This isn’t true.

When you enter into a Listing Agreement, you’re signing a contract between you and your chosen Real Estate Agent.

Confidentiality in the US Real Estate Market is now more important than ever.

As in any contract, in a Listing Agreement there is an ‘implied contract of good faith and fair dealings’. This assumes that when you enter into the contract, you and your licensed Real Estate Firm will deal fairly with each other and will not cause each other to suffer damages by either disregarding the terms or breaching the mutual contractual obligations. This includes disclosing confidential homeowner or property information that could lead to loss of home offers or a compromise of the agreed sales value of your home.

What Are Our Obligations as a Home Seller’s Agent?

As your Agent, we must tell you everything we can find out about the Buyer, including all financial details we can obtain. And we must conceal anything that would help the home buyer gain an advantage, such as impending foreclosure, need to move in a hurry, need to sell to settle divorce, etc.

What Are Our Obligations as an Exclusive Home Buyer’s Agent?

As your agent, we must keep all information about you confidential, including your ability or willingness to pay more than the quoted price for the property, as well as your motivation for buying.

Should Confidentiality Stay in Place After Your Listing Agreement Expires?

It depends. Just think of the attorney-client privilege. The confidentiality agreement protecting communications between a client and their attorney keeps those communications confidential over extended periods of time. That’s how your Real Estate Agent should work for you.

But if, for instance, your listing with Brokerage #1 expires and you re-list with Brokerage #2, if there is a continuing duty of confidentiality on the part of Brokerage #1, Brokerage #1 could not act as a Buyer’s Agent for the purchase of your property. Some of the knowledge held by Brokerage #1 could breach the confidentiality agreement you entered when you first listed your home.

We Match People With Places, Not With Purchases

So as to whether or not the duty of confidentiality should extend past the termination of a Listing Agreement, I think this is a question that needs to be thoroughly examined on a case to case basis. Depending on the client’s needs, of course.

Regardless, your agent is obligated to safeguard your lawful home buying or selling confidences and secrets. So we must keep confidential any information that could weaken your bargaining position. It doesn’t mean that we hold an obligation to withhold know material facts about the condition of the your property from the buyer, or to misrepresent the property’s condition. To do so constitutes misrepresentation and imposes liability on both you and the Real Estate Firm.

So, What Does it All Mean?

In short, our duty of confidentiality prevents us from disclosing to a buyer that the seller can, or must, sell a property below the listed price. Conversely, if we represent you as a buyer, we are prohibited from disclosing to a seller that  you can, or will, pay more than what has been offered for a property.

If you have more question about Real Estate Confidentiality, feel free to contact me @ 562-364-9505 or mark@shandrowgroup.com

One Less Foreclosure.

Sincerely,

Mark Shandrow
Real Estate Broker
office 562-364-9505 ext 100
mark@shandrowgroup.com
Shandrow Group
3970 Atlantic Ave., 210
Long Beach, CA  90807
follow my story at http://markshandrow.com

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My neighbor, Rob Weaver, started me out today already asking, “So, did you sell 100 homes this year??”  My response, “Yes, and, um, no.”  Pretty weak answer, really.   For the record, Rob, I am going to say “No” from here on in.  Let me explain . . .

Shandrow Group brokerage sold a total of 97 homes last year.  Just short of the 100 homes goal; however, on 14 of those transactions we represented both the buyer and seller.  So, the total TRANSACTION count is actually 111.  But, we didn’t sell 100 homes.  Just 97.  Not bad, I can’t complain.  100 would be cooler, but 97 still works.  These numbers include myself and the buyer agents that sold houses for SGi this year (Adam, Jason, Kelly, Lee and Lucio).

Here are some other interesting numbers for those of you in the real estate business:

Sales Volume:  $25,725,100

Gross Commission Income (GCI):  $650,000

Averages Sales Price:  $231,800

Click here for a full list of all the properties Shandrow Group sold in 2009.

Pamela, Nicole and I will be putting together the first Shandrow Group Annual Report shortly and we will go into the numbers in greater detail, including average days on market and such.

Stay tuned . . .

