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My sister was going to sell her home and decided to do with FSBO, listed her home on MLS, had a real estate attorney. She did get some traffic (her home in a desirable area on a dead end quiet street, really nice home) She mostly had individuals not with an agent come to view home. She was horribly harassed by agents who wanted her to sign up to be her agent. She relented a bit with one agent who wanted to show her home to some buyers who were looking for a home, but made it clear to him she is not hiring him to be her agent. Shortly thereafter he started threatening her that must sign with him because he showed her home to some of his buyers, even threatened to sue her. She called her lawyer and was told that to report him to the state license for realtor. She had proof of harassment from a letter and voice mail. She didn't bother has too much in her life to keep her busy but did call the real estate company and complained and sent a copy of letter and emailed the voice recording. She never heard from him again.
She found out that this type of blacklist is common. Agents are strongly discouraged to bring to or point out FSBO homes to pressure owner to go with a realtor, even have specific agents to hard sell FSBO into signing up, apparently even to the point of harassment and threats.
So just to let buyers shopping for homes. Look yourself without your agents at FSBO homes. You may miss something that your agent is basically forbidden to show you because of pressure from their home real estate office.
We bought one house from a FSBO seller. There were no hassles with any of the process, and we met both the husband and wife. A pleasant experience, at a fair price. We lived there 15 years. I would buy from FSBO again.
I do personally believe there is some bias against low commissions. We mostly do buyer side and would discuss an extremely low commission with the buyer. we would ignore small differences. And actually the likely key to which homes make the top ten is actually the view my wife takes of the photos and her view of how they will hit the client. The actual order of showing will be driven by a navigation program with a little messing around if she thinks there is reason to show particular ones first or last.
I have found most FSBOs to be reasonable particularly after being on the market a while. The big problem I see is over-pricing. I would in fact sometimes show one and not make an offer but have my client wait. That is because I know that the particular FSBO is over priced and not likely to move...so let time soften them up a bit then try.
I see no collusion or such in any of this. The agent simply wants to be paid and is in their mind simply optimizing the amount and likelihood. An virtually all will show the low commission house if it becomes likely that it is a good fit. Better part of what you would like than nothing.
The brokerages here are pushing buyer brokerage agreements. They are becoming more common but are still a small minority of the deals. And I would note the industry has not pushed them as a legal requirement.
I agree with you. The NAR is very clear that the relationship between the seller's and buyer's agents is one of collaboration to sell the house. Unfortunately, I don't think that buyers understand this or understand the implications of this. There must also be a comfort in working with another agent on the other side because you can work as a team to sell the house. If there are pricing issues on the house, you would expect that the sellers agent would help 'soften up' (as you say) the seller more quickly than if a FSBO had to soften on his own. Another reason why the system is stacked against the FSBO or MLS only seller.
I would not say that small differences in commission percentages (aren't most very similar anyway), would drive big movements of priority but I agree with you that there is naturally and obviously a bias against low commission homes as you need to earn commission to survive.
Actually in a good deal there is often a good bit of cooperation between the agents. But there is also clear hostility. There are places where we cooperate and places where we deliberately screw each other up. Just Recently had my client accept the repairs on a home he is buying. But I also added a little note that we would further check out the water softener and if it was not working properly we would hang the deal on the walk through. That is somewhat hostile and gives the other agent the task of getting the problem fixed or having the closing held at the last minute. Give you 95% odds that the water softener will work fine before closing. And I agree that the water softener problem is a minor one. But it can be big and very hostile. We are not on the same side when it comes to making sure our clients get the best deal reasonably available.
MLS stands for multiple LISTING service. Your sister signed a listing agreement. Sometimes they are limited service agreements, but she signed an agreement with a brokerage.
There are no FSBO on MLS.
It may be that the $75 I paid a Realtor org to get listed on MLS in Florida meant I was "hiring" them, but they asked for nothing and, in fact, referred any leads that went to them...back to me.
