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Actually, you can exclude an address on EDD. On the form that you give to the Post Office, there's a section there for "DO NOT DELIVER" and you can list specific addresses (such as homes that are already listed, people who have been adamant about not being contacted, other real estate agents, etc.) You have to be a little organized to keep the list up to date, though, and there's no guarantee that the mail carrier will remember to exclude it.
Oh...
I thought that was for the Post Office's use.
So, if I get that call...
But, all my cards go to agents on the route. Hmmm... Around here that could be 10% of recipients...
I haven't had that happen in years but thought it was a normal thing a few years ago. It was sort of nice to have someone give information about what was going on with the real estate in our neighborhood.
We get a lot of unsolicited offers on our house, mostly through letters but maybe once a month someone comes by in person. While it can be annoying, it also means that our neighborhood is in demand again, which is a good thing. I'm sure it does work for some realtors in our neighborhood, since there are quite a few elderly homeowners who aren't going online, and don't speak English, so flyers or letters would be ignored.
Another thing to consider is the other side of what's happening - if you were a buyer looking in a neighborhood with no listings wouldn't you want your realtor to try every method possible to find you a house? Our neighborhood has many more people interested in buying than in selling, which is why we're getting unsolicited offers.
Indeed. My ex-MIL got cased by someone who knocked on the door, pretended she was someone else, then came back hours later, when she and her husband weren't home. The burglars then made off with a lot of their home electronics. Last month in New Orleans, a woman opened her door to someone she thought was a door-to-door salesman. After she opened it, he shot her twice and almost killed her.
It is unfortunate our world is the way it is, but these days you have to check who is out there ringing your bell - gone are the days when you just open the door (like on TV and old movies). If you see someone outside your house that you don't recognize, don't open the door; if it is important they will leave a note, and if they are going around your house looking like they are checking it out, returning multiple times, then a call to the police might be in order. I don't know if a posting of a sign that saids "No Soliciting/Trespassing would be an effective deterrent. I can't believe there was actually a time, not so long ago, that people actually left their front doors open, even when they went out. I find that hard to fathom - it sounds like an urban legend to me.
Just answer the door for suspicious strangers in your underwear, wearing a shoulder holster, and surrounded by six angry looking Bullmastiff dogs. Just for fun, get your wife to try it.
Hey I don't let the meter reader in if I don't see the truck. This month it was a guy and it's ALWAYS been a woman. No truck. He wasn't getting in my house. I don't care if he had a badge from the White House. I am not letting him in. I'll call in the reading thanks.
As a Realtor, I've knocked on doors numerous times and been well received over the past three years. I'm usually targeting neighborhoods my clients want to live when nothing is on the market, but I've also just marketed myself and my team, or invited neighbors to open houses. We handle over 150 transactions per year, and I personally do 25-30, although that is below my goal. Door knocking can be a successful lead generation tool in addition to getting referrals, making calls to our database, internet leads or receiving calls from our marketing. I respectfully disagree door knocking is unprofessional and he must be a bad agent. Face to face contact is preferable, I get out of my car or office for some exercise and actually get to see the neighborhoods. My guess is if a prospective buyer or seller had such a bad reaction to me door knocking, it wasn't going to be a successful working relationship because getting out there is part of our business plan. My recommendation would be: don't open the door when you are in the middle of a project or if you really don't like solicitors, put up a sign stating "no solicitors." Hope the project turned out great!
johnlena,
Every single agent in your office is your competitor. You might as well know that today. A quarter century ago when I earned my license the drill was "the magic 20". When you list a home or piece of land, contact 20 property owners in the area. It's amazing how many either want to buy the property next to theirs or has a friend who would like to buy it. Once in a while one of the 20 would also like to sell.
During the latest real estate slump since Obama got elected, people would ask me how this slump was affecting me. I told them it isn't. I chose not to participate in the slump. When I went into this business in 1989, my father said to me, "During the Depression there were people riding around in Duesenbergs, Cadillacs and Packards and building beautiful homes on the lakes. There will always be people with money." He was right.
Indeed. My ex-MIL got cased by someone who knocked on the door, pretended she was someone else, then came back hours later, when she and her husband weren't home. The burglars then made off with a lot of their home electronics. Last month in New Orleans, a woman opened her door to someone she thought was a door-to-door salesman. After she opened it, he shot her twice and almost killed her.
Well, these are all unfortunate instances, but not exactly reasons to never open your front door. People get their homes broken into all the time even without someone casing the house. And having someone shoot you when you open your front door is so far off of the charts in terms of probabilities that it's pretty negligible. Again, depending on the neighborhood. You can get shot in a case of road rage, you can walk into a convenience store and upset a robbery. My car was shot at in Miami a few years back -- I was driving a rental car, and suddenly the passenger window exploded and then the driver's side window cracked. Ugh, what a mess, bloodied up my shirt from the flying glass. Imagine the look on the other customer's faces when I took the car back to the rental company that night and said, "I need a new car, this one got shot at . . ."
In the world of spam e-mails, website ads, and BANDIT SIGNS ... I think that going door-to-door (if the neighborhood does not prohibit it) is actually very personable and a throw-back to the days of face-to-face interactions with your community.
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