Posts Tagged ‘Mayfair International Realty’
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Posted by Michael Saunders & Company on March 18, 2010
What a difference a year makes. The mood of outright buoyancy at this year’s Annual Conference of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World was a far cry from last year’s melancholy. To say the least, it was extremely heartening to hear so much optimism being expressed by the world’s leading brokers, who are finally seeing the early stages of recovery in their respective markets. For those of us in attendance from Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, such universal optimism made us feel that much more confident about the speed of our own recovery; as many of their recovering markets feed buyers into ours.
With Michael and Drayton leading the company’s contingent, we were several representatives strong at last week’s Leading RE conference, where time and again Michael Saunders & Company received kudos for helping establish a template for recovery that other markets could use. Indeed, because Southwest Florida was hit early and hard by the nationwide housing crisis, its recovery has been a source of inspiration for many of the conference attendees. Moreover, many of the strategies we used to help force our own recovery are now being used in markets across the U.S. For example, the “Best Opportunities” section of michaelsaunders.com—which was established two years ago to shine a well-deserved spotlight on our sellers’ most aggressively-priced listings—is now being implemented in at least 20 other markets. At the same time we learned about best practices in other markets which, when applied here, could add fuel to our own recovery.
Therein lies the principal benefit of having so many hand-picked friends in the worldwide real estate business. At the end of the day, the perspectives we share freely with one another at these important industry gatherings help all of us make the most out of these perilous economic times.
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Posted by Michael Saunders & Company on February 11, 2010
There’s nothing like a major upset in a riveting Super Bowl to remind us how important teamwork, preparation, focus and the right attitude are. After all, strip away the hype and hoopla. Skip the big-name entertainment, talking heads, pre-game interviews and trash-talking press conferences; and the Super Bowl ultimately drills down to which team shows up with enough heart to win. For doing just that, and winning it’s first-ever championship, we congratulate the New Orleans Saints along with every faithful fan from the “Who Dat Nation.”
The business of selling your home in today’s real estate market is one of life’s biggest Super Bowl events, requiring as much teamwork, preparation and focus as pro football’s premier match-up; but with no fumbles, interceptions or penalties allowed. When you list your property with the team from Michael Saunders & Company, your quest for the ideal outcome is actually heightened through the combined efforts of several special teams within a team. Their common goal? To sell your home as quickly, efficiently—and as uneventfully—as possible; for as much as today’s market will allow.
Sending in our special teams on your behalf begins with the preparation of a thorough Competitive Market Analysis (or CMA). A timely and well-documented CMA shows exactly how your home stacks up against its competition; and how it must be priced to become an instant must-see for buyers in its competitive set. If necessary, the special team from MSC Style can step-in to make sure your home looks and shows to maximum advantage through a number of recommendations proven to help a home sell faster.
Once ready for the market, the special teams from MSC Marketing and MSC Technology swing into action to make sure your home is properly showcased and presented to as many potential buyers as possible. Now that nine out of ten buyers start their property searches on the Internet the logical first step, of course, is to upload your property’s complete listing information onto michaelsaunders.com, by far the # 1 trafficked web site in Southwest Florida. No other company in Southwest Florida has invested more time, money or talent into making sure that ours is at once the easiest to access, easiest to use and most information-packed real estate Web site in the region, if not the country.
If you opt—as many of today’s sellers do—to price your home aggressively below competitive properties, it becomes immediately eligible to appear in the Best Opportunities section of michaelsaunders.com. Because Best Opportunities is routinely visited and re-visited by today’s most value-conscious buyers, its featured listings average well over 500 showings per property. Moreover, since debuting last May, 41% of the 812 listings that have appeared in the section have sold.
Additionally, your property listing is uplinked to more than 2,000 other local, regional, national and international web sites for additional exposure to buyers everywhere.
On the local front, with more than 550 agents working from 16 strategically-located sales offices, the ground team at Michael Saunders & Company is uniquely capable of capturing buyers wherever they happen to show-up first. Many of these agents will preview your property during the company’s weekly caravan of new properties. Here they actually visit the home in person to assess its potential compatibility with the housing needs of their extensive databases of buyers.
