<p>I agree that younger associates in the “power” agency is a good strategy. They are hungry and will drop everything to pounce on the properties. The established agents are very busy and may not be totally focused at the exact moment you need them.</p>
<p>Well, if anyone is interested in an update …</p>
<p>We have now visited six properties on two different occasions with this real estate agent, and I feel we’ve established a good relationship with him. (We had a day of house viewings yesterday, as a matter of fact.)</p>
<p>He is very low-key, works with his father and his brother.</p>
<p>Now… if we could just find the right property! </p>
<p>He told us last time that, on average, buyers view 12-15 properties before making an offer – what are others experiences with this?</p>
<p>I’ve learned that, for us, the setting is as important as the house, and it’s hard to find the right combo.</p>
<p>I think I lost count on how many apartments we saw and how many apartments we lost.</p>
<p>fendrock, thanks for the update. I think you’re on the right track, to have an agent who understand what you’re looking for. When the “right” property comes along, they’ll have you in mind. Best of luck with your hunt!</p>
<p>When we hired a real estate agent (as the seller) we signed all the papers - and then she took 10 days before listing the house. Made me so mad. I’m sure she was just fishing for a buyer so she could get 2X the commission - which she did not. That lost time, I thought, cost us dearly.</p>
<p>“He told us last time that, on average, buyers view 12-15 properties before making an offer – what are others experiences with this?”</p>
<p>There is no such thing as “standard number of viewing”, it all depends on the buyer, that is you. If you are picky, it could take 100 viewings before you buy, OTOH, you could buy the first you seen.</p>
<p>Some times, the more you see, the more confused. Many moons ago I went on hunting for my first house. I saw at least 100 homes, I finally bought, but later on I found what I bought was not a real good deal.</p>
<p>FYI, if you read Freakonomics, you learned that agents selling their own homes list them for significantly longer. This exposes the essential problem: their incentive is to get you to agree to the lower price, not to get you the best price. And it exposes another problem that has been studied, that agents tend not to work as hard on listings where the owners want to hold out for a price. Why? Because they make money when the deals close and the difference in what they’ll make - especially if divided between brokerages and then divided within the brokerage - is relatively small. When selling their own homes, they hold out because that is in the actual best interest of the seller.</p>
<p>In the area in which we’ve been looking, it seems to be more of a problem that real estate agents are willing to take listings which the homeowners are pricing way too high.</p>
<p>Then the home sits on the market for months. We looked at one house this summer which has been on the market for two years.</p>
<p>You should find out the avg listing time to sale for the area. I think the risk of over-pricing is much worse (no sale and no interest even after lower price) than selling quickly and taking a bit less money. In fact in some areas homes are listed low in hope of getting a bidding war and lots of interest AND a quick sale. Agents make take longer to sell because they are not going anywhere anyway and are just testing their value. I think 2-4 months is a good target time to list/sell a home in active areas. After that you are just fishing for that stupid buyer.</p>
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<p>Because my DH has a broker’s license, he has listed all of our homes. For our last home, however, we opted to list it with a broker who specializes in our area. Fortunately, we didn’t have the experience you describe. Our agent was willing to price our house very aggressively. She predicted that our house would sell at a price well above the comps because it had a few qualities not usually found in our neighborhood. She was right! We sold in 34 days, much faster than the 6 months + that seems to be the norm. She even reduced her commission as a “professional courtesy.” We were quite happy with her.</p>
<p>“My understanding was that the listing agent had plenty of people who wanted to see it, and wasn’t interested having another agent show it (thus cutting into the listing agent’s fee.)”</p>
<p>This is illegal. The homeowner has signed a contract with the listing agent stating that agent will act in the highest & best interest of the owner, which means showing the property to any ready, willing, & able buyer who wishes to see it. </p>
<p>If another agent has a customer who might be willing to pay more for it, or close sooner, or whatever else the owner is hoping for, then the lister has a legal obligation to allow the other agent to show the house.</p>
<p>The best thing to do is get genuine comps for your house & then price it a bit on the low side of the range. It will move fast. The worst thing to do is price it high because you lived in it for 30 years or whatever. The house will seell for the going price in the area for similar houses, and you are competing for your sale with all other listings of similar houses in your area. The buyers do not care whether you “want your money out of it” or what you paid for the kitchen ten years ago. An overpriced house will sit on the market and the listing will “become stale.”</p>
