[angry2]
We picked a local high-profile small agent (approx 20 listings in the Prospect area) to sell our house a couple of months ago (after interviewing 5 of them: 3 smalls and 2 biggies), but we have been shocked by their tactics, bordering-on-threatening behaviour and unprofessionalism.Ethics? They even advertise their office as being in Prospect just to look like they’re a Prospect specialist – when they’re actually in the next suburb!
We’ve learnt the hard way that they seem to be good at getting 400k-500k for bungalows and villas that basically sell themselves, but ours is conventional and actually needs a bit of work on their part!
(Needless to say – they have been unable to get a single offer for anywhere near our agreed asking price.)
Anyway, what I would like to know from the more experienced of you out there is – how do I pick a good R/E agent?
What are the vital questions to ask? What info should I request and how do you avoid getting sucked in by their hard-sell, just to be let down (1000’s of dollars) later?
Is it any different when it comes time to sell investment properties?
I recently sold an investment property. On the subject of selling I have read all the stuff on http://www.jenman.com.au
I have never used a Jenman agent and dont intend to in the future, but some of the issues he raises has made me more aware of what to ask agents.
It may even be worth reading his Book – Dont sign anything.
The key to selling a property is dont sign for longer than 6 weeks and make sure you set a realistic market price. Dont go below that. But make sure its realistic.
The only reason properties dont sell is because of the price. In my opinion agents do very little to earn their money.
Thanks yack – I’ll have a look. Just out of interest why don’t you think you’d ever use a Jenman agent? Not enough ‘exposure’ / no advertising/ no opens? Asking too much commission?
Do little to earn their money – I agree in this case. By the time it came to the first open inspection, we already didn’t trust them. So we sat outside a shop on the street at the end of our street. We could see the agent at the front of our house talking on his mobile for nearly the whole 45 minutes!!! At the same time, about 10 parties went through – and we didn’t get any feedback because ‘our agent’ was ‘busy’ playing with his![strum]
Hi Fnomna,
I will state upfront the following comments are not mine but I believe they may be useful to you at this stage of proceedings.
The author, Jason Wier, is a Victorian based REA and the message was posted, as is, on another property forum.
“I run a real estate business and recently sold a place in Glenroy. I didn’t find the local papers to be that effective for buyer Inquiy. So be careful if you feel you are being pushed into a big advertising spend where a large proportion goes on Print media. The intenet is by far the most prolific form of advertising used by genuine buyers on the hunt, combined with a for sale board – you will find that the active buyers in the market will be straight onto it if it is not overpriced.
I would be very careful of any agent trying to charge you to list on the Internet for a standard listing, as they pay by subscription and it should be consumed as their own marketing overhead not your Vendor expense.
So my first point would be ask them what they expect advertising will cost and why.
Their fees will most likely be a percentage but be aware they will rarely discuss the GST component and many sellers end up thinking they’ve negotiated well to get say 2.5% but it actually works out to be 2.75%. It can make a big difference on your net return. Most sellers find this out when it’s too late to change anything. I don’t know what the standard is in your area and it will likely vary – be very careful of anyone trying to take large chunks of profit by charging you 10% plus on amounts over a certain figure – It reeks of profit grabbing greedy business practise although in this market it is not as common.
We operate on a discounted flat fee system, only payable upon satisfaction. I think it’s fairer. There are now more agencies going this way. Just make sure they have a genuine “loop hole free” fee structure and that it’s not just a business marketing hook.
You should also ask how long they think they will take to sell the house? My advice is do not tie your house to anyone for more than 30 days. While we would all like 60 as a minimum. It’s not necessary if they have quoted you an accurate estimated sale price. The extra 30 days is normally used to get the price down if they have high balled you for business. If you are happy with them and for some unforseen reason they can’t sell your house – that is reasonable, they should be confident they can get your business for another 30 days. We only ask for 30 days and haven’t had to re-sign anyone. I’d prefer our clients be happy to stay with us than forced by a contract.
