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I have come to the conclusion that the real estate agents are not earning the money we have to pay them. I have found only two types of agents.
Listers and Showers.
Listers are the agents who sell you on their so called expertise in marketing your home and a then sit back and wait for the Showers to bring buyers to your home. Not bad 50% of comission for a MLS and REALTOR .COM listing.
Listers usually have seniority in the office.
Showers are the agents who get to bring buyers to your house and together get to look at your home for the first time.
Showers do more legwork than Listers but many times are not located in the area of the home they are showing and know nothing of the area.
Showers usually have the least seniority in an office.
What is lacking in the Real Estate industry are geniune sales people.
When an agent tells you your price is too high and you have to lower in order to sell that is just common sense, that is not salemanship. Do you really need to pay an agents 5-6% comission to lower your price?
If your house sits on the market for 6 months to a year and finally sells, did anybody actually "earn" a comission?
With the availably of the internet and listing with MLS and REALTOR .COM by the sellers why do we need to be paying agents 20-30-40K just to sell our homes?
How many of us could sell our home right now just by lowering our prices the cost of commisions?
Of course all realtors think we need them and perhaps there are some out there that are fine salespeople but mostly they are just Listers and Showers.
I sold TWO houses by myself. Nobody knows your house as well as you. Of course your going to get all these realtors telling you that you need a professional,and you'll need help with the legal mumbo Jumbo. Rule One Don't be stupid. Find a lawyer have him draw up the papers, know what you need,and PRICE YOUR HOUSE CORRECTLY. Don't pine for a number you want to get, do your homework, look at whats for sale in your area, and make your house "sale-able" fix what needs to be fixed and clean up the inside. Post on the internet, make up flyers and an add in the papers(not just local) I agree I do not think that you should pay someone 10,000 + to sit in your house on a Sunday for four hours, maybe a few times. They might do a little more than that but I found out that is usually just the wayit is. Sorry to tweak your realator noses, it's just the perception that most people have. Good Luck to all you sellers
short reply - i think their value is inversely proportional to the market. bad market = agents have value, good market = agents have less value.
i do think paying $20K+ for the work is crazy, although i realize agents do have to put their own money upfront and the commission for the time and effort is not realized in a lot of cases (people pull their houses, others decide not to buy, etc). also, the agents themselves do not pocket that entire amount.
just like any profession, there are snakes out there and some excellent realtors who really do want to help and work their tails off.
I have come to the conclusion that the real estate agents are not earning the money we have to pay them. I have found only two types of agents.
Listers and Showers.
Listers are the agents who sell you on their so called expertise in marketing your home and a then sit back and wait for the Showers to bring buyers to your home. Not bad 50% of comission for a MLS and REALTOR .COM listing.
Listers usually have seniority in the office.
Showers are the agents who get to bring buyers to your house and together get to look at your home for the first time.
Showers do more legwork than Listers but many times are not located in the area of the home they are showing and know nothing of the area.
Showers usually have the least seniority in an office.
What is lacking in the Real Estate industry are geniune sales people.
When an agent tells you your price is too high and you have to lower in order to sell that is just common sense, that is not salemanship. Do you really need to pay an agents 5-6% comission to lower your price?
If your house sits on the market for 6 months to a year and finally sells, did anybody actually "earn" a comission?
With the availably of the internet and listing with MLS and REALTOR .COM by the sellers why do we need to be paying agents 20-30-40K just to sell our homes?
How many of us could sell our home right now just by lowering our prices the cost of commisions?
Of course all realtors think we need them and perhaps there are some out there that are fine salespeople but mostly they are just Listers and Showers.
E
BTW my home is not on the market.
I am sorry that you feel this way, I for one am a realtor and I work hard. I am very dedicated to my clients regardless whether they are buyers or sellers. You are being falsely misfed, Yes some agents are given leads, but most of us work , we market ourselves and I for one get past referrals from clients who have been happy with my service. That is the best compliement that an agent can receive. For your so called listers, 99 percent of the time they do not listen to us. I give a market anaylsis of what has sold in the area in the last 6 mts. I am always honest with them, do most listen of course not, they think their home is worth more. So they sit on the market for mts. no advertisement, no open houses will sell your house There are so much more to selling dealing with inspections, attys.and we being the middleman to make sure it gets done and pave the way to closing, btw we don't get paid until the deal is closed. Fyi...we don't get the whole commision it is split with the broker. Some listers give you a listing for 3 mts. and won't reduce the price, and have it expire. The second agency comes along and the seller reduces to what the first one told him and it sells. So yes that agent made a quick commission. Btw listers are selling agents, showers are buyers agents.
