[New_Renter]

djrobsd,
I really feel for you. The sad thing is, your same story could probably be told by thousands of others here in SD. Trust me, your likely better off with the 1% agent. Traditional full-commission agents are experts at reciting the BS party line mantra that “you get what you pay for”. 6% commissions are going the way of the dinosaur. With the rise of online services, NOBODY is able to add enough value to the process to justify full commission when there are plenty of excellent, experienced agents out there willing to list for 2.0, 1.5, 1, .5% (yes, I do know some good ones at that comission level) or even a flat-rate. You do, of course, need to be very careful and thoroughly interview and check references on any agent/broker you are hiring. Especially when you get down into the lower tiers of commission, you need to negotiate and agree in writing EXACTLY what services you are going to get. Even at the lowest commission levels you ought be able to get the services I described in my previous post (except you might have to pay for the Virtual Tour). The better ones won’t even lock you into a minimum listing term, as they are that confident in what they do. Another way to tell a good agent is that they are bluntly honest with you about the current market conditions, recommended pricing, etc. They should be very open and have a direct style. If their too slick, try to make promises or guarantees about your house selling quickly, or pump themselves up as a worlds greatest realtor, those are just huge red flags for me.

BTW, my impression is that most of the agents/brokers that contribute here on Piggington are discount brokers and well understand the fast changing landscape of RE business. Just the fact that they are on Piggington at all tells me they are thought leaders in their industry. What really kills me is just how out of touch, not to mention greedy, that your Coldwell agent was.

I wish you the best of luck in getting your property sold, you at least now have a better chance with your new strategy.

*Disclaimer: I am in no way employed in the RE industry, and the opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

[New_Renter]

djrobsd,
I really feel for you. The sad thing is, your same story could probably be told by thousands of others here in SD. Trust me, your likely better off with the 1% agent. Traditional full-commission agents are experts at reciting the BS party line mantra that “you get what you pay for”. 6% commissions are going the way of the dinosaur. With the rise of online services, NOBODY is able to add enough value to the process to justify full commission when there are plenty of excellent, experienced agents out there willing to list for 2.0, 1.5, 1, .5% (yes, I do know some good ones at that comission level) or even a flat-rate. You do, of course, need to be very careful and thoroughly interview and check references on any agent/broker you are hiring. Especially when you get down into the lower tiers of commission, you need to negotiate and agree in writing EXACTLY what services you are going to get. Even at the lowest commission levels you ought be able to get the services I described in my previous post (except you might have to pay for the Virtual Tour). The better ones won’t even lock you into a minimum listing term, as they are that confident in what they do. Another way to tell a good agent is that they are bluntly honest with you about the current market conditions, recommended pricing, etc. They should be very open and have a direct style. If their too slick, try to make promises or guarantees about your house selling quickly, or pump themselves up as a worlds greatest realtor, those are just huge red flags for me.

BTW, my impression is that most of the agents/brokers that contribute here on Piggington are discount brokers and well understand the fast changing landscape of RE business. Just the fact that they are on Piggington at all tells me they are thought leaders in their industry. What really kills me is just how out of touch, not to mention greedy, that your Coldwell agent was.

I wish you the best of luck in getting your property sold, you at least now have a better chance with your new strategy.

*Disclaimer: I am in no way employed in the RE industry, and the opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

[New_Renter]

djrobsd,
I really feel for you. The sad thing is, your same story could probably be told by thousands of others here in SD. Trust me, your likely better off with the 1% agent. Traditional full-commission agents are experts at reciting the BS party line mantra that “you get what you pay for”. 6% commissions are going the way of the dinosaur. With the rise of online services, NOBODY is able to add enough value to the process to justify full commission when there are plenty of excellent, experienced agents out there willing to list for 2.0, 1.5, 1, .5% (yes, I do know some good ones at that comission level) or even a flat-rate. You do, of course, need to be very careful and thoroughly interview and check references on any agent/broker you are hiring. Especially when you get down into the lower tiers of commission, you need to negotiate and agree in writing EXACTLY what services you are going to get. Even at the lowest commission levels you ought be able to get the services I described in my previous post (except you might have to pay for the Virtual Tour). The better ones won’t even lock you into a minimum listing term, as they are that confident in what they do. Another way to tell a good agent is that they are bluntly honest with you about the current market conditions, recommended pricing, etc. They should be very open and have a direct style. If their too slick, try to make promises or guarantees about your house selling quickly, or pump themselves up as a worlds greatest realtor, those are just huge red flags for me.

BTW, my impression is that most of the agents/brokers that contribute here on Piggington are discount brokers and well understand the fast changing landscape of RE business. Just the fact that they are on Piggington at all tells me they are thought leaders in their industry. What really kills me is just how out of touch, not to mention greedy, that your Coldwell agent was.