The authority period to sell has nothing to do with settlement periods. I have heard of agents tell vendors they need at least 4 months because it might be 120 days before settlement. Be very careful statements can be made that are irrelevant and used to confuse. Infact if the agent sounds confusing – steer clear.
You should be asking the exact levels of service to be clearly identified in print.
Stay right away from sloppy agents, if they’re late, poorly groomed, crass – drop them straight away. Don’t even waste your time listening to them, regardless of which agency they come from, if you are really fond of an agency better to ask for another rep to be sent out. Some of the best presented businesses have the sloppiest agents – if you get stuck with one of these you wont be satisfied and will be paying an undeserved fee.
The agency you choose while certainly needing to be reputable, is probably less important than the individual you engage as your listing agent. It needs to be some one you feel very trustworthy and honest . So ask yourself do you trust the person, do you genuinely feel good about being in their company?
It is your property that is the product/stock the purchaser buys. It’s not realistic to believe an agent who thinks they can get a better price because the agency looks bigger. The purchaser will pay on the merits of the property. Try to find the agent who seems to have the most genuine enthusiasm for you and your property, not he/she and the agency. Be careful enthusiasm doesn’t necessarily mean highest price or most agreeable, if the agent agrees with everything you say or comes across with a lack of firmness to their views, it signals a problem.
You may be asking why I haven’t mentioned price yet and that is because, if you rely on any agent for the price of your property before doing an objective assessment yourself you are heading for big trouble. You should already know the accurate value range (no more than 5 – 10 %) before they come in. You should scour the market, get past sale result data and view recently SOLD property. You will have to act as a buyer again. Assess using variables of Land size, House size, Construction type, Car accommodation (separate to house size), Street Appeal and Location – Use the property sold that is closest to yours as the top/first ones for comparison, so much can very between even a couple of blocks of the same suburb. Assessing the market value is tough but educated buyers know the difference and it is important that you work it out also.
At the end of the day we agents are a simple breed, honestly we just want your business. How we go about it as individuals is what seperates us. The Vendors who do the best are the same as those Buyers who do best, they are the consumer whom educate themselves the best.
So when it comes to price. See if you can test the agent on their knowledge of the recent immediate local sales. Don’t let them rattle off results that suit them, quote addresses you know the result of and see if they know as well as you. If they are properly prepared and a true professional they should impress you with their knowledge. If they claim a poor memory then ask, why they don’t have the data on them a professionally prepared agent would.
Good luck
Any further questions please reply.
Jason Wier (owner)
realestateangel.com.au
Ph 1300 781 901″Derek
[email protected]Property Investment Support Available. Ongoing and never stopping. PM welcome.
Hi Fnomna
I live in adelaide. Things have slowed a bit i feel. Where R/E agents had to just sit and sell now they have to work.
Your own observations would tell you that houses are sitting on the market longer now than previoulsy. The frenzy has gone out of the market. So some of the upstarts are being tested and resorting to other tactics.
Jenman gives good advice in his books i have some and happy to lend to you. I wouldn’t use a jenman agent again though. The first and the last time for me.
Email me if you like.
regards
alfThanks alf – you have an email.
I live in adelaide. Things have slowed a bit i feel. Where R/E agents had to just sit and sell now they have to work.I agree. Will be interesting to see if there is the usual spring/summer upturn or not this end of year.
We are looking at trying an auction in about a month and a half. Are they bad or does it really depend on the property?Jenman gives good advice in his books i have some and happy to lend to you. I wouldn’t use a jenman agent again though. The first and the last time for me.Anyone else got comments/experiences with Jenman agents?
Thanks Derek – lots of useful advice in there. Where is that other property forum? Is it public?
So my first point would be ask them what they expect advertising will cost and why.We did that. He gave us a price for ads with and without pictures/sketches. The problem came in a couple of weeks when he tried to get nearly double what he said because he now had less listings and had to cover costs for a certain amount of “space” in the paper! We argued he never told us about that and only agreed to pay the original amount each week. Every week there would be only one phone call – to get us to pay more for the week’s advertising and arrange a time for an open!