On a much broader scale, our worldwide brokerage affiliations—strategic alliances formed over nearly four decades and strengthened by Michael Saunders’ continuous top-level involvement with each—are another way we make sure your home is systematically exposed to the most potential buyers. These affiliations include Christie’s Great Estates, Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, Luxury Portfolio, EREN—The European Real Estate Network, Luxuryrealestate.com and Mayfair International Realty.
It goes without saying that each offer received on your home is formally presented to you; then skillfully negotiated until one is accepted and a contract approved by both parties. During this critical phase of the sale, two more special teams are prepared to go to work for you. MSC Mortgage smoothes the way to a closed sale by pre-qualifying buyers for the safest and best loan products available on the market today. Meanwhile, the team from MSC Title makes sure that all title issues are carefully researched and examined to assure free and clear title to the property. If your immediate needs are best served through the “short sale” process, our MSC Short Sale Division puts a team of experienced short sale negotiators in your corner.
Our market has at long last experienced months of positive and sustained buyer activity. If your 2010 game plan includes selling your home, invite an agent from Michael Saunders & Company to explain how listing it with the # 1 real estate team in Southwest Florida will put a new owner inside faster than you can say “Who dat?”
Posted by Michael Saunders & Company on January 28, 2010
As informed trend watchers will tell you, buyers from the United Kingdom are not only among today’s most active homebuyers in Southwest Florida; but have traditionally favored our region over all other possibilities on Florida’s two coasts. So much, in fact, do they prefer our particular blend of climate, culture and coastal ambiance that they purchase residential properties in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Venice market at a rate nearly three times higher than either of their next two closest preferences—Naples and Tampa-St Petersburg. (Source: Florida Association of Realtor’s 2009 Survey of International Homebuyers)
Therefore, the decision to sell your home in Sarasota, Manatee or Charlotte Counties should by all measures include choosing a company that can provide you with the strongest and most comprehensive network of incoming international referrals—both from around the world and across the U.K.
At Michael Saunders & Company, we’re exceptionally proud of our exclusive network of worldwide brokerage affiliations—pieced together carefully over more than three decades—that enable us to put your property on the radar screens of qualified buyers everywhere. These affiliations include Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, Luxury Portfolio, Christie’s Great Estates, the European Real Estate Network and Mayfair International Realty.
While each of these exclusive affiliations is international in scope and strategically important in its own right, Mayfair International Realty is especially key toward helping our agents effectively connect with buyers from the U.K.—who last year alone accounted for 16% of all Florida home sales to foreign buyers.
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Posted by Michael Saunders & Company on December 9, 2009
Willy Sutton, a Depression-era bank robber wanted for frequent heists in New York, Miami and New Orleans, was asked by a reporter on the occasion of his capture, “Why do you rob banks?” Sutton’s answer was as irrefutable as it was obvious. “Because that’s where the money is,” he said.
The same sort of unassailable logic underscores why so many sellers choose to list their homes with Michael Saunders & Company. Because that’s where the buyers are.
It’s a fact. The worldwide presence and connectivity of Michael Saunders & Company—combined with our agents’ drilled-down knowledge of the local market, its many neighborhoods, lifestyle options and essential pricing tools—attract more buyers to the closing table, by far, than any other company in Southwest Florida. While this holds true across every price range, the latest research from TRENDGRAPHIX reveals that the higher the price range your home falls into, the more likely an agent from Michael Saunders & Company will furnish its buyer. Here’s why:
With over 500 of the market’s savviest and best trained agents blanketing the region, your property is networked among all 16 branch offices of Michael Saunders & Company from the moment it is listed with any one of them. In addition, scores of these agents and their non-competing managers convene weekly to personally review and visit the company’s newest listings. Together they share educated insights on such key issues as proper pricing, staging techniques to make the home show best, unique marketing opportunities; and other best practices to elevate the property above its competition. Indeed, what is likely to go down as the region’s highest-priced residential sale of 2009 involved exquisitely-choreographed teamwork between agents representing no less than four of our offices. The buyers—longtime customers of a team of associates from our Bradenton office—recently closed on the magnificent waterfront estate on Casey Key; but not before they were afforded the advantage of tapping into the expertise of agents from our Main Street, Palmer Ranch and Longboat Key offices who are the acknowledged waterfront experts in the neighborhood where the sale took place.