Yes, there really is. I was shocked also when a neighbor here in Hendersonville had a listing like that. I'll have to go back and look it up and post it when I find it. They provided a sign and everything. I was shocked to see that it was part of Realtor dot com. (They ended up with a 'real' Realtor and the house sold in a week. )
"Listing on Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, Realtor.com, Homefinder and more.Your listing will be distributed to national search portals such as Zillow, Trulia, Realtor, Redfin and more. Distribution is subject to vary by MLS."
Every MLS is a little different, with slightly different rules. Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, Realtor, Homefinder, etc. are NOT Multiple Listing Services. They are aggregators, who collect information FROM multiple listing services. However, most agents first go to their own multiple listing service to search for homes, and only go to FSBOs if their buyers see something interesting, or if they are looking in a specific area and are out of MLS options. We don't go to Realtor.com or Zillow -- because the information in our MLS is more up to date. ForSaleByOwner.com is not a multiple listing service. It is not a real estate company -- it simply provides materials to owners who wish to sell their home themselves. They can refer an agent to Xome, which is an agent referral network for their higher-priced plans that promise to put it in the MLS "where available" (not available in 9 states, btw), but on-line reviews have a lot of complaints. Seems like a lot of trouble to me.
I don't blackball FSBO's -- in other words, I don't refuse to show them to a client. I don't bad-mouth them. But they aren't always top-of-mind. I normally have to make special arrangements to show a FSBO because, I've found that they are a little harder to schedule than others -- the buyer needs/wants to be there, and I have to fit into their schedule, and usually have to allow more time for the seller to "sell" us. And, frankly, I have a few buyers who won't look at a FSBO -- figuring that if they are "cheaping out" (their words, not mine) on the listing, the rest of the house is probably cheaped out, too.
Do flat fee and don't skimp on the selling agent commission or don't bother.
Unless you're in a super hot market that is the best option if you don't need full service. Most of the agents won't even notice or care when they see the 3% to them.
I am pretty sure she did offer 2% to the buyers agents but then they would lowball on the price. She listed below appraised value but agents wanted a bigger cut, wanted her to pay buyers % and lower price so buyers could have more to fix houses how they wanted. Wanted granite installed, they had laminate in kitchen, which is why she listed below in price. They stripped any wallpaper painted neutral, new carpet. Home was empty in like new condition, they had moved in the smaller home down the street. The agents were relentless. They must have thought they were desperate to sell, but they were not. It was a 260,000 home. It was about 18 months ago, the market is hotter now but still.
One agent figured out who BIL mom was and called her to ask her to call his son and ask if he could be agent for them. It was quite ridiculous.
My sister was going to sell her home and decided to do with FSBO, listed her home on MLS, had a real estate attorney. She did get some traffic (her home in a desirable area on a dead end quiet street, really nice home) She mostly had individuals not with an agent come to view home. She was horribly harassed by agents who wanted her to sign up to be her agent. She relented a bit with one agent who wanted to show her home to some buyers who were looking for a home, but made it clear to him she is not hiring him to be her agent. Shortly thereafter he started threatening her that must sign with him because he showed her home to some of his buyers, even threatened to sue her. She called her lawyer and was told that to report him to the state license for realtor. She had proof of harassment from a letter and voice mail. She didn't bother has too much in her life to keep her busy but did call the real estate company and complained and sent a copy of letter and emailed the voice recording. She never heard from him again.
She found out that this type of blacklist is common. Agents are strongly discouraged to bring to or point out FSBO homes to pressure owner to go with a realtor, even have specific agents to hard sell FSBO into signing up, apparently even to the point of harassment and threats.
So just to let buyers shopping for homes. Look yourself without your agents at FSBO homes. You may miss something that your agent is basically forbidden to show you because of pressure from their home real estate office.
What you describe is not being "blacklisted". It is, however, inappropriate behavior by a real estate agent that should have been reported to the state authorities. Failure to do so merely empowers them to behave the same towards others.
Quote:
Originally Posted by luv4horses
This might just be a technicality, but if a buyer's agent asks to show a potential buyer your sister's home, I think she is morally obligated to pay a fee to him. This should be decided upon before the showing, including the amount, the conditions (for example, only to be paid if the house sells to that buyer) and your sister should be willing to sign a document to that effect. The document should reference the name of that one and potential buyer and the length of time that representation is valid. It's only fair.