You should also ask how long they think they will take to sell the house? My advice is do not tie your house to anyone for more than 30 days. While we would all like 60 as a minimum. It’s not necessary if they have quoted you an accurate estimated sale price. The extra 30 days is normally used to get the price down if they have high balled you for business. If you are happy with them and for some unforseen reason they can’t sell your house – that is reasonable, they should be confident they can get your business for another 30 days. We only ask for 30 days and haven’t had to re-sign anyone. I’d prefer our clients be happy to stay with us than forced by a contract.This is where we got stuck. We had read everywhere not to sign for the standard 90 days, but for some unknown reason we did! We trusted him when he said ‘dont worry we’ll sell your house’.
There was just one bad thing after another with this agent and one weekend we had enough and during a heated phone call tried to get them to end the contract but they wouldn’t and said we were signed to them for 3 months.The agency you choose while certainly needing to be reputable, is probably less important than the individual you engage as your listing agent. It needs to be some one you feel very trustworthy and honest . So ask yourself do you trust the person, do you genuinely feel good about being in their company?After our phone call, he no longer wanted to deal with us (neither did we!) but he fobbed us off onto his trainee ‘agent’ who would prefer to stay on his mobile phone during opens instead of getting feedback from people!
After about 3 or 4 opens, he told us we need to think about how low we will come down in price and that he would have this conversation as many times as he likes! We were firm with our price, but he only had one real offer to go by which was about 15% less than we would accept.You may be asking why I haven’t mentioned price yet and that is because, if you rely on any agent for the price of your property before doing an objective assessment yourself you are heading for big trouble. You should already know the accurate value range (no more than 5 – 10 %) before they come in. You should scour the market, get past sale result data and view recently SOLD property.We thought we’d be right here becuase we got an independent valuation done before talking to 5 different agents. 4 of them said we’d sell at around the same price (we didn’t tell them the valuation). This agent hasn’t got an offer near what we would accept.
Also, I kept my eye on local prices every day for the past 2 years. One down the street was very similar to ours and got a price we would have accepted for ours! Also, one further down the street was actually sold for a very good price by this agent we are with – partly why we signed with them.Currently (after 4 weekends of opens and after deciding this agent was not going to be able to get us the price we want) we have stopped all advertising including internet and the signboard. Trying to minimise the ‘damage’ and ‘overexposure’ this agent has caused.
If by some miracle someone who has seen the house makes an acceptable offer before the contract runs out – they will get their commission – but they don’t deserve it!Originally posted by Fnomna:So my first point would be ask them what they expect advertising will cost and why.We did that. He gave us a price for ads with and without pictures/sketches. The problem came in a couple of weeks when he tried to get nearly double what he said because he now had less listings and had to cover costs for a certain amount of “space” in the paper! We argued he never told us about that and only agreed to pay the original amount each week. Every week there would be only one phone call – to get us to pay more for the week’s advertising and arrange a time for an open!
You should also ask how long they think they will take to sell the house? My advice is do not tie your house to anyone for more than 30 days. While we would all like 60 as a minimum. It’s not necessary if they have quoted you an accurate estimated sale price. The extra 30 days is normally used to get the price down if they have high balled you for business. If you are happy with them and for some unforseen reason they can’t sell your house – that is reasonable, they should be confident they can get your business for another 30 days. We only ask for 30 days and haven’t had to re-sign anyone. I’d prefer our clients be happy to stay with us than forced by a contract.This is where we got stuck. We had read everywhere not to sign for the standard 90 days, but for some unknown reason we did! We trusted him when he said ‘dont worry we’ll sell your house’.
