Yes much of my time is spent educating sellers. It is my job though so I actually enjoy it. I can honestly say that I have never left a listing appointment where the seller didn’t learn anything new. I sit down and logon to the MLS with them at thier home with MY login so the get to see the agents view of the MLS.
Anyways to cut to the chase, it is a very frustrating line to walk. I am not the type to badmouth other agents because honestly most of them are good people. While I do not agree with some of thier tactics I try to simply educate the seller to ASK INTELLIGENT QUESTIONS rather then say this agent is blowing smoke up your you know what. If more sellers asked for hard data to back up claims that are made that are more speculative in nature then I would have 3 times the listings I currently have.
So how do I deal with it?
Well not in the greatest way. I do not lie nor do I mislead. When I am at a listing appt I tell the seller what my price RECOMMENDATION is based on the comps AND based on my read of the market FOR THAT LOCAL MAPCODE. More often then not my recommendation is lower then the price the seller wants to list at. I tell the seller I will list at his price if he wants BUT THAT IN MY OPINION, it will be a stretch not only for him to get that price, and he may not get much traffic. Also that it could not appraise if it is to far outside the comp range. So by doing that, I still am in the game to get the business, but I have put my opinion out in the open.
Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t. In some cases I get the call back from the seller saying he is going with the other agent who promised a marketing onslaught will do the trick. Other times I get the listing, the home goes on the market, gets little to no traffic, we reprice and then the home sells. Sometimes we reprice and we end up chasing the market and the home never sells. Other times the seller cancels on me after a period of time where no traffic came through. Even though I forewarned of this event! What can you do… My wife tells me I do way to much work for free and in most cases I agree with her. My sister in law who works for Coldwell also says the same thing… Many a time I send out comps and do alot of legwork only to get a call saying thanks for all of your work but we went with someone else. Alot of times I see the same pictures I took used on listings that used to be mine. Last month I did alot of legwork for a lady who wanted to list a place in Luecadia. She came in from Hawaii… I comped it for her, looked for a handyman for her to fix it up, did a fair amount of work over a 4 week period. Then two days before the listing she calls me and says she is gonna have her best friend list the home. So why didn’t she just work with her friend from the beginning. She was very nice about it and told me she has recommended me to alot of her friends. Since this happens alot I always leave it on good terms and I told her hey no worries, I will keep an eye on her listing especially if I have a buyer. So then I noticed when her listing did come out the listing agent took LAME photos. So I sent her an email saying hey, you may want to ask your agent to hire a photographer or get a virtual tour, that stuff is super cheap. So I get a TOTAL NASTYGRAM from the agent after that. All I was trying to do was help the seller…
What the heck… What is funny is I do not consider myself a super agent. I am just a scrub! I have had my license for like 2.5 years but in that time I have done a ton of transactions. Also have my own rental properties for many years and doing alot of real estate helped.
So for what it is worth, yes I try to educate sellers but again, they need to ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS. It all may seem like common sense to alot of people posting here, but to the average person it is not.