<p>If you are looking for something in a place that gets sales quickly, make sure you have an agent there who is prepared to move fast, and do not neglect to watch the MLS there yourself. Also don’t play lowball games.</p>
<p>My daughter took my advice (for a change)–when she & her H were looking, it was during the MA real estate bubble. I said, you are not in the lowest price range, and you are not in the highest. Your real competition is buyers who can pay what you can and who really need a home to live in, not a speculation to hold for a year & sell again. So your competition will move fast. </p>
<p>I said, do not be a fool and ***** about a cracked pane of glass in a window or 2 crooked tiles in a bathroom, or wallpaper you do not like. When you find the house you like, make a full price or nearly full price offer immediately and do not put any other conditions in the contract other than the inspections, etc the law and your bank will require.</p>
<p>She saw an OH in the online paper; she visited it; she dragged her complaining husband back later the same afternoon (“can’t we look next week?”); their agent brought in the offer that evening. When she did, another agent was already there presenting her offer. But her customers were making conditions about things they saw as flaws (older kitchen cabinets, etc). </p>
<p>D & her H got the house–which it turned out was owned by a RE broker & his agent son. They were retiring & did not want to put up with BS.</p>
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<p>It doesn’t take much thinking to realize that this is the incentive for the listing broker. He’s much better off getting both halves of the commission on a lower price than he is getting half the commission on a higher price. It won’t matter that its illegal. What will matter to him is whether he thinks he has the chance to come up with a buyer.</p>
<p>A couple of decades ago I made an offer on a home that was a relocation sale. after some back and forth I walked away. About six months later the home sold for about 10% less than what I’d offered. I knew who the company was that was “on the hook” for the relocation companies loss (employer of the seller) and I called the CFO and asked about the transaction. The CFO said he wasn’t aware of any such offer. Obviously the listing broker had never communicated my offer to the party who had the authority to take it. I don’t know why, but it must have been a combination of self interest on the commission or attempting to “steer” the house to some friend.</p>
<p>There ought to be some visible way to ensure that people making offers know that their offer has actually been communicated to the seller. I would bet that any proposal on this would be fought tooth and nail by the realtor community.</p>
<p>^^^^You know, there are plenty of real estates agents who are ethical and follow the law and actually do what’s best for their client because they want to have their business in the future.</p>
<p>DH and our REA priced our home above the market comps. I thought they were crazy. We ended up selling for close to asking, actually 75K over the highest appraisal DH had gotten (he knew appraisers and they gave him a verbal as a professional courtesy). Since the buyer had private financing, he didn’t get a bank appraisal, so this didn’t hurt us and he closed the house at the price we originally agreed on.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t recommend overpricing a house. Ours worked out just because our house had something very unique which was going to generate an emotional buy, and a buyer came along just at the right moment who wanted the house so badly he didn’t mind paying over market value for it. That will not likely happen to us again.</p>
<p>The various states emply “testers” who pretend to be buyers and go around checking for exactly this kind of behavior, as well as for agents who are trying to steer minorities or families with children to or away from certain areas. </p>
<p>If you think this kind of thing is going on, call your state’s Real Estate Commission. In my state they will come down on this activity like a ton of bricks.</p>
<p>^^^^That’s good to hear.</p>
<p>In our case, our realtor proposed that if she found her own buyer for our house, DH would then be considered the listing broker and would receive the benefit of the full seller’s commission. This was written into our listing agreement.</p>
<p>dadx, after a RE agent has been in business a few years, the highest percentage of his/her transactions comes from repeat and referral clients/customers. </p>
<p>The way you get repeat & referral business is by giving your people the best service you can, every time. And by earning a reputation for impeccably honest behavior & high character. </p>
<p>Granted, some RE agents play games that are unethical and even illegal. They do not last long.</p>
<p>Nrdsb4, I did not mean your house sale—I was refrring to dadx’s experience with the broker who did not present an offer to the seller.</p>
<p>^^^^Yes, I knew that you were talking to him.</p>
<p>I was just countering his statement that realtors will take a double commission at a lower price rather than splitting the commission on a sale which benefits the seller with a higher price. My realtor was not that kind of agent. </p>
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<p>And I agree with your above comment.</p>