There was just one bad thing after another with this agent and one weekend we had enough and during a heated phone call tried to get them to end the contract but they wouldn’t and said we were signed to them for 3 months.The agency you choose while certainly needing to be reputable, is probably less important than the individual you engage as your listing agent. It needs to be some one you feel very trustworthy and honest . So ask yourself do you trust the person, do you genuinely feel good about being in their company?After our phone call, he no longer wanted to deal with us (neither did we!) but he fobbed us off onto his trainee ‘agent’ who would prefer to stay on his mobile phone during opens instead of getting feedback from people!
After about 3 or 4 opens, he told us we need to think about how low we will come down in price and that he would have this conversation as many times as he likes! We were firm with our price, but he only had one real offer to go by which was about 15% less than we would accept.You may be asking why I haven’t mentioned price yet and that is because, if you rely on any agent for the price of your property before doing an objective assessment yourself you are heading for big trouble. You should already know the accurate value range (no more than 5 – 10 %) before they come in. You should scour the market, get past sale result data and view recently SOLD property.We thought we’d be right here becuase we got an independent valuation done before talking to 5 different agents. 4 of them said we’d sell at around the same price (we didn’t tell them the valuation). This agent hasn’t got an offer near what we would accept.
Also, I kept my eye on local prices every day for the past 2 years. One down the street was very similar to ours and got a price we would have accepted for ours! Also, one further down the street was actually sold for a very good price by this agent we are with – partly why we signed with them.Currently (after 4 weekends of opens and after deciding this agent was not going to be able to get us the price we want) we have stopped all advertising including internet and the signboard. Trying to minimise the ‘damage’ and ‘overexposure’ this agent has caused.
If by some miracle someone who has seen the house makes an acceptable offer before the contract runs out – they will get their commission – but they don’t deserve it!The agent is using your property to sell off other properties…
Originally posted by SuperTed:Originally posted by Fnomna:So my first point would be ask them what they expect advertising will cost and why.We did that. He gave us a price for ads with and without pictures/sketches. The problem came in a couple of weeks when he tried to get nearly double what he said because he now had less listings and had to cover costs for a certain amount of “space” in the paper! We argued he never told us about that and only agreed to pay the original amount each week. Every week there would be only one phone call – to get us to pay more for the week’s advertising and arrange a time for an open!
You should also ask how long they think they will take to sell the house? My advice is do not tie your house to anyone for more than 30 days. While we would all like 60 as a minimum. It’s not necessary if they have quoted you an accurate estimated sale price. The extra 30 days is normally used to get the price down if they have high balled you for business. If you are happy with them and for some unforseen reason they can’t sell your house – that is reasonable, they should be confident they can get your business for another 30 days. We only ask for 30 days and haven’t had to re-sign anyone. I’d prefer our clients be happy to stay with us than forced by a contract.This is where we got stuck. We had read everywhere not to sign for the standard 90 days, but for some unknown reason we did! We trusted him when he said ‘dont worry we’ll sell your house’.
There was just one bad thing after another with this agent and one weekend we had enough and during a heated phone call tried to get them to end the contract but they wouldn’t and said we were signed to them for 3 months.The agency you choose while certainly needing to be reputable, is probably less important than the individual you engage as your listing agent. It needs to be some one you feel very trustworthy and honest . So ask yourself do you trust the person, do you genuinely feel good about being in their company?After our phone call, he no longer wanted to deal with us (neither did we!) but he fobbed us off onto his trainee ‘agent’ who would prefer to stay on his mobile phone during opens instead of getting feedback from people!
After about 3 or 4 opens, he told us we need to think about how low we will come down in price and that he would have this conversation as many times as he likes! We were firm with our price, but he only had one real offer to go by which was about 15% less than we would accept.Quote:You may be asking why I haven’t mentioned price yet and that is because, if you rely on any agent for the price of your property before doing an objective assessment yourself you are heading for big trouble. You should already know the accurate value range (no more than 5 – 10 %) before they come in. You should scour the market, get past sale result data and view recently SOLD property.We thought we’d be right here becuase we got an independent valuation done before talking to 5 different agents. 4 of them said we’d sell at around the same price (we didn’t tell them the valuation). This agent hasn’t got an offer near what we would accept.
