Charlotte Property Management Weekly: Retail Lessons on How to Sell the “Little House on the Prairie” in Today’s Market

“Oh, I wish I could buy a house right now…”  (Many anxious Charlotte renters)

Retailers are getting a really bad rap these days.  Their sales figures are low, profit margins are terrible (they have to discount everything to move it), many are going into bankruptcy, and Wall Street is punishing their stocks.  Surprisingly, retailers used to innovate extensively to drive sales.  Unfortunately, much like Austin Powers, they lost their mojo.  But first a brief recap of retail’s glory days…

Back in the day (I’m thinking of the Oleson’s family store in Little House in the Prairie as a reference…), sales were all about cash & carry.  When Half-Pint (err, Laura Ingalls) went into the store with a penny, she walked out with a licorice stick.  Done deal.  This allowed sales to come to certain point, but then flatten.  One day some smart retailer came up with the “layaway plan” to drive sales growth; instead of a customer having to have all the money upfront, they could make installment payments and get the good when it was paid off.  Sales went up as more customers were able to purchase.  Then after sales growth flattened again, they needed the next big idea- and it was a whopper- the credit card.  Now the customer didn’t even have to have any of the money and they still got the good.  Sales soared as even more customers had the ability to buy.  It was pure genius, a true win-win.  More customers were able to get what they wanted and the retailers made more sales.

Now, how does this transition to real estate?  We are lost in a world where people are not getting loans and just buying our homes outright.  Where your Realtor, Suzy “Sales Hotter than a Hot” Pepper, can’t sell your home, something is wrong.  Seriously wrong.  Pa Ingalls can’t understand why his “Little House” won’t sell; he built the darn house with his bare hands!  It’s solid!  And it has been sitting on the market for 200+ days!  Great acreage, hardwoods throughout, wood-burning fireplace…

When retailers saw sales flatten, they innovated.  It didn’t matter whether their customers had money or not, they worked around the issue and found a solution to exponentially drive sales.  Imagine that conversation…  “We need to drive sales”  “How?  We already are getting most of the public’s discretionary income.”  “Doesn’t matter- we’ll find a way to give the public access to more money- and then they’ll spend it with us!”  “What?!??!”

The solution for opening up the real estate market to the greatest number of customers in today’s market lies outside of the world of banks.  In later articles, I’ll go into greater detail on where the innovation in real estate will be: rent-to-own, rent-to-sell, & seller financing.

The Little House will sell!  Just not in the way you expected…

Brett Furniss is the President & Owner of BDF Realty, “Charlotte’s Most Innovative Property Management & Investment Company” (www.BDFRealty.com and www.RentToSell.com).  You can follow his Twitter thoughts on the Charlotte real estate market by clicking on http://twitter.com/bdfrealty.  He is the author of the FREE E-Manual entitled “How to Rent-To-Sell Your Own Home” (http://www.renttosell.com/RTS-Book.html) which details how to get the most potential buyers to your home in this challenging real estate market.