to realize that the clock has ticked past midnight for the best buyers’ market in many years.
1
Posted by Michael Saunders on April 25, 2008
By now, everyone has heard that activity among international buyers, queuing up to purchase properties in Southwest Florida, has heated-up considerably—especially with their buying power vastly magnified by low-interest rates, the best local prices in years, and a seriously anemic U.S. dollar. Far from being unconfirmed hearsay, this positive development for the region’s recovering real estate market is now a matter of public record. Some of the most noteworthy sales of the year have involved international buyers, many of whom initiated their property search on michaelsaunders.com while still at home in their native countries.
Almost before the ink could dry on an analysis of year-to-date visitation to michaelsaunders.com—conducted just days ago by Google Analytics—the news broke that the second largest sale in Sarasota this year involved a European couple, now residing in the U.K., who found the perfect match in a waterfront listing from the St. Armands office of Michael Saunders & Company. They loved the property so much that they persevered through months of negotiations; finally spending $6, 387,500 to realize their heart’s desire.
The closing is yet another confirmation that far from being a much-rumored phenomenon, international buyers are doing a great deal more than simply daydreaming of owning properties here. They are visiting michaelsaunders.com in amazingly high numbers, contacting us by phone and email, getting paired-up with just the right associates, and often negotiating from halfway around the world before showing up to claim their prize. At closing they often assert their newfound buying clout in cold hard Euros, Pounds Sterling, Loonies or other equally robust currencies.
Google’s report indicates that year-to-date usage of michaelsaunders.com is not only up dramatically across the board—by 52% overall, compared to the first quarter of 2007—but is frequented in ever-growing concentrations by home buyers from outside the U.S. Visitation to michaelsaunders.com from the United Kingdom, for example, was up by 81 percent for the first quarter of 2008. Is it any wonder then why so many international sales are coming together involving buyers from the U.K? It wasn’t more than a few weeks ago that a citizen of the U.K., residing in Hong Kong, saw a listing on michaelsaunders.com, fell in love with the property and immediately flew halfway around the world to secure its purchase.
This noteworthy increase in Web visitation is not only indicative of heightened interest by buyers in all 50 states, but also proves that international buyers aren’t squandering what they confidently believe is a once-in-a-lifetime window of opportunity. It’s now or never for the best opportunities in a recovering market.
From every corner of the world traffic to michaelsaunders.com is being clocked at record levels. Compared to last year, the first three months of 2008 have shown a radical increase in visitation from countries as disparate as the Czech Republic (up 783%) and Costa Rica (up 330%). In raw numbers, the greatest amount of visits totaled 10,441 from Canada (up 250%), 5,666 from the United Kingdom (up 81%), and 1,247 from Germany (up 107%). This dovetails precisely with the 2007 Profile of International Home Buyers in Florida—issued by the National Association of Realtors—which indicated that British, Canadian and German nationals constitute the largest pool of foreign buyers for properties in Southwest Florida.
From inside the U.S., the number of visits thus far in 2008 amount to an astounding 216,722; up 46% over the same period of 2007.
The fortunate by-product of all this international activity is that each new owner adds that much more zest to the region’s growing international cachet; which in turn attracts more new buyers who are likeminded in their desire to feel at home abroad.
3
Posted by Michael Saunders on April 4, 2008
With the stock market and real estate market both reeling from the recent turmoil in the lending markets, prudent investors are doubly confused about where to park their money these days in order to safely maximize its long-term appreciation. Last week the Wall Street Journal complicated matters considerably by running an eye-opening front-page article that pulled the rug out from under the widely-held notion that blue chip stocks are generally the best investment when held for ten years or more. Entitled “Stocks Tarnished by ‘Lost Decade’” the article suggests that money invested in the stock market ten years ago is worth only marginally more today than it was back then, especially when adjusted for inflation.
Authored by E.S. Browning, the article led off with statistics that were no doubt unsettling to long-term devotees of the stock market. It read: “The Standard & Poors 500-Stock Index, the basis for about half of the $1 trillion invested in U.S. index funds, finished at 1352.99 on Tuesday—below the 1362.80 it hit in April 1999. When dividends and inflation are factored into returns, the S&P 500 has risen just 1.3% each year over the past 10 years, well below the historical norm, according to Morningstar Inc. In light of the current wobbly market, some economists and market analysts worry that the era of disappointing returns may not be over.”
Conventional wisdom in the stock market suggests that when investors purchase a broad variety of stocks and hold on to them, they generally fare better profit-wise than they would with other investments. Unfortunately, that rule hasn’t held true for stocks purchased in the late 1990s or 2000.
“Over the past nine years,” according to Browning, “the S&P 500 is the worst-performing of nine different investment vehicles tracked by Morningstar—including commodities, real estate investment trusts, gold and foreign stocks.” Big U.S. stocks were even outdistanced by lowly Treasury bonds, whose performance is typically much weaker. His overall conclusion: “Through history, lengthy stock booms have typically been followed by busts that can last a decade or more. Some economists believe that current economic troubles are severe enough that the period of stock weakness isn’t over.”
Here’s another eye-opener. In spite of all the bad things you’ve read or heard in the media about Sarasota real estate, the median home price ten years ago—in February 1998—was $112,500. Today, that price is $254,200, according to the February sales statistics released just two weeks ago by the Florida Association of Realtors. The median price represents the midpoint in the market; half the homes sold for more, half for less. This 226% median price jump between February 1998 and February 2008 includes the sizeable downward correction in the median price from its highest perch amid the wildly unsustainable real estate boom of 2004/2005/2006. Further, as Sarasota began its real estate correction sooner than most other Florida markets, statewide statistics now strongly suggest that it is emerging from it faster as well.
Unlike seeing the Standard & Poors 500-Stock Index remain disappointingly flat over the past ten years, if you’ve owned a Sarasota home for an equivalent amount of time you are looking at a substantial return on your decade-long housing investment. Even if you’ve only owned the home for five years it has appreciated to the tune of 147% since February of 2003.
For some stock market investors the past decade was marked by disappointment and lost opportunity. For Sarasota homeowners it was a decade of healthy appreciation, even factoring in the correction that has unfolded over the past couple of years. Alas, nothing is more reassuring than a comfortable nest egg, except perhaps the immeasurable pleasure of living in it.
.png)
.png)