I wish you the best of luck in getting your property sold, you at least now have a better chance with your new strategy.

*Disclaimer: I am in no way employed in the RE industry, and the opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

[New_Renter]

djrobsd,
I really feel for you. The sad thing is, your same story could probably be told by thousands of others here in SD. Trust me, your likely better off with the 1% agent. Traditional full-commission agents are experts at reciting the BS party line mantra that “you get what you pay for”. 6% commissions are going the way of the dinosaur. With the rise of online services, NOBODY is able to add enough value to the process to justify full commission when there are plenty of excellent, experienced agents out there willing to list for 2.0, 1.5, 1, .5% (yes, I do know some good ones at that comission level) or even a flat-rate. You do, of course, need to be very careful and thoroughly interview and check references on any agent/broker you are hiring. Especially when you get down into the lower tiers of commission, you need to negotiate and agree in writing EXACTLY what services you are going to get. Even at the lowest commission levels you ought be able to get the services I described in my previous post (except you might have to pay for the Virtual Tour). The better ones won’t even lock you into a minimum listing term, as they are that confident in what they do. Another way to tell a good agent is that they are bluntly honest with you about the current market conditions, recommended pricing, etc. They should be very open and have a direct style. If their too slick, try to make promises or guarantees about your house selling quickly, or pump themselves up as a worlds greatest realtor, those are just huge red flags for me.

BTW, my impression is that most of the agents/brokers that contribute here on Piggington are discount brokers and well understand the fast changing landscape of RE business. Just the fact that they are on Piggington at all tells me they are thought leaders in their industry. What really kills me is just how out of touch, not to mention greedy, that your Coldwell agent was.

I wish you the best of luck in getting your property sold, you at least now have a better chance with your new strategy.

*Disclaimer: I am in no way employed in the RE industry, and the opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

[New_Renter]

djrobsd,
I really feel for you. The sad thing is, your same story could probably be told by thousands of others here in SD. Trust me, your likely better off with the 1% agent. Traditional full-commission agents are experts at reciting the BS party line mantra that “you get what you pay for”. 6% commissions are going the way of the dinosaur. With the rise of online services, NOBODY is able to add enough value to the process to justify full commission when there are plenty of excellent, experienced agents out there willing to list for 2.0, 1.5, 1, .5% (yes, I do know some good ones at that comission level) or even a flat-rate. You do, of course, need to be very careful and thoroughly interview and check references on any agent/broker you are hiring. Especially when you get down into the lower tiers of commission, you need to negotiate and agree in writing EXACTLY what services you are going to get. Even at the lowest commission levels you ought be able to get the services I described in my previous post (except you might have to pay for the Virtual Tour). The better ones won’t even lock you into a minimum listing term, as they are that confident in what they do. Another way to tell a good agent is that they are bluntly honest with you about the current market conditions, recommended pricing, etc. They should be very open and have a direct style. If their too slick, try to make promises or guarantees about your house selling quickly, or pump themselves up as a worlds greatest realtor, those are just huge red flags for me.

BTW, my impression is that most of the agents/brokers that contribute here on Piggington are discount brokers and well understand the fast changing landscape of RE business. Just the fact that they are on Piggington at all tells me they are thought leaders in their industry. What really kills me is just how out of touch, not to mention greedy, that your Coldwell agent was.

I wish you the best of luck in getting your property sold, you at least now have a better chance with your new strategy.

*Disclaimer: I am in no way employed in the RE industry, and the opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

[New_Renter]

RO,

Other than price & location, the next most important are:

3. High quality, timely MLS Listing. Many listing agents do a terrible job with this, and it hurts the seller. High-quality, 10 well-staged pictures, solid description (no mis-spellings or grammatical errors), don’t let it sit half-complete for a week (i.e. get the damn pictures up), etc.

4. Offer the Buyer’s agent 2.5% minimum, otherwise they will effectively boycott your listing.

5. Run an excellent “Broker’s” open house (Caravan). This is very important so all the local agents can intelligently describe your property to their clients.

6. Get a decent Virtual Tour up on the site within 1 week of the listing going active (as long as pictures are up on the day the listing goes active).

7. A good sign & well-produced color flyer on the property.

8. Post a new listing on Craigslist weekly.

Truly, this is 99.9% of it. Everything else is essentially a waste of time. The MLS listing provides the vast majority of of your marketing benefit as your home is immediately available everwhere: Realtor.com, Redfin, HouseRebate, ZipRealty, all the individual realtors sites, and hundreds of others. Make sure it isn’t done in some half-assed way.

BTW, I sold my most recent property in 5-days @ 4% total commission and got towards the top of the Value Range Marketing (VRM) price. It was priced realistically (not greedily).