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Posted by Michael Saunders & Company on October 22, 2009
According to the 2009 World Wealth Report—a revealing new study commissioned by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch Wealth Management—the calamitous global economic meltdown of the past year has reduced the worldwide head count of high net worth individuals by almost 15%. Nevertheless, 85% of these high net worth individuals—though admittedly having lost a fifth of their combined net worth—are still comfortably awash in disposable income.
High net worth individuals, according to the study, are defined as those having investable assets totaling $1 million or more—excluding primary residence, collectibles, consumables and consumer durables. Included in this number are ultra-high net-worth individuals, or those with at least $30 million in investable assets; and mid-tier millionaires having between $5 and $30 million.
Although understandably guarded about where they plan to park their assets going forward, these enormously well-to-do individuals are clearly hopping “a flight to safety,” which means they’re backing away from all but the most secure investment opportunities. The categories they now deem the least risky include gold and precious gems, fine art, and real estate—tangible items with a proven record of gaining in value over the long term. They don’t suddenly turn toxic overnight.
This should come as great news to clients who sell their residential and commercial properties through Michael Saunders & Company. For not only do these high net worth individuals have an above-average interest in purchasing prime residential properties in major U.S. markets, but are shopping for first-rate commercial opportunities as well. (more…)
Posted by Michael Saunders & Company on December 6, 2007
The news out of Sarasota-Bradenton’s real estate market continues to brighten considerably. In just the past few weeks, there has been more positive news reported than at any time in the past two years. Clearly, there’s cause for optimism and even diehard skeptics are beginning to feel the glow. Here are just a few random thoughts on a recovering market:
Even though the phenomenon has been largely ignored until recently, it has finally been reported that Sarasota-Bradenton has been Florida’s top performing market for virtually all of 2007. Quarterly statistics compiled by the Florida Association of Realtors not only bear this out but further reveal that we are presently outselling mega-markets like Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. Especially noteworthy is the fact that our condominium sector is ahead in unit sales for the third consecutive quarter—most recently by 15 percent, with prices that have remained firm.
Hot topic of late: International buyers are riding in—like the proverbial cavalry—to rescue Florida’s moribund economy. Spurred on by an unprecedented devaluation of the dollar and some of the best home prices in recent memory, foreigners are splurging on second homes across all price ranges.
In line with this evolving buying spree, a new study out from the National Association of Realtors reports that visitors from the U.K. made up the largest single bloc of foreign homebuyers in Sarasota-Bradenton; accounting for a whopping 41 percent of all foreign purchases. (Twice the statewide average) In no other Florida market do U.K. buyers wield more influence. Furthermore, according to the same study, they are more likely to purchase a home costing $1 million or more. The median price they pay is $363,100.
This is jolly good news for clients of Michael Saunders & Company. We have just inked an exclusive alliance with Mayfair International Realty, an organization headquartered in London that represents 125 real estate brokerages with 350 offices—mainly in the U.K—but with affiliations throughout mainland Europe and the Middle East. Each listing priced from $250,000 is now showcased on Mayfair International’s Web site (Mayfairinternationalrealty.com), which boasts over 1.2 million hits per month and over 600,000 users. In addition Mayfair has uploaded all properties priced over $ 1 million to the Web site for Country Life Magazine, a U.K. institution for over 100 years. A copy is hand-delivered to Queen Elizabeth each week.
The next largest bloc of foreign buyers comes from Western Europe—including Germany—and accounts for 26 percent of all foreign purchases in Sarasota. More great news for MS&C clients. A month before Mayfair International, we inked an exclusive agreement with EREN—short for European Real Estate Network—to cross market properties between Southwest Florida and 10 European countries. EREN is comprised of 22 leading property firms, operating from 53 offices, and is the only pan-European network of independent, top-quality brokerage companies.
In line with all this uplifting news, each of our branch offices is reporting a tremendous up-tick in closed and pending sales, with the Palmer Ranch office having its best November in its 10-year history. Looks like Santa checked in early this year. Sell that jolly old snowbird a house!
Cordially,
What a difference a year makes. The mood of outright buoyancy at this year’s Annual Conference of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World was a far cry from last year’s melancholy. To say the least, it was extremely heartening to hear so much optimism being expressed by the world’s leading brokers, who are finally seeing the early stages of recovery in their respective markets. For those of us in attendance from Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, such universal optimism made us feel that much more confident about the speed of our own recovery; as many of their recovering markets feed buyers into ours.
