Is Your Listing Agent Doing the Bare Minimum?
Choosing a Real Estate Agent is the most important part of accomplishing your real estate goals. Just like any other product, agents can be sorted from top to bottom shelf. And you usually get what you pay for.
At the end of the day, home buyers and sellers don’t actually want an agent—they just want the result. The same can be said for other industries like lawyers, doctors, and auto mechanics. I know I don’t want regular dental cleanings, but I want cavities even less. However, it’s the knowledge and expertise that we hold within our specialized roles that allow our clients to have the best experience possible and to produce the desired result. Let’s take a minute here to dissect the behaviors and actions that a discount or inexperienced Listing Agent does versus that of a true professional.
I can say with certainty that the majority of a buyer’s first showings occur online. The power of home search apps and agent-fed property searches put properties in front of potential buyers in nearly real time as they hit the market. Nobody is reading descriptions first or combing through data to look at the exact square footage—they’re going straight to the pictures. How many of you have seen god-awful potato-quality cell phone pics on what would otherwise be a stellar listing?!
As a bit of a tech-nerd, I don’t take issue with cell phone listing photos—if done right. It’s called standards, people (I’m talking to you flip-phone agent). While phones nowadays can take full 4k 60FPS photos and videos, it’s really about taking a few elements of art to compose a good photos. Lighting, orientation, composition—we’re talking about taking maybe 90 seconds to set up a photo for a great result. If you’re hiring an agent and they are not using a professional photographer, do they know how to take GREAT pics themselves with their cell phone? Might be worth peeking into their social media channels ahead of time to see what your end result will look like. If an agent takes garbage photos of their own friends and family, do you think they know how to take amazing photos of your property?
The next bullet point here is a little more specific to dealing with co-op agents, yet the party that actually gets negatively affected the most is the future buyer. I’m going to touch on scheduling showings. If you’ve been to a showing recently, you know that most of the good properties, with good marketing, in hot neighborhoods have lines that rival those at Disneyland. Showing up to a new listing with a line of 10 parties down the block is a real gut punch. And if you’ve got a set schedule with multiple showings set up, you may have to skip a property. If your agent can’t figure out a system to schedule showings and make sure everyone can get in to see it, are they really doing their fiduciary obligation to get you maximum exposure?
Some may counter and say, “Matt, I’ve got 10 offers—what’s the problem?” Well, who’s to say that someone who was forced to skip your property because of poor scheduling by your listing agent drove away the best offer out there. Could be terms, could be price—but you’ll never know because your agent isn’t savvy enough to use free scheduling services. Yup, MLS enrolled agents in our area (pretty much every last one of us) have access to a FREE service that automatically schedules showings. This service even has a 24 hour live-person call center that organizes and schedules showings. There’s a slick back end app that automatically tracks the showings for security, and it sends out an automatic reminder to have agents provide valuable feedback regarding price, condition, and interest. You could field hundreds of calls and schedule showings on your note pad—or you can hire a tech-enabled agent who has the know how and tools to leverage all that off your plate.
The list bit to discuss is the agent’s ability to vet offers. More listings are receiving multiple offers than ever, and some are better than others—but how do you weed through 20+ offers to see who is presenting an amazing offer, and who is blowing smoke? This is more of a learned skill through experience than something you can learn in a book. We do 10’s of millions of dollars in volume every year, year after year, and it’s that experience gained that enables us to spot a dud offer from a mile away. A truly fiduciary-minded agent will vet every last offer that comes in. This includes contacting lenders and further qualifying the pre-approval provided, verifying proof of funds, and confirming timelines that can be met. If you have a buyer cancel the contract halfway through escrow because their loan can’t get approved, you as the seller are the victim here. You’ll have to go back on market, having lost all momentum, and now you’re sticking out like a sore thumb against all the other new-to-market hot properties.
If you’ve been sold on a discount agent who is going to leave you to do all the heavy lifting, why not just do a For Sale By Owner? You’ll likely have the same amount of work and headache, but at least you’ll save half the sales commission. But if you’d rather have a true industry professional represent you during the most important part of your real estate journey, consider who you are interviewing and what their process looks like. You truly get what you pay for, and if you hire for a dud, you’re probably leaving a lot on the table while only gaining grey hairs and stress wrinkles.
Schedule a no pressure, no obligation consult to meet us. It’ll cost you nothing, and you’ve got everything to gain from it.