[New_Renter]

RO,

Other than price & location, the next most important are:

3. High quality, timely MLS Listing. Many listing agents do a terrible job with this, and it hurts the seller. High-quality, 10 well-staged pictures, solid description (no mis-spellings or grammatical errors), don’t let it sit half-complete for a week (i.e. get the damn pictures up), etc.

4. Offer the Buyer’s agent 2.5% minimum, otherwise they will effectively boycott your listing.

5. Run an excellent “Broker’s” open house (Caravan). This is very important so all the local agents can intelligently describe your property to their clients.

6. Get a decent Virtual Tour up on the site within 1 week of the listing going active (as long as pictures are up on the day the listing goes active).

7. A good sign & well-produced color flyer on the property.

8. Post a new listing on Craigslist weekly.

Truly, this is 99.9% of it. Everything else is essentially a waste of time. The MLS listing provides the vast majority of of your marketing benefit as your home is immediately available everwhere: Realtor.com, Redfin, HouseRebate, ZipRealty, all the individual realtors sites, and hundreds of others. Make sure it isn’t done in some half-assed way.

BTW, I sold my most recent property in 5-days @ 4% total commission and got towards the top of the Value Range Marketing (VRM) price. It was priced realistically (not greedily).

[New_Renter]

RO,

Other than price & location, the next most important are:

3. High quality, timely MLS Listing. Many listing agents do a terrible job with this, and it hurts the seller. High-quality, 10 well-staged pictures, solid description (no mis-spellings or grammatical errors), don’t let it sit half-complete for a week (i.e. get the damn pictures up), etc.

4. Offer the Buyer’s agent 2.5% minimum, otherwise they will effectively boycott your listing.

5. Run an excellent “Broker’s” open house (Caravan). This is very important so all the local agents can intelligently describe your property to their clients.

6. Get a decent Virtual Tour up on the site within 1 week of the listing going active (as long as pictures are up on the day the listing goes active).

7. A good sign & well-produced color flyer on the property.

8. Post a new listing on Craigslist weekly.

Truly, this is 99.9% of it. Everything else is essentially a waste of time. The MLS listing provides the vast majority of of your marketing benefit as your home is immediately available everwhere: Realtor.com, Redfin, HouseRebate, ZipRealty, all the individual realtors sites, and hundreds of others. Make sure it isn’t done in some half-assed way.

BTW, I sold my most recent property in 5-days @ 4% total commission and got towards the top of the Value Range Marketing (VRM) price. It was priced realistically (not greedily).

[New_Renter]

RO,

Other than price & location, the next most important are:

3. High quality, timely MLS Listing. Many listing agents do a terrible job with this, and it hurts the seller. High-quality, 10 well-staged pictures, solid description (no mis-spellings or grammatical errors), don’t let it sit half-complete for a week (i.e. get the damn pictures up), etc.

4. Offer the Buyer’s agent 2.5% minimum, otherwise they will effectively boycott your listing.

5. Run an excellent “Broker’s” open house (Caravan). This is very important so all the local agents can intelligently describe your property to their clients.

6. Get a decent Virtual Tour up on the site within 1 week of the listing going active (as long as pictures are up on the day the listing goes active).

7. A good sign & well-produced color flyer on the property.

8. Post a new listing on Craigslist weekly.

Truly, this is 99.9% of it. Everything else is essentially a waste of time. The MLS listing provides the vast majority of of your marketing benefit as your home is immediately available everwhere: Realtor.com, Redfin, HouseRebate, ZipRealty, all the individual realtors sites, and hundreds of others. Make sure it isn’t done in some half-assed way.

BTW, I sold my most recent property in 5-days @ 4% total commission and got towards the top of the Value Range Marketing (VRM) price. It was priced realistically (not greedily).

[New_Renter]

RO,

Other than price & location, the next most important are:

3. High quality, timely MLS Listing. Many listing agents do a terrible job with this, and it hurts the seller. High-quality, 10 well-staged pictures, solid description (no mis-spellings or grammatical errors), don’t let it sit half-complete for a week (i.e. get the damn pictures up), etc.

4. Offer the Buyer’s agent 2.5% minimum, otherwise they will effectively boycott your listing.

5. Run an excellent “Broker’s” open house (Caravan). This is very important so all the local agents can intelligently describe your property to their clients.

6. Get a decent Virtual Tour up on the site within 1 week of the listing going active (as long as pictures are up on the day the listing goes active).

7. A good sign & well-produced color flyer on the property.

8. Post a new listing on Craigslist weekly.

Truly, this is 99.9% of it. Everything else is essentially a waste of time. The MLS listing provides the vast majority of of your marketing benefit as your home is immediately available everwhere: Realtor.com, Redfin, HouseRebate, ZipRealty, all the individual realtors sites, and hundreds of others. Make sure it isn’t done in some half-assed way.

BTW, I sold my most recent property in 5-days @ 4% total commission and got towards the top of the Value Range Marketing (VRM) price. It was priced realistically (not greedily).