Also, I kept my eye on local prices every day for the past 2 years. One down the street was very similar to ours and got a price we would have accepted for ours! Also, one further down the street was actually sold for a very good price by this agent we are with – partly why we signed with them.Currently (after 4 weekends of opens and after deciding this agent was not going to be able to get us the price we want) we have stopped all advertising including internet and the signboard. Trying to minimise the ‘damage’ and ‘overexposure’ this agent has caused.
If by some miracle someone who has seen the house makes an acceptable offer before the contract runs out – they will get their commission – but they don’t deserve it!Easy to see >>>The agent is using your property to sell off other properites.
SuperTed, do you mean he’s using ours to show his other listings that because ours isn’t selling, the others should drop their prices to sell?
Or do you mean he is using ours to have open inspections and get new listings?If he’s trying the former then we sort of got that feeling. If he’s trying the latter, then the agent (the director’s trainee) is not doing a good job for his boss because he’s constantly on the phone and not talking to anyone coming through the opens!
Either way, we thought he was just keeping us on just so he has another listing to advertise and make it look like he’s active in the area. Yes, in other words, using us. That’s why we’ve stopped all advertising and took the sign down ourselves.
This is our first home we are selling and I am curious about other people’s experiences.
Anyone else got bad R/E agent stories ???
Originally posted by Fnomna:SuperTed, do you mean he’s using ours to show his other listings that because ours isn’t selling, the others should drop their prices to sell?
Or do you mean he is using ours to have open inspections and get new listings?If he’s trying the former then we sort of got that feeling. If he’s trying the latter, then the agent (the director’s trainee) is not doing a good job for his boss because he’s constantly on the phone and not talking to anyone coming through the opens!
Either way, we thought he was just keeping us on just so he has another listing to advertise and make it look like he’s active in the area. Yes, in other words, using us. That’s why we’ve stopped all advertising and took the sign down ourselves.
This is our first home we are selling and I am curious about other people’s experiences.
Anyone else got bad R/E agent stories ???
More the former
Using price or a “potential” bad feature of yr house to sell other properties to buyers.
Ok as an example I have 5 TVs for sale. TV 1 is always kept slightly out of tune at a high price/or same price. It is then easier to sell other TVs that have “better” picture.
It is also easier to sell 4 good TVs if you can compare to 1 “bad” as your base start point. It is harder to sell having 5 same pictures.
So the agent shows your place first and then moves to better priced property/features etc.
It doesnt take much to put a bad or good thought into someones head when playing games.
BTW I dont sell TV’s
SuperTed, now I totally understand what you’re saying and it does make sense. Now it seems like a pretty obvious tactic. Didn’t read about that one anywhere!
So when a buyer comes to them looking in the area, they could start with ours then say ‘but for another 50000 you could get a nice character bungalow/villa’.
We sort of did consider it in a way. We thought our house may be wrong for this agent’s usual buyers. But – they did sell that one down the street and it was a conventional house too, just done up a bit more. Guess we just got sucked in.Are you sure you have set a realistic market/selling price?
Dont forget you wont achieve the same prices as 6 months ago!!!
Originally posted by yack:Are you sure you have set a realistic market/selling price?
Dont forget you wont achieve the same prices as 6 months ago!!!
Asking price (nearly 3 months ago) was based on a valuation we had done. But taking into account the slowdown, we would accept 5% less and consider offers 7% less.
But the closest offer the agent has been able to come up with is about 12% less. At that price we’re more likely to keep it and rent it out then maybe sell later.In my view – houses sell themselves. Agents really do nothing.
If a person wants to buy a PPOR or an investment property they look at all the agents in the area and see what they have to offer.
They then look at the properties in more detail and see what they get for their money.
If your property is not overpriced then you should have at least had some interest. Is your property advertised in the agents window in a range or with a set price?
If you were a prespective buyer in your area – would you consider your property to be good value?
Agents are like property managers – you need to manage them!!! They work for you.
