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I just checked to see if she had taken the online advertising off.....she hasn't yet. AND, she never did change the price of the house! Despite being told REPEATEDLY to! My dad lowered the asking price by $20,000 and that was never updated. Sickening.
I'm definitely keeping an eye on things this time around.
Also be aware that if your parents choose to market the property themselves then they will need to learn how to screen prospects before allowing them into their home. It is not unheard of for prospective buyers to be other than what they appear.
But, if the house is empty, what is really to worry about? There is nothing to steal.
Thank you! All of what you wrote is also getting e-mailed to my parents.
I just checked to see if she had taken the online advertising off.....she hasn't yet. AND, she never did change the price of the house! Despite being told REPEATEDLY to! My dad lowered the asking price by $20,000 and that was never updated. Sickening.
I'm definitely keeping an eye on things this time around.
Your listing is held by the broker, not the agent. Call the managing broker. Assuming this agent belongs to a local board, file a complaint against this agent for failure to act on your directive and lower the price.
My guess is she may have lowered the price in the MLS but not on all the other media used to advertize, especially those that required a manaual update. I see this all the time. Darn shame.
But, if the house is empty, what is really to worry about? There is nothing to steal.
Thank you! All of what you wrote is also getting e-mailed to my parents.
Who will let the buyer into the house for showings if your parents decide to market the home themselves?
An empty house is a target, do you have an ac condenser unit outside? Thieves will use MLS photos to identify the empty homes and remove the A/C units. The copper and other metals provide quick cash at recycle centers.
Appliances, cabinets, light fixtures, copper pipe, copper wire, etc... It is not common but it is not unheard of for vacant homes to be striped.
I never indicate that a vacant home is vacant in the showing instructions. It's also a good idea to post photos of the interior rooms with furnishings. Also avoid having photos that are easy to date.
You can also, in choosing a new agent, check for blogs by agents in your area. That will give you an additional tool in judging the ones you're considering or finding some to consider and give you an idea not only of how familiar they are with your market area but whether or not they will "click" with your parents and you - communication is very important in this business.
I also suggest that you look on Realtor.com or where ever and look at listings. Note who has good photos of properties with good descriptions. You want to hire someone that actually DOES good work, not someone who tells you they will.
So once you find some agents that have good online marketing materials, google a couple of addresses that they have listed. See what comes up for marketing. You can see how prolific they are online and the quality of what they do.
This will give you a jumping off point for interviewing agents.
You need to understand that many agents belong to referral networks that give the referring agent 20-35% of their commission. Sometimes agents refer to other agents because they have agreed to give them a referral fee, not because they are necessarily good.
We just went through a similar thing as your parents. Sounds like the same agent LOL. Lowered the price, realtor didn't in any advertising. OK photos, but lousy description and no video tour. Not aggressive at all when we had showings in following up with interested buyers. We didn't really shop around for an agent, just picked the local one. As your parents we were quite discouraged but knew from past experiences that there is such a thing as a good agent so had faith we would find one.
When the contract was coming up to expire, we interviewed a bunch of agents. Like another poster said, we didn't really get into why we were switching agents or complain about her , when talking to the new agents. We just asked them to tell us how they would sell and market our house. We did pick these agents by looking at the MLS listings and seeing who listed houses with video tours, good pictures, good descriptions.
Agent A showed up with a complete written marketing plan, thorough CMAs comparing our house to everything that made sense which had recently sold, is under contract and on the market right now. She toured the house and gave some constructive criticism (though, not much, because to get our house on the market we had it in pristine, uncluttered, depersonalized, staged condition). She had example brochures she makes for each house she lists (~20 pages of info). On followup I emailed her a question I forgot to ask and she answered within the hour.
Agent B showed up with no written CMAs but a verbal one. He spent the time going through our old listing (his idea, not ours) and criticizing every aspect of it. Told us how bad our house had been marketed and that's the only reason it hasn't sold. (Thanks, we know that ) It was obvious he had spent some time researching our house as compared to the market even though he didn't show up with anything to give us on paper (he had his own notes) He said he does absolutely no print advertising that it's all on the web now and invited us to look at his website and see his virtual tours. After he left we did, and his website had many broken links, missing tours, etc. I emailed him regarding the issues, and he didn't get back to me for a week. It was around the holidays, but that ruled him out. (Not a bad idea to test realtors email response time, IMHO).
Agent C showed up with really not much to say, except that going with him he would get the power of the agency behind it (all 3 were from big national agencies) but didn't really say anything he personally would do to get the house sold. Said our house was priced "about right". Took a quick tour around and didn't say much. The meeting lasted maybe 15 minutes.
We picked Agent A, of course, and are so glad we did. It has been like night and day. In just the few weeks since the new listing have had a bunch of showings, yesterday - a realtor open house where 20 realtors went through, and lots of positive feedback from the showings with 3 people considering offers. We are a showcase listing on realtor.com, have a great virtual tour, and an agent that emails or calls me just about every day or two. Already I feel she has earned the commission. So, have them hang in there.
And, to your original question, yes you can try to find your own buyers. We have our own website to sell our house (gee, were we a little frustrated with our 1st realtor? ;-) ) and get some leads through there once in a while which our realtor is happy to follow up on. And we had some leads from people who looked at our house when it was listed with the first realtor we happily passed on to the new one.
If they operate in your state you could use a flat fee broker.
You will probably still need to offer 3% buyer's agent commission though, but you may save money if the additional 3% selling agent's commission would be more than a discount broker's flat fee. In my state they seem to charge around $3,000 to sell.
Property will be listed on the MLS - you'll get more exposure this way than by FSBO.
They can also provide you with all the comparables of recently sold properties so you can gauge whether the house is competitively priced.
As others pointed out, if you do decide to go FSBO you can have an attorney help with the contract, paperwork etc. I'm not sure how much a decent RE attorney would cost in your area.
Good luck and hope things work out for you.
Good advice from everyone on this thread however you proceed.
For the most part I agree with Jen's suggestions with a few caveats...
Quote:
Originally Posted by eco-modpod
* Go on a preview tour with the realtor to see what other homes in the neighborhood look like and are selling for.
This is fine to attend a broker's open/tour or do this with vacant homes. Please don't have your agent lie to sellers to tell them you are showing the property to some buyers when all you want to do is check out the competition.
It's just not right, as far as I am concerned, to ask sellers to disrupt their life for a fake buyer. Please don't do that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by eco-modpod
* List several times a week (daily is better) on Craig's List .
This violates the rules and the spirit of Craigslist. Don't post everyday or you or your agent will get flagged for over posting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by eco-modpod
* Send out email flyers to realtors in the area (vFlyer) at least once a week
Please don't encourage your agent to spam other agents. We are perfectly capable of searching the MLS for homes.
Otherwise, Jen gave you some good ideas of what to look for in a marketing plan from an agent.
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) It was obvious he had spent some time researching our house as compared to the market even though he didn't show up with anything to give us on paper (he had his own notes) He said he does absolutely no print advertising that it's all on the web now and invited us to look at his website and see his virtual tours. After he left we did, and his website had many broken links, missing tours, etc. I emailed him regarding the issues, and he didn't get back to me for a week. It was around the holidays, but that ruled him out. (Not a bad idea to test realtors email response time, IMHO).
