Interview with Team Troy CEO and Managing Broker, Troy Anderson

SEATTLE - May 8, 2013 - PRLog -- Why did you decide to get into real estate?


Why did I decide to get into real estate? Well that’s a really good question.  I actually started in real estate as a real estate investor. I was buying properties and fixing them up and buying properties and renting them out, and selling them, while I was working as a parts manager at the Acura Car dealer. After years of doing that, it made sense for me to get my real estate license. After that I transitioned from a full-time job at Acura to do real estate full time. Then, I realized that the career of selling real estate and being a real estate agent has everything to do with real estate, however, it really has to do with generating leads and customer service. It was kind of an eye opener that I had to generate leads to generate business and also provide good customer service.

Can you explain the team concept within Keller Williams Realty?

I was going to get into that during the last question you asked, because it is difficult for a single agent to be trying to prospect for new business and also provide excellent customer service to the clients that you are already serving in the Seattle area. The team concept is nothing new. For example, you are presented with a team concept every time you go to the doctor. You got someone who schedules your appointment and checks you in when you get there, then you have a nurse that comes in a checks all your vitals, and then you the professional comes in does what he or she needs to do, then you get sent on to a specialist if you need to. We take that concept in real estate as well. My role as the team leader is to lead the team and also I work primarily with listings. I make sure my listing team has all the tools they need to market and sell listings. We have several buyers’ agents that specialize in areas like investment properties - helping investors buy and get properties for rentals and also for fix up and sell.  That’s how I got my start, so we are really skilled at that. From a customer perspective you get all the services for the same price. Right now we have a nine-person team. We have four full time administrative positions from marketing, to transaction coordination to customer service. And then there are three buyer’s agents and one listing specialist.

Why would someone want to work with Team Troy versus another agent?

You get the team - all of us for the same price doesn’t cost any extra. If some is out sick, there is always someone to cover and to take over an urgent need. The synergy and energy that multiple people create is an advantage in the market place. I don’t have to worry about the marketing of my product taking away from prospecting for new business or keeping up with current trends. I can go to a NAHREP (National Association of Historic Real Estate Professional) conference and get the latest and greatest information in the real estate industry while my team is continually helping the business side of things.

How would you describe the current real estate market?

The current Seattle real estate market is fickle. Inventory is low, so just picture the grocery store with all the shelves bare.  There are buyers coming through doors in streams. There is a lot of competition for the active properties that are in good condition and can sell right away.  So not a short sale that can take a while to sell, and some of the foreclosures, the bank-owned properties, are more difficult to sell. Right now in the traditional sales, the inventory is really at all time lows. I just a market analysis for Queen Anne, the pricing is up 17 % from last year and the inventory levels are at .7 months.  If no properties come on the market, it will take half a month to sell what is currently available.

What advice would you give to someone trying to sell his or her home right now?

People that are getting ready to sell their home right now, the advice that I would give them would be to consult a real estate professional like us.  Have us come in and go over the marketing plan. The marketing plan includes getting the property ready for sale.  We treat our sales a lot like a stage production. There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes that makes it look pretty and go off well when it is time to go on the market. This means new paint, carpet, rearranging some furniture, de-cluttering, packing things up, for example. Part of our services is that we provide free staging, and we provide free house cleaning and landscape maintenance. We also have a moving truck you can use if you needed to haul stuff to storage or whatever you need. Anytime throughout the process, any of those things are available to you. My advice is to consult the professional, get the marketing plan in place, and then execute it. So when it is curtains up, per say, the property is presented the best it could possibly be presented to the people are going to be coming through the door.

How do you determine a home’s value?

We throw darts at the dartboard…There’s a lot that goes into it, there are a lot of variables.  We can land on several different valuations models and come up with a range of basically what we think a how will sell.  Everyone wants the agent to say it will sell for $300,000. Well, there is no real way to determine that.  We can say it is going to sell for $290,000 to $310,000. The buyer is going to make the decision on how much the house is worth based on what is currently available, what has sold in the past, what is under contract, and then there’s the perception as well like assessed value versus the list price.

There are consumer sites like Zillow, where you can plug minimal amounts of data in and it spits out a value out to you.  We look at those with a grain of salt. They are usually either really high or really low. They don’t take into account any improvements; they just basically take an average and then some sort of algorithm to figure out exactly how much that particular property is worth. It is based on square footage, assessed value, and what has sold recently.

The biggest thing we look at in this particular market is active, available competition and price positioning is what we call it.  We think it might sell for this value, but we’ve got a house over here that shows better than yours, so we need to be under this price, or vice versa.  You know, our house is great, and this one over here doesn’t show as well, so we think we can push the price a bit. It’s all about positioning.

What areas do you focus on within Seattle?

My office is in Wallingford, so we focus in the Green Lake, Wallingford, Phinney Ridge, Fremont areas of Seattle.

How would someone contact you?

We are really easy to contact. You can just Google, “Team Troy” or my website is www.nwhomesearch.com. You can always call us too, that’s sort of the smoke signal way to get a hold of us. It is 206-588-8409.