Photo Credit: Stephanie Diani/WPN
Ewing has worked in real estate for more than 30 years, first in sales, and for the last 22 years as a manager and owner. The firm has 150 sales associates and three offices in Southern California, and became a Sotheby's franchise three years ago.
Q Has the downturn affected you and your company?
A It has affected everybody. We have been less affected because of our average sales price. I just attended a program put on by the California Association of Realtors and the presenter determined that with property over $750,000, the transactions are only off about 5% year to year; for houses under $750,000, the transaction count is off about 26% year to year. There's a lot of volatility in the number of transactions; there's not a lot of volatility in price.
People in our market, for the most part, are discretionary sellers, so we're not seeing a lot of price depreciation.
Q Knowing that you're reasonably well-insulated at that end of the market, what do you do to stay motivated and avoid becoming complacent?
A We are very aggressive about marketing these properties. A lot of our effort goes into — and we consider marketing to include — staging the property.
Over the last several years in the real estate industry, more and more of our clients and more and more buyers and their agents have come to depend on the Internet for information and are not viewing as many properties. So, when there's a lot of property for sale, we have to make sure that the properties we promote are presented really well. We must have professional photography, and we have to stage the property from paint to landscaping to interiors and furniture.
Everything is really well done so the property speaks for itself in photos.
Q What kind of property do buyers want?
A They want a property that's in really good condition. When the market was booming you could have a property that had significant defects, and people would still buy it.
Buyers now have many more options than they previously had, so they can be much more discerning. Where before people would buy and live with [the property's] problems, whether it was some sort of obsolescence in the floor plan or design or location or condition, now they don't tolerate that because they don't have to. We encourage sellers to put the property [on the market] in the best condition they possibly can.
Q What's most important to know about dealing with high-end clients?
A The high-end market requires a distinctly different approach because, in most cases, we're dealing with very sophisticated homeowners. They understand business; they have bought and sold many homes previously.
Often we deal with a representative and not directly with the client. We have celebrity clients and we deal with their business managers. Business managers are a whole different situation because they're trying to demonstrate to their clients that they're tough negotiators, that they're going to get the best deal.
We have to really work hard with that type of person, demonstrating our value to them; otherwise they'll move on to someone else. And those managers are very discerning; they make decisions fairly quickly. They like to see results and they want to know what's going on all the time.
Q What do you tell yourself before you enter a negotiation?
A I ask myself: If I were the seller, would this strategy excite me, and is it a valuable approach to selling the property?
I also want to know that the seller is going to take the relevant steps to work with us on selling the property. If either one of those is lacking, then we have to go back to the drawing board to create a better strategy or we will pass on the listing.
Q What's the worst mistake you can make in real estate?
A Being unprepared because then you look like every other broker. Not that every other broker is unprepared, but you look like a common, everyday broker.
What people expect of Sotheby's is a highly professional, well-trained, well-run business, and we have to present that. If we're unprepared, it really blows up in our face.
David Zuckerman is a freelance writer based in New York.