She is under no moral or legal obligation to pay a fee to the agent. However, it is a good idea to discuss any possible fee before allowing the house to be shown. If she doesn't want to pay any fee or commission, she should just tell the agent in no uncertain terms that she will not be paying him. It would be more practical, however, to only keep the net proceeds in mind--bumping up the price of the house to pay a commission, if need be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by just_because
I agree with you. The NAR is very clear that the relationship between the seller's and buyer's agents is one of collaboration to sell the house. Unfortunately, I don't think that buyers understand this or understand the implications of this. There must also be a comfort in working with another agent on the other side because you can work as a team to sell the house. If there are pricing issues on the house, you would expect that the sellers agent would help 'soften up' (as you say) the seller more quickly than if a FSBO had to soften on his own. Another reason why the system is stacked against the FSBO or MLS only seller.
I would not say that small differences in commission percentages (aren't most very similar anyway), would drive big movements of priority but I agree with you that there is naturally and obviously a bias against low commission homes as you need to earn commission to survive.
A certain degree of cooperation takes place--with the Seller's agent, with title company reps, etc.--in any transaction, but my role as a Buyer's agent is clearly adversarial in nature to the Seller's agent. No ifs, ands or buts. I do my best to glean information from a Seller's agent that will be beneficial to my clients...and I also provide them with information that I hope they will pass on to their client (or, at least, keep in their mind). As an example, when I submitted a recent offer I let it be known that my client was also considering another property (all true), but I was hopeful that they could purchase the property owned by her client. Since it had been listed for a couple of years, I knew that the Seller's agent was probably anxious to finally receive a commission. I'll never be certain if my discussions with her helped, but my client's offer was accepted with no counter offer--and they would have been willing to pay 10% to 15% more.
And a lower commission--based upon a lower sales price--never swayed me a bit. If anything, commission "incentives" might have caused the Seller's agent to encourage her client to accept the deal. The ole "half a loaf is better than none" theory.
These are perils that go with the turf if you take the FSBO journey. Expect them and develop time-efficient response approaches. I set up a separate e-mail solely for replying to inquiries and my ad copy made it very clear that I will not respond to agents attempting to solicit a listing.
You'll get phone calls, mine came to my cell and after a while I learned not to answer a call from a number I don't recognize. I still get calls over a year after I sold the home from agents working an expired listing call list. Again, it goes with the turf.
I too had an unreasonable agent who tried to entangle me in e-mail wise-guy talk. I initially took the bait because that's my personality but then wised up and ignored his communication and eventually threatened I would report him to the state licensing department. He eventually ran out of steam.
Home was actually sold to a buyer who made the initial communication. My approach was to engage in extensive conversation once I found the buyer had all the markers of being legitimate and qualified. For me, this is most important although my wife thought I spent too much time doing this. After a while, you can get a feel for legitimate buyers versus those wasting your time.
I marketed the home that I would cooperate with a buyer's agent but I did not pay a buyer's agent for this transaction because an agent didn't bring a buyer to me. The buyer's agent tried to jump in on the action and charge 2.5% but I said no because for that compensation, I expect an agent to bring the buyer to me.
You really have to be honest with yourself and ask if you truly have the thick skin and knowledge to be a FSBO because if you don't you shouldn't but sometimes we've got to figure this out for ourselves.
Despite doing your best, a FSBO will have time wasted from people wasting their time with the greatest culprits being agents. Also, no shows for viewings by appointment. I required the appointment to be confirmed one hour before the viewing time. Even getting confirmation that a buyer would show, I still had a couple no shows. The world is full of flaky people.
My successful FSBO resulted in selling costs of only 0.8% of the selling price but I did do some work to earn the savings.
I wish your sister the best. Tell her it'll be a long haul in my opinion unless she's in a super hot seller's market.
By the way, I'm doing another FSBO now although I may take it off market and hold.
Last edited by borninsac; 09-04-2017 at 06:29 PM..
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