So You Need a listing Agent -- Now What?
The right listing agent:
1. doesn't walk through the property and tell you "I think I can get you X price." Agents should prepare a thorough, honest and detailed CMA to estimate the probable sale value of the property within the time frame desired based on sales of comparable properties. This cannot be done on the spot.
2. doesn't estimate a market value that magically coincides with the number you came up with. This is called "buying the listing." You may be quick to blame your agent when your overpriced property doesn't sell. 3. gives you a specific, detailed marketing plan. This plan should lay out exactly what the agent intends to do to sell your property, including specifics for advertising, brokers' and public open houses, distribution of marketing materials, and a commitment to give you a status report at least weekly.
4. puts a provision for early termination of the listing in the listing contract if the agent doesn't live up to the commitments in the marketing plan. Talk is cheap. The corollary of this is "put up or shut up."
5. doesn't say "I sell my own listings." The job of the listing agent is to expose the property in the marketplace as widely as possible, and not to try to sell it themselves by denying other agents the opportunity to show and sell the property.
6. doesn't boast of having dozens of other listings. Sellers who list with "mega" agents run the risk of being lost in the shufffle--of being no-face, no-name clients, and of rarely having direct contact with the agent they hired. The listing agent is the seller's link in the marketplace. Servicing a listing effectively is labor intensive. Some of that work can be delegated to an assistant without hurting the client. Other tasks cannot be delegated. How can listing agents give credible advice to the seller when they haven't personally spoken with showing agents or have gotten information only through hearsay? If I were to choose an agent to represent me, I would be entitled to deal with that agent and receive that agent's time, attention and effort. My view is that I didn't hire the agent's assistant. I hired the assistant's boss.
7. doesn't ask for a 12-month listing contract where the property should sell in 90 days. You should agree to extending the listing contract only where the agent has demonstrated good-faith efforts in implementing the marketing plan. Time is generally like closet space. The more you give people, the more they need.
When you're interviewing potential listing agents, ask them for references of past seller clients who have referred other people to them. Contact those references. Quality listing agents are in it for the long haul. They want repeat business and referrals. They realize that they must be willing to work hard and put the seller's interests ahead of their own on a consistent basis. You don't want an agent who looks at your property as just another plate spinning in a long line of spinning plates. Sooner or later, the agent will forget to spin some plates and they will crash and break. You don't want your property to be one of those broken plates.
The best agents I've known over the 21+ years I've been in RE brokerage are those who are honest with their clients. They don't shirk responsibility or accountability or make excuses. They put themselves in the client's shoes. They give the client the best they have to give--whether the listing is $100K or $500K. They are the best there is at what they do because of who they are and how they treat their clients. They take their commitments to all of their clients seriously and do what has to be done.
Any business is only as ethical and honest as the people involved in it. You and your agent should treat each other with respect and loyalty. These are essential qualities of the relationship, but they must be earned by both people. Professionalism is a state of mind and not a job description. And it doesn't automatically "attach" because someone claims to be successful.
I really enjoy this reffreshing outlook from an actual realtor. I think that so many out there are concerned about "buying the listing" and not the seller. I mentioned an "open" listing agreement to a local realtor and was told that wasn't the best agreement to get the property sold
(her commisson would be smaller).
A great read!
Randall
Nancy,
Great points. I'd add one more about what a good agent does,
A good agent knows the market your property is part of. He/she doesn't take residential listings in a neighborhood he won't show in. Doesn't take commercial listings when they only understand residential or vice versa. Doesn't list your condo when all they work is SFR. In other words, they have at least some specialization where they bring information to the table that is not generally available.
This is especially true where the product is more specialized. For example Nancy's land brokerage speciality. This is the sort of area where a good broker is worth a great deal more than you pay them. The agent's knowledge of the local enviornment, political and regulatory in particular in that case is absolutely priceless.
Mark
Mark,
I agree 100% with your point about agents not listing property in which they have no credible experience and expertise. (Agents, of course, aren't the only people who make this mistake.) Greed and the lust for power can be very seductive to people in all types of businesses and professions. But as fiduciaries, agents are charged with a higher duty--acting in the client's best interests. Those who take on work for which they are not qualified do themselves as much harm as anyone else.
Thanks for your kind words.
Nancy
Dear Nancy,
I enjoyed your article and I think you have spelled out the perfect house broker. One operating in the general market. In these parts with a very few exceptions they are big office types. They do their work well.
But alas, every now and then there is a need through present circumstance for the slightly different non conforming broker. You know the one that tells you your sale hopes are not in present time reality. In proof he offers to cover the bet by an offer to purchase end of a 60 day listing. You being under the gun. Either an upcoming family disruption or an inability to continue house payment. Then there is a place for such a person.
Of course there is also the combination Broker who makes loans, buys listings and whose advice is right on present time market. He makes you a short time loan to carry while he arranges a fixup of the property or a quick addition to bring the non conforming tiny house into marketability to the neighborhood of larger homes. etc. etc. I think dear Nancy there is room for alll. Sometimes when the fires of change are burning bright and the spike of market price goes thru the ceiling, then the unconventional slightly non conforming brokers come into their own.
Thank you for your information, it is always welcome.
Lucius
Lucius, I didn't see the broker profile I presented as being "conventional" or at odds with the broker who would essentially say to the seller "put up or shut up." By this, I mean a broker who is willing to test the seller's "theory" of value but on different terms. Like compensation paid based on time spent marketing the overpriced property instead of a percentage of the sales price. This I have done on several occasions. Always seems to make the seller get a different perspective on their "theory" of value. So Lucius, I am at least slightly more unconventional than perhaps you believe.
The listing broker who purchases the listing ought to do so only with great caution. Conflict of interest can easily be presumed where the broker's (buyer's) estimated value is discounted, absent legitimate reasons.
Happy Memorial Day. Thank you for your service.
Nancy
Dear Nancy,
Having of recent date had the results of not properly papering a LeaseOption er Land Contract some 10 years. I agree with your thoughts as to purchase of listing. I would suggest that the Broker who does so should insure with great caution such a purchase. My little booboo cost me about $400,000. Of course this was not planned. I never dreamed that the value of the house would increase from $99,000 to $410,000. I really thought I was doing him a favor taking over the little house which was then being used as a Crack House. But a lesson learned.
I have on occasion bought a house that I have listed having agreed to purchase if it did not sell. I always waited for the Seller to call upon me for the performance and I did paper the event with massive documentation with attached appraisal etc. etc. Never had a problem as you know having researched my Real Estate License.
Thank you for your comments. I would never list you as totaly conventional type of broker. Your comments while texual merely cover the fact that in other forms of writing you are most creative and what is more important readable.
Cheers Lucius
Lucius, here are some words for you that I hope you find readable.
...Reflecting on these present endless nights,
On dusty challenges, forgotten heights
And battles fought and won with something more
Than bravery, to fall and yet endure
The penalties imposed on those who try
To travel past the boundaries of the eye,
Creating light from darkness and from stone
To carve such images no mind has known.
What stupor has now crept upon the land
To dull the mind and eye, weigh down the hand
That to our consciousness has come a halt--
Is this not worth a tear, a bit of salt?
Nancy
Huhh, I might be interfering in a personal exchange but to me it sounds like what we have here is "the author" suffer, suffers or maybe once suffered of insomnia, perhaps allergy and disorientation...