You so called showers have to put up with not only showing 10 homes in a day or more during the course of them wanting to buy. Then you work with them for mts. waste your gas, and your valuable time showing them. They drive you all over the towns and then either leave you flat or decide they are not ready to buy, or are locating somewhere else, because they can't afford NJ taxes or homes. Showers are not low in seniorty, if they are good agents, they work both sides of the spectrum. Most people are not loyal to their agents, and that is sad. For if the agent is dedicated to them they should in turn give them loyality.
As far as selling your home I to have sold my home in the past before I entered this profession. It was a nightmare, people walking in without being pre qualified and no woman should be home alone when having strangers wanting to see their home. It can be done, yes and let me just leave you with this statistic most 80 percent of fsbo's list their home with a realtor. Not bad for a profession who don't know what they doing...
So before everyone knocks the indrusty, yes I agree you have many agents who are not the greatest. Don't have them represent all , for their are many dedicated agents. Remember walk in our shoes and remember like I mentioned earlier, we don't get paid until closing, and many deals go south due to many reasons that are not our fault. I don't think anyone here would like to go to work and not get paid for their services...
Last edited by luvtoshop; 08-23-2007 at 11:16 AM..
Some real estate agents are good, many are lazy. Most these days seem to have only been working for a few years and so have only seen an "up up up market." So, they have no idea what to do now that the market is headed down. Our latest buying agent was aghast that we wanted to throw some lower numbers out there to sellers whose homes had been sitting for 9+ months. It's in the agents best interest to keep prices high.
What sticks in my craw is that I can buy $100,000 of stock for $8 but buying a house for that much (let's pretend this is nebraska) costs me $6,000. That doesn't seem right to me, especially considering stock is typically the better investment.
(disclaimer: we have contracts on the sale of our condo and the purchase of a home and we used agents for both, we probably won't even use agents again)
I, too, have sold 2 properties w/out the agent. In most cases, you don't really need one, IMO, unless you absolutely do not have time to do necessary work by yourself (i.e. show the property, deal with potential buyers, etc). Both times I used flat fee MLS service, where, for $500 you list your property on MLS. And let's be honest here, most properties sell off of MLS not window display/newspaper ads or other so-called marketing channels.
I have been in Marketing for over 10 years (I also have advanced degree in Marketing) and I love when RE agents tell me how they will "market" my property, while many have no idea what marketing means.. If I were to market my clients' products/services the way agents "market" properties, I would be on the street, unemployed.
There are many professional, honest and talented agents out there but most, especially "listers" do not deserve the commision they earn.
I can agree with you guys on some points becauae there are many bad agents out there but I can not speak for the experiences you have had. Many agents do not do much so I can see where you are coming from but to make a general statement like "agents are not necessary" or "agents do not do their job" is unfair. If I made a general statement like "waiters are horrible at service" the ones that are good would be mad. I know that the reason I am successful at what I do is because I do a good job. I do not just list properties and leave them. I have plans and they are told to you at listing. If I have a buyer, I work with them until I find them a house. It makes me mad to hear general negative statements about Realtors because it makes my job VERY hard. Just because some agents suck, please don't say all do.
I don't think that most agents are bad, I just think that "listing" agents are unnecessary (not always but often). If more people knew that they could list their property on MLS without hiring an agent, I guarantee you more people would do it. Most agents who find buyers and actually sell the property (as opposed to just list it) absolutely deserve every dollar they get.
I keep reading about listing agents and sellers agents. In actuality those aren't really two different professions if you will. Real estate agents might like to work with listers or buyers more but just about every agent does both so saying that listing agents arent necessary is pretty impossible.
short reply - i think their value is inversely proportional to the market. bad market = agents have value, good market = agents have less value.
i do think paying $20K+ for the work is crazy, although i realize agents do have to put their own money upfront and the commission for the time and effort is not realized in a lot of cases (people pull their houses, others decide not to buy, etc). also, the agents themselves do not pocket that entire amount.
just like any profession, there are snakes out there and some excellent realtors who really do want to help and work their tails off.
Tahiti,
I agree. My agent worked extremely hard,more than most. She is in the business over 25 years. She listed did show it, had 4 open houses. Another agent from Middletown sold it but was not as professional and relied on my agent to do her job. My buyer's lawyer said his clients were certifiable but they closed, I had to close here first. Thankfully, I had the funds to be able to do this. Since my agent only took 5% and I felt she went beyond what most do, I gave her a gift card as a gift.
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I Agree
