A few of the things you won’t hear from most agents
1) The agent who promises you a really great price in the appraisal will probably end up getting you the worst result. Yup, who would have thought that a real estate agent might lie? Shock, horror! But it does happen. Agents are usually competing with other agents to win a listing. There are lots of tricks to winning this listing (a few of which I’ll share here) but the oldest trick in the book is to promise a high price.
The seller thinks “Brilliant! This agent must be fantastic. I’ll sign up with them so they can get me that high price.” The problem is this price is often inflated so that the agent gets the listing. This is called “buying a listing” and it usually ends up with the seller getting a worse result than if they had priced the property correctly.
You see if a property is priced too high it will generally sit on the market for longer than normal. This leads to buyers being wary of the property and wondering what may be wrong with it. This often leads to either the owner reducing the asking price or accepting a lowball offer as they are sick of having the property sit on the market for so long. Agents often tie in sellers by asking for large upfront advertising fees (which they don’t keep and do generally spend on advertising) but this money is normally just advertising their business and the agent rather than advertising the property.
I mean who hasn’t seen the agent with hundreds of signboards around and with heaps of adverts on the major websites all at the top of the list. Often this is because they have priced the properties too high but it is still good advertising for them as it looks as if they are the dominant agent in the area.
2) I should sell with the high profile agent who has heaps of listings in this area.
As you can see above. Just because an agent has a lot of listings in an area doesn’t always mean you will get the best price for your property. You see that agent is often overloaded with listings and often doesn’t have the time to really spend on each individual listing. yes they may have their minions who work for them and can help but do you want your buyers to be going through the negotiation and sales process with someone who isn’t qualified?
3