[New_Renter]

“Derby Hill is like that in the CV…I can’t explain it and their attitude is straight out of 2003….Especially for the Plan 3’s….”

Well, well, well, for the 1st time that I’ve seen, Pardee has an unsold Plan 3 in inventory at nearly $1.5M. See:
http://www.pardeehomes.com/pricing.php?com=Derby+Hill&pln=Derby+Hill&lkup_r=46&lkup_n=82&fr=1

Three homes sitting in inventory is also the most I’ve seen since I started watching Derby Hill. Is this the first sign of a crack in their armour?

With regard to their attitude of non-negotiation, you really can’t blame them so far, each phase release has been like a stampede over there. They’re business people and so far haven’t had a need to negotiate anything.

Buy hey, seeing a Plan 3 on their website tells me that demand is slowing for these later phases…there are only so many knife catchers out there, and certainly alot fewer people that can now qualify for a $1.2M loan to buy a standard-fare tract home!

[New_Renter]

“Derby Hill is like that in the CV…I can’t explain it and their attitude is straight out of 2003….Especially for the Plan 3’s….”

Well, well, well, for the 1st time that I’ve seen, Pardee has an unsold Plan 3 in inventory at nearly $1.5M. See:
http://www.pardeehomes.com/pricing.php?com=Derby+Hill&pln=Derby+Hill&lkup_r=46&lkup_n=82&fr=1

Three homes sitting in inventory is also the most I’ve seen since I started watching Derby Hill. Is this the first sign of a crack in their armour?

With regard to their attitude of non-negotiation, you really can’t blame them so far, each phase release has been like a stampede over there. They’re business people and so far haven’t had a need to negotiate anything.

Buy hey, seeing a Plan 3 on their website tells me that demand is slowing for these later phases…there are only so many knife catchers out there, and certainly alot fewer people that can now qualify for a $1.2M loan to buy a standard-fare tract home!

[New_Renter]

“Derby Hill is like that in the CV…I can’t explain it and their attitude is straight out of 2003….Especially for the Plan 3’s….”

Well, well, well, for the 1st time that I’ve seen, Pardee has an unsold Plan 3 in inventory at nearly $1.5M. See:
http://www.pardeehomes.com/pricing.php?com=Derby+Hill&pln=Derby+Hill&lkup_r=46&lkup_n=82&fr=1

Three homes sitting in inventory is also the most I’ve seen since I started watching Derby Hill. Is this the first sign of a crack in their armour?

With regard to their attitude of non-negotiation, you really can’t blame them so far, each phase release has been like a stampede over there. They’re business people and so far haven’t had a need to negotiate anything.

Buy hey, seeing a Plan 3 on their website tells me that demand is slowing for these later phases…there are only so many knife catchers out there, and certainly alot fewer people that can now qualify for a $1.2M loan to buy a standard-fare tract home!

[New_Renter]

“Derby Hill is like that in the CV…I can’t explain it and their attitude is straight out of 2003….Especially for the Plan 3’s….”

Well, well, well, for the 1st time that I’ve seen, Pardee has an unsold Plan 3 in inventory at nearly $1.5M. See:
http://www.pardeehomes.com/pricing.php?com=Derby+Hill&pln=Derby+Hill&lkup_r=46&lkup_n=82&fr=1

Three homes sitting in inventory is also the most I’ve seen since I started watching Derby Hill. Is this the first sign of a crack in their armour?

With regard to their attitude of non-negotiation, you really can’t blame them so far, each phase release has been like a stampede over there. They’re business people and so far haven’t had a need to negotiate anything.

Buy hey, seeing a Plan 3 on their website tells me that demand is slowing for these later phases…there are only so many knife catchers out there, and certainly alot fewer people that can now qualify for a $1.2M loan to buy a standard-fare tract home!

[New_Renter]

“Derby Hill is like that in the CV…I can’t explain it and their attitude is straight out of 2003….Especially for the Plan 3’s….”

Well, well, well, for the 1st time that I’ve seen, Pardee has an unsold Plan 3 in inventory at nearly $1.5M. See:
http://www.pardeehomes.com/pricing.php?com=Derby+Hill&pln=Derby+Hill&lkup_r=46&lkup_n=82&fr=1

Three homes sitting in inventory is also the most I’ve seen since I started watching Derby Hill. Is this the first sign of a crack in their armour?

With regard to their attitude of non-negotiation, you really can’t blame them so far, each phase release has been like a stampede over there. They’re business people and so far haven’t had a need to negotiate anything.

Buy hey, seeing a Plan 3 on their website tells me that demand is slowing for these later phases…there are only so many knife catchers out there, and certainly alot fewer people that can now qualify for a $1.2M loan to buy a standard-fare tract home!

[Author]

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