Jenna Van Alstine, Sales Director for rennie’s Developer Services team, has been with the company since 2011. In her real estate career spanning over a decade, she has earned a wealth of experience in luxury real estate marketing, real estate investment analysis, and building relationships with many prominent developers. Collectively, Jenna has been involved in over $500M in sales volume of both detached and strata properties across the Lower Mainland.In her role as a Sales Director, Jenna works among rennie’s Marketing and Sales Operations team, leading strategic sales programs to help her developer clients sell their pre-sale projects smoothly and successfully.
We had the pleasure of sitting down with Jenna to discuss how realtors play an integral part in helping buyers in their pre-sale journey.
On educating buyers
As a buyer’s representative, it is the realtor’s job to educate their client on the pre-sale process. Many aspects of the pre-sale process can be overwhelming or unknown to your client. If you can get ahead of that by finding out as much information as you can about the pre-sale project, you can advise your client and add context that will help address their concerns in advance. The best practice is to go to the presentation centre ahead of visiting with your client as you want to have as much info as possible on the product, and the specifics around the developer and pre-sale project.
On thinking ahead
In pre-sale, realtors need to keep in mind the project will be completed in several years so you want to consider what the neighbourhood will look like years from now and share that foresight with your client. Additionally, realtors should compare other pre-sales in the area.
On reading the disclosure statement
One underutilized tool is the disclosure statement. Asking for the disclosure statement before writing the deal will give realtors ample info to educate their clients on. This is helpful to ensure your client has time to learn and process important pre-sale information before entering the seven-day recision period, at which point your client is likely feeling a bit more emotional.
On asking the sales team for assistance
It’s also important to remember that the sales team at presentation centres live and breathe pre-sale and they’re there to help. So don’t hesitate to ask them about the homes or any process that you’re not aware of. As a realtor, know that your job isn’t just to bring up concerns about what the salesperson is saying, instead, it’s also to provide context to what they’re saying as it relates to your client.
On important questions to ask
There are the more obvious questions such as expected completion date, deposit structure, and expected strata fees, as well as questions about the developer and what other projects they have built. You’ll also want to understand where a development is in the sales process. Is the development previewing right now or are they currently selling? If they are selling, when did they launch? How many homes have sold? Are they holding any homes back? This will give you a good sense of where your client is coming in from in the sales process and whether there might be an opportunity to negotiate.
In addition, knowing your client's goals and the associated pain points that can be frustrating for them down the road is important, such as: How does it work with completion timelines? What’s the context around those timelines - what is the anticipated completion date but what other scenarios and unknowns could come up? When is construction expected to start and when is the outside date?
On preparing for pricing questions
A popular question often asked by the client is if the developer has raised prices since the project began selling. As a realtor, you should find out the answer to this question in advance, rather than in the presence of your client, because often the answer is yes. And that doesn’t mean that the home is not of great value to your client or that they aren’t getting a great deal. It may just mean the market has changed and that there’s a huge amount of demand or that there are incentives that could offset that price increase. So, having conversations about this with the pre-sale team beforehand without your client will make the process with your client go a lot more smoothly and allow you to add context around whether the current pricing is in line with market value, or a fit for your client.
On being proactive
Finding out as much information about the pre-sale project upfront, before you and your client are in front of the salesperson allows you to be able to control how the information is presented to your client, and the better their expectations will be set and the more comfortable they are going to be with the process. That way you’re not hit with the surprises at the same time they are.
If you are curious to learn more expert insight from Jenna, stay tuned for part two of our conversation with her, featured in next month’s edition of the rennie insider.
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