varying levels of real estate agents.
 

i've been shopping homes.

it's crazy the different agents i meet and the different levels of selling styles i've come across. i've seen homes that are filthy and truly lived in. you think the agent even tells the seller to hire a cleaner? the spectrum is between fully staged and shiney and clean, to..i can smell what they are cooking for dinner. one open house had the entire family out in the back yard eating lunch on the patio furniture.

makes my head spin.

i think a GREAT agent with a "to-do" list is worth their weight in gold.

how much would you do to sell your home?

I've found that some listing agents don't care. As soon as they get the listing, their work is done. Just sit back and wait for someone else to sell it for you. The exception is if they need the home to sell so that the couple can buy their new home from them. Other times, the agent gives the advice the seller doesn't want to follow it.

Might be renters occupying the house. What a nightmare that would be.

some realtors in Vancouver cannot even be bothered to post pictures of houses. 25 competing offers quite often. no subjects to be removed from contracts.
some of the offers are made sight unseen. heck, some potential buyers haven't even been to the city before, let alone the neighbourhood or house.
buddy's neighbour in the hipster 'hood - Mount Pleasant - just sold for 700,000.00 over asking price. he was flabbergasted. in a good way.

The agent we used to buy our home here in WI was awesome, the one in CA I would have hired the girl with the dragon tattoo for but we had to settle for arbitration and the Realtors board sanction him.

It's not like it is on HGTV. We have sellers who are sick, in financial trouble, going through divorces, or have tenants.

I have some homes that I wait weeks/months waiting for them to get it PERFECT because that's the best strategy. I have other homes where if the lawn can get mowed and the kitty litter scooped out, we're ready for an open house.

If I was only willing to deal with clients who took all my advice, I'd be out of business pretty quick.

used house salespeople = used car dealers
both are useless and will cost you money

Bug the LO about "the status of docs".

rjp

^^^ This was my assumption. Many clients don't perceive realtors as a value-added service, just a necessary evil. If the real estate license requirements were tougher, and all real estate brokers would (if it's legal) demand a $5K or $10K retainer and compete on a track record for their services in a value proposition, clients would take their advice more seriously. The seller has nothing invested in the relationship. How could "seller performance" be anything but bad.

It's the same in investment banking and M&A representation. My firm wins contracts with a high retainer when others presenting are charging just half, or even nothing, upfront. The seller perceives a higher quality service and with an investment in the game perform better throughout the transaction.

Unfortunately, the barrier to entry into being a real estate agent is too low and they're walking all over each other in vast numbers, bringing down the quality and price of their service. This hurts the good ones, like notfarnow.

My wife loves the TV shows about looking for real estate. I would prefer to go to the dentist than watch those shows. She will drive by a house and have to look it up to see what it is listed for and how it looks inside.

She showed me one listing that was laughable at how bad it was. They had to try to make the photos look that bad. There was crap on counters, and on the floor. The lawn need mowing and the spelling errors and grammar errors were stunning. It should have won an award for the worst listing ever.

When I sold in CA back in '08, the homes were either "staged" and empty or, like mine, empty except for a couple of living room pieces and a bedroom set.
Everything was either painted or brand new.
My agent would phone me to vacate for an hour or so...bringing over a client.
Of course, that was back when Bay Area homes were often getting $100k over asking price.
.
On another note -
I auditioned well over a dozen agents until I found one who was truthful.
Example: I would intentionally say something that was made up just to see how they would respond.
I told one agent about what another agent told me -
Agent: "Who told you that?"
Me: "Elliot Mendell from Best Homes agency. Ever heard of him?"
Agent: "Oh, yes I have."
.
I made up the name. Lots of sharks in real estate.
Blah!!!! :mad:

Real estate agents are similar to doctors and lawyers in one narrow regard: The difference between average and excellent is VAST, while the difference between poor and average is small.

The difference is that in real estate sales, I'd say probably 5% of the agents do 80% of the sales. And everyone else lives off of crumbs.

And why do all real estate agents claim to be brokers? They are not. If you have a problem with the way an agent is conducting himself, then write a letter to his or her broker. That agent will be straightened out right quick.

I saw the same thing when I was looking for houses in Georgia. I'd say about 30% of the time, it seemed like the owners put zero effort into the listing. It was weird walking around houses with stained carpet and trashed interiors, with the owners following us around.

I've never sold a house that wasn't immaculately staged. When we sold our first house, which was pretty small, we moved about half of our stuff into a storage space just to make the rooms feel bigger. The house I sold in Georgia, I probably put $500 into cosmetic upgrades (painting, fixing torn window screens, etc.) BEFORE I got advice from the realtor--and we were only in that house for 13 months!

We're selling a brick ranch rental. A realtor went through it and told us all the things we needed to fix to get top dollar. I don't want to sell it for top dollar, what I want is maximum profit. He's not happy that we're not doing some things, but I don't want to invest $10k to increase the selling price by $5k.

This illustrates one of the problems with the compensation system for RE agents. They have a vested interest in getting the highest sale price. Usually this works in the client's favor, but the client is interested in ROI, not top dollar. It bugs me when an agent suggests improvements that don't positively affect ROI and only serve to make the house easier to sell and at a higher price and commission to boot.

Name another occupation where a person with very little training or education can make so much money.



DISCLAIMER: I got my RE license back in 1980, right before Jiminy carter got the interest rates up to near 20%.
No one was buying anything, especially houses.
I did nearly nothing in those three months in the RE biddness but still made almost 4 grand.

Touche'!

^^
Family sold a house in auburn with a real estate agent that has never sold a house in their life. Ironically the house sold over asking within the first week. The agent had little to do with it, it was the property that sold itself.
Personification, but it's true.

We're gonna be looking to sell in a year or three. While I'd like to be moved out and have everything perfect, that ain't gonna happen....