Best Flat Fee MLS listing company in the Birmingham area?

[BishopRidge]

Originally Posted by cpg35223

That's nice.

But a really good agent is working the phones, talking up your property, getting your home in on the house tours, networking with other realtors, making sure the property is in salable condition,and generally busting it on your behalf in ways that just banging a For Sale sign in the yard just won't do, sorry. What's more, I'm pretty sure that a really good agent will get more value for your home than you could.

I mean, hey, if you think you can do a better job and want to spend all the hours doing it, knock yourself out. As a guy who owns his own biz and raises kids and does about a million other things at the same time, I simply don't have the time.

Well we each view this from our own experience. When I have been in the market for a home I have never had a real estate agent come to me. I have always had to make the contact and to the leg work to see the home. As for the way the advertise homes, I see it like using the yellow pages. Why send your potential customers to a list of all your competors? I might put an ad there but I never advertised anywhere else to go look there. Living in a more rural area perhaps our few agents are just worthless. I have only had one dealing with a real estate firm. Let me share it with you.

I was looking for an office building that also had some warehouse space. I located a building that had been for sale for 4 or 5 years and because my wife and the agent were friends we had her make an offer for us. It included some owner financing and they agreed but wanted more down. I had made a counter offer and asked the agent to pass it along. I am told by her a few day's later that her broker would not let her pass the offer along and was trying to buy the property himself. The broker called me trying to sell me the building (before he had bought it) at a higher price than the seller had agreed to with me. In the long run the seller took a lower price than I had offered. The broker purshased the building. The building has set vacant for an additional 10 years now. I have no use for such people.

The broker was Hugh Edmonds of Edmonds Real Estate in Brent, AL. The agent is no longer with him so I won't mention her name.