Onto the Goals for 2010

A big goal that I have had since I first got into real-estate in 2005 was to make $500k a in GCI.  Well, I hit that goal this year and it wasn’t as exciting as you might expect.  I was very wrapped up in my business at the time and didn’t even noticed I had passed $500k until a couple of weeks after it happened.  The problem was, and still is, my expenses are always outpacing my increase in income so I am not seeing the extra cash flow.

My net this year was only about a 20% increase over my net last year, and I did $315k in GCI in 2008.  But, with Julie Harris constantly pounding on me about saving money, I did a great job saving this year.  I am using a new system too, which is helping me.  With every closed transaction, I automatically send my savings account $1,000.  So, close 10 in a month – Save $10,000.  Works great.

The great news for 2010 is that most of my expenses this past year were from opening my own company and slamming down debt.   I purchased a lot of new computers, office furniture, and supplies.  Plus, I paid off a $40,000 business start up loan that I used when I first got into real-estate in 2005/06.  It is nice to get that monkey off my back.  I have a couple of other small loans that total $16,000 (car and biz credit card) that I should be able to pay off in January.

So, here are the goals for 2010.  This is based on some pretty good thinking about my future finances and where I want my family to be financially at the beginning of 2011.

Business Goals:

200 Transactions Closed for 2010.

156 Closings for Me.

44 Closings for SGi agents, mainly Adam.

Video and document all systems.

GCI:  $1,000,000

$1 million is a nice number, but it also makes sense.  That is $84,000 a month.  I can do $84,000 a month.  Plus, we had a great December and I am coming into the new year with 15 units in escrow.   If you don’t have a strong 1st quarter, it is hard to have a good year.  We had a great December, so I am pushing for a strong year.

Savings Goals:

This is where the rubber meets the road.  There is nothing worse than looking back on a great business year and realizing you didn’t save any money.  It can sometimes be gut wrenching to think how much money you can blow through in a year.   And I have had my fair share of wasted savings years.

$10,000 a month has got to be my new monthly savings goal.  Period.  The new standard is $10,000 per month.  So, at the end of the 2011 I should have a minimum of $120,000 cash.

Travel/Fun Goals:

This one is pretty easy.  I usually don’t have a hard time getting in lots of travel and fun.  This year, I want to take the family on at least one vacation abroad.  We are thinking Japan and Hawaii, but we will see.  Then, I also want to climb Mt Rainer, ski several times, and get in at least one surf trip to Mexico or further.

Debt/Project Goals:

In order of payoff:

Pay off car and credit card ($17,000)

Sell my crappy apartment buildings in Louisiana ($0 to $30,000)

Build gate for house ($4,000)

Pay off or renegotiate second mortgage ($60,000)

Build addition to house ($45,000)

Learning/Health Goals:

Attend at least one internet marketing seminar and six real estate events.   Keep reading regularly.

Keep jogging at least every three days, three times per week.  I have currently been doing about 12 miles per week and I want to maintain this level of aerobic exercise.  Ideally, I should weigh 190 lbs, but that has been a constant never-ending challenge.  I am going to get to 200lbs in 60 days and stay there for the year.  I am currently at 210.  No more yo-yo’ing my weight.

That’s it for now.  Upward to 2010.

Mark Shandrow
Real Estate Broker
Shandrow Group

October was a relatively slow month for the Shandrow Group. Here are our numbers:

Opened Escrows: 6
Closed Escrows: 11
New Listings: 9

Here are our goals for November:

Opened Escrows: 22
Closed Escrows: 17
New Listings: 15

Let’s finish 2009 strong.

Best,
Mark Shandrow
Real Estate Broker
shandrowgroup.com

You can check out my progress in real-time right here:

http://markshandrow.com/sell-100-homes-in-2009/

The brokerage is also doing really well.  Now that I have three other great agents working with me the number of homes we can sell has been steady increasing.

These numbers are always available on this page:

http://markshandrow.com/homes-sold-year-to-date/

I also wanted to post our sales boards.  Here is the board at the end of the September:

Here are the goals for October 2009:

Working hard in this crazy real estate market,

Mark Shandrow
Real Time REO Broker
Shandrow Group