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Here I go again, lol...
Okay an Open House has been planned for Oct 3-4 during a festival weekend here...70K people to drive by the place. It was decided this was a good opportunity to take advantage of out of towners that come to the area. NOW, my agent emailed that she can not do it, can not find anyone to do it, and I will have to deal with it. But she put flyers in my box, this took 2 weeks to get and I offered to come to her to pick them up. I emailed her back that I would still have the open house and asked what type of discount in commission IF I sold this place.....answer I will bring you signs....do what? Also why the heck did she drive 30 mins to bring flyers and NOT let me know she was out there to tell me in person or save herself another dang trip and just bring the signs too.....
Yes I am ranting again but what is your professional take on this?
Open houses do not usually result in sales. If people see the sign they could 1. call their agent or 2. call your agent to make an appointment for a showing.
Getting a buyer to say they want to buy has little to do with all that's involved with getting a transaction closed.
I would not want 70 people traipsing through my house.
I have held open houses during festival weekends and honestly, I tend to get better opens during non-festival weekends. People are so busy at the festival that I have found they are some of the worst open houses for me. That might not be the case for you, though.
I am not sure why they agreed to do the open and then cancel. I mean that is a week away so clearly what they have coming up isn't an emergency. If you are comfortable and think that it might help you sell your home, get her signs and hold it yourself.
Location: Mokelumne Hill, CA & El Pescadero, BCS MX.
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Our rural area is pretty unsuited to open houses, but we have a client who likes to put the open house sign out every Sunday and hosts it by himself. He even gets names and numbers from a few folks who stop by. We don't have the staff to sit on an open house. He's on the main road and he doesn't want to price the home where it should be, so we don't get anything in the way of offers. Our best shot at meeting new clientele is during 3 day holiday weekends when friends of folks that live here come to visit.
In the OP's case, I think anytime an agent fails to deliver on a promise can't be good and having the opportunity to expose the home to a greater number of people than might be ordinary is good.
I had a client who told me once that "We need that one-in-a-million buyer". I told her that since our town was founded in the gold rush 160 years ago, that there hadn't been a million people even pass through here, which lowered the odds of finding that particular buyer. (We did manage to sell her home though).
What does your listing agreement say? Most listing agreements will say that the agent will receive full commission if the house is sold regardless of who finds the buyer. You might be able to negotiate if your Open House finds you a buyer, but that is between the two of you.
What does your listing agreement say? Most listing agreements will say that the agent will receive full commission if the house is sold regardless of who finds the buyer. You might be able to negotiate if your Open House finds you a buyer, but that is between the two of you.
Good luck with your Open House!
If the agent and the seller have a typical "exclusive" agreement then it does not matter how the "buyer" finds out about the house, who is 'hosting' the open house or anything else - the agent gets paid.
Really.
I too agree that Open Houses rarely are particularly effective in getting most houses sold. For that reason it is common in my neck of the woods to get an agent that, for what ever reason, has a higher than average amount of 'slack time' to host the open house. Typically, in decently run offices, among fair professionals, the listing agent and/ or broker will give the agent that babysits anOpen House a small sum for doing so while they could be out with family / friends. If the open house results in that agent getting some business (which is more common than selling that particular house) the agent would then refund the stipend to the broker / agent. In the context of the OP's open house resulting in a sale, the stipend we are talking about is usually on the order of $15-$20 and hour for about 3 to 4 hours of time. The $45 to $80 bucks is a way to tell your spouse or kids "hey I helped out my coworkers and they are willing to treat us to dinner for the grief". It is NOT a way to make a living and it is not a way to automatically get "cut in" on the ultimate commission...
Sounds as if you have more issues with your agent than just this open house debacle. Why don't you just be honest with her and have a conversation? She doesn't seem to be doing her job in your eyes and you are worried about overpaying when in fact, you have no contract. Putting the cart before the horse.
Lynn....You are correct I am having issues with the agent now, her personal life is interfereing with business. Which I completely understand given the circumstances but there should be another agent in her office that could lend a hand....another story for another day.
As for putting the cart before the horse, lol, yes I was but I would rather have the answers up front than to wait till after the fact and then have problems. Believe me there are honest conversations on my part, since I do not mince words when speaking with her.
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No, it's not...
