by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Realtor Patrick Dorrian is taking a different approach to getting listings - he started offering free “Seller’s Seminars” about a year ago and says he is getting great results.
“I saw a lot of people offering buyer’s seminars, but I never saw anyone offering seller’s seminars,” said Dorrian.
He said he realized that people really needed seller’s seminars to help them make educated decisions when it came to selling their homes.
“It’s a difficult thing,” he said. “If their house falls into a category of 1 of 30 homes that are going to sell, I have to find a way to make theirs the one. It has to have the perfect marketing and the perfect pricing or it won’t happen,” he said.
Dorrian holds three or four seminars a month at his Prudential Network Realty office in Atlantic Beach where the attendance has ranged from two to 20 people.
“It usually depends on dates, times and who shows,” he said.
Last year he held eight seminars and, as a result of those, he and wife Rachel Dorrian closed a little over $1 million some listings and some sales. This year Dorrian will hold the seminars through September.
Dorrian said attendees learn important details and tips about selling their home. They receive a seller’s package that includes a property salability checklist, a sample purchase and sales contract, a contract-to-close list, a questionnaire for interviewing real estate agents and a coupon for a competitive market analysis research package.
“I give them all the information for free and try to educate them, so they can go and make what they feel is the best decision for them,” he said.
Sometimes, he gets more than he was hoping for via the seminars.
“We had someone who came to the seminar to find out about selling their house, but they also wanted to move to another house,” he said. “My goal is to help them with whatever they need help with.”
Dorrian said there are two very important pieces of information he reviews at the seminars to help the attendees sell their home.
“We go over the two pieces of information that people need to think about when selling their house,” he said. “They need to market the house very well and price the house very well.
“Essentially, what I try to help them understand is that there are houses out there that people will see value in that are listed at $50,000. There are houses out there that people will see value in that are listed for $5 million. Value is a relationship between what you get and what you pay for. Only the listings that come across as value are those that will sell.”
Dorrian said he tries to help the seller increase the value of the house they are trying to sell.
“I explain to them that the way you live in a house is not the same way you sell a house,” he said. “I can help them with staging, pricing appropriately and other things to increase value and help the home sell.”
Dorrian uses the proprietary “Dorrian Funnel Technique” he came up with when pricing homes. He looks first at the market is a whole, their house in the area and the competitors in the area, the competitors in the region and then competitors in their neighborhood to come up with the appropriate selling price.
In this market, he said that people get a little confused because often they owe a certain amount on the house that doesn’t match what the house is actually worth.
“Whether they are losing money or making money in the house has no impact on what the house is worth,” he said. “It has an impact on their decision to sell or not, but it has no impact on the value.”