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OK - I'm very frustrated & ! I just got off the phone with one of these flat fee brokerage agents who encouraged the seller to walk away from a reasonable cash offer from my buyer! In visiting with her, I found she doesn't know the market (but thinks she does, of course) I pulled good comps that were within a few blocks of the listed home, and that was the offer my client made. This agent said that I had used comps from a different town (because she wasn't familiar with the addresses and hadn't plugged them into the MLS correctly)!!! The offer by my buyers was a fair, reasonable offer and she advised her customer to walk rather than counter!
Have you agents had similar experiences in your "neck of the woods"?
I'm afraid that I have had a few bad experiences with agents that weren't knowledgeable. Not all were low service, but I think as a whole the low service companies offer very little training. There are some good low service agents in my market but some of the worst agents in my market are low service agents. Honestly, it comes down to education, experience, and effort.
I have often seen some of the flat fee or discounters do the same thing, because, IMHO, they need to double end many of thier listings to cash flow....Unfortunatly, we as typical RE agents may be feeding this because we may tend to "shun" thier listings because of thier lower wages offered. (and yes they are MY wages)
Maybe you could map the listings in MS Streets & Trips or Google Earth and resubmit the offer?
That was the frustrating part. I tried to call a couple times during the acceptance period, no answer so I left messages to the effect "if you have any questions, please give me a call", and then about 45 minutes before it was due to expire, a "just checking in . . . ". The house had been shown a couple of times the day of our offer, and I thought perhaps they were waiting it out, hoping to get another offer in.
Anyway, I finally got a call back from this agent, and she told me that the offer had been rejected, that my buyer's offer was just way too low. And her next immediate words were that the comps I had sent had included a couple of solds in our (lower priced) sleeper community. I told her "no way, they're all within a few blocks of the listing", she just wouldn't believe me. Said she'd plugged the addresses in on MLS, blah, blah, blah. I asked her to please put in the MLS numbers. She finally did, and said, "oh, yeah, I guess I must have punched in a wrong address or something" and then proceeded to tell me that it still didn't matter because of the views, blah, blah, blah. (One of the coomp houses was less than a block away - same views.) Anyway, bottom line, no counter offer (not that my buyer was willing to come up much off the comps, but at least he would have had the opportunity to), and the seller who's had his home on the market about nine months with no offers has been led to believe that this reasonable offer was a lowball offer and that he should just wait for something better. No chance of resubmitting or anything.
What's really weird is I wrote 2 contracts the same day. This one was off by about 7% (avg here is 94% of list price for accepted contracts). No counter, no opportunity to pull it together. The 2nd offer I wrote was off by about 11% on a pocket listing with a non-motivated seller. Pulled that one together. Go figure! Just shows the difference with having a good agent on the other side of things. I find it hard to believe that in this slow market the agent on the 1st deal would advise her client to walk rather than counter.
Some sellers are not motivated, or not informed, or not willing to play the real estate game.
Is there a better property for your clients out there?
Is your client offering fair market value, based on closed information?
Do you know, or can you find out why the property is on the market?
Do you know, or can you find out what the "hot" buttons of the seller are?
Gretchen, sometimes it's not the Realtor but, a stubborn seller.
I once had a listing from an elderly gentleman who's townhome was paid for ... he wanted 15K over ALL the comps. He wanted what he wanted and THAT was THAT. I kept the listing because he was the father-in-law of a good family friend.
He rejected 7 offers ... all were low, but NOT unreasonable ... and they were in line with the COMPS ... but he wouldn't budge. He wanted to buy an RV and travel ... he wanted a certain number.
He was priced 10K over an appraisal made by one of the offers, still he denied it. I am sure a lot of agents thought I was giving my client bad advice, or that I was dumb. The reality was my client was a stubborn man and I respected his wishes.
Eventually, a buyer - with cash in hand came - put 70% down cash ... and only financed 30% ...they met his price after all.
I was amazed.
Thanks, guys!!!! Unfortunately this deal is "dead in the water", and I've finally cooled off. Just needed to vent. The comps I used were sold comps from the past 3 months and within a few blocks of the listed home. Very generous comps, newer homes than the listing and slightly larger, with comparable views and features.
I think it probably fell apart because of a combination of both the agent and the seller.
The Agent - I was totally irritated with this flat fee agent telling the seller that the comps were from another town and weren't accurate, and encouraging him to not counter.
The Seller - Even though the seller had lowered his price substantially over 6 months (started out high) and was finally priced competitively, he ended up withdrawing his listing after this offer. The agent said he didn't really have to sell.
Just out of curiousity, when you all represent a seller in a slow market, don't you encourage him to counter regardless of how low the offer might be? And especially if the offer is within 5% - 10% of the asking price? At least keep the ball bouncing til you know absolutely you're not going to pull it together?
If I was writing to Ann Landers, I'd sign this "Frustrated in Arizona"
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! I just got off the phone with one of these flat fee brokerage agents who encouraged the seller to walk away from a reasonable cash offer from my buyer! In visiting with her, I found she doesn't know the market (but thinks she does, of course
) I pulled good comps that were within a few blocks of the listed home, and that was the offer my client made. This agent said that I had used comps from a different town 
(because she wasn't familiar with the addresses and hadn't plugged them into the MLS correctly)!!! The offer by my buyers was a fair, reasonable offer and she advised her customer to walk rather than counter!
