When deciding who to chose as your agent, you’ll probably hear a whole lot of claims that sound reasonable … even too good to be true. Here’s a few …
We have a database with thousands of buyers waiting. Well, sure, every agent has lists of people they’ve met who were looking for a property at some point in time. Almost no one is a buyer forever, right? In reality, most good agents are only working closely and personally with 20-30 “ready-buyers” at any given time.
We will market your property internally to all our other offices. Never happens in my experience and I have worked with two major Australia-wide franchises.
Choose the agent who quotes the highest estimated selling price. This is called “over-quoting” and in my book it’s unconscionable conduct. The seller may be waiting months, become forced into a price-dropping spiral, buyers are likely to think there’s something wrong with the property and sale price is lower, in the end.
Advertise at a higher price, we can always come down. Sounds logical, right? But you’ll have no enquiries, no inspections and no one for the agent to negotiate with. (Refer point 3 above)
Letterbox drops help to find a buyer. Not very often. Agents mainly do letterbox drops to promote the company or themselves, and that’s fine, but the vendor should never be asked to pay for brochures for letterbox drops.
The cheapest agent will mean more money in my pocket. Almost never! If the agent is quick to give their own money away, how strong are their negotiating skills?
We only need 20 minutes for an Open House. Ok? Race the buyers through and drive off in a flurry to the next house on the factory line. I have found that this makes buyers feel unimportant and there’s no time to build rapport between the agent and each buyer, making it hard to negotiate effectively.