They are not God like and cannot pluck a price more than the market is prepared to pay.
Have a meeting with the agent and show him whats on the market now in your area and compare them to your property. How do they match up price and feature wise. Get evidence behind you so they cannot ignore you. You need to support your price in the market today not when a valuer did a valuation x weeks ago.
A valuer too can be wrong eventhough you paid him.
I hope I am some help – I sold an investment property some 4 weeks ago and know exactly how you feel.
I am not an agent, but I think its a bit one sided and even harsh to say that the agent does nothing ( house sells itself)
I too, have an IP for sale (90 days, no result)
and the feedback I am getting from various agents is that there are only 2 things which determine if a property sells or doesn’t sell.
One is no doubt the price, the other is the agent.
If you have established that the price is realistic, ( market comparison, sworn valuation, replacement cost of land plus building, etc,)then the ability of the agent to sell it is the problem.
Not all buyers are experts or knowledgable on prices and value, regardless of what the experts here say.
Those buyers rely on the agent to guide them through the buying process including what price to offer.
A trusted agent with a good reputation and a proven track record will always manage to sell a property that another agent might struggle to sell. This has been my experience.
Unfortunately, when the market slows a bit, as per present, some sellers lose their nerve and start caving in to requests to lower the asking price.
Thats how the cleaver buyers manage to buy 10 and 20% below market !!If you can afford to hang on ( don’t have to sell) then stick to your price, otherwise lower it till you ferret out a bargain hunter…
By the way, if the agent is in breach of any of the codes of conduct/ethics, etc, then you are within your rights to terminate the selling agency early.
Try reading the contract first or get someone to help you with it…..KP
I too am not an agent. I am not saying reduce the price. All I am saying – you need to support the price in todays market – how does your property compare to other properties for sale.
Have a meeting with the agent and show him whats on the market now in your area and compare them to your property. How do they match up price and feature wise. Get evidence behind you so they cannot ignore you. You need to support your price in the market today not when a valuer did a valuation x weeks ago.
Thats all I am really saying. Nobody can argue with the evidence. Its also easier for the agent to sell your property if the others look like a worse deal.
Have a meeting with the agent and show him whats on the market now in your area and compare them to your property. How do they match up price and feature wise. Get evidence behind you so they cannot ignore you. You need to support your price in the market today not when a valuer did a valuation x weeks ago.We do keep an eye on what’s selling and how much, but we both also work full-time. That is why we employed an agent to sell our house. If we are paying the agent $5000 – $10000 to sell our house, then we expect them to be the ones doing the research and telling us what’s happening.
They have not given us any feedback from the 35+ parties who have come through the open inspections and the agent is not being active.
That is why we have stopped promotion of the property through this agent – we don’t think they can sell the house.
We are currently wondering whether to go through another agent or not.By the way, if the agent is in breach of any of the codes of conduct/ethics, etc, then you are within your rights to terminate the selling agency early.
Try reading the contract first or get someone to help you with it…..
We have spoken to someone and gone through the contract with someone else who should know about R/E sales contracts. We also spoke to the REISA and the Office of Consumer and Business Affairs (SA) – particularly about abusive messages and price conditioning.They all said he has done nothing wrong/illegal (according to the contract) – he is just a bad and unprofessional agent.
(It’s interesting I kept a link from when we were researching selling and it’s to the REI SA ethics page. Now when I click on it, it doesn’t exist. Sort of implies RE agents don’t have any ethics and neither does the REISA – who work for the agents!
http://www.reisa.com.au/ethics.htm)If i knew what i do now and if we had been upfront and asked about their tactics beforehand, I’m sure he would have been offended and that would have put us off.
When we confronted him about a couple of mistakes made by them, he got very abusive and even left a nasty voicemail message (which we kept luckily). So he can’t even take any criticism.
We thought they were meant to be working for us, but it seems one you are locked in for 3 months and it doesn’t sell straight away – they don’t care. Just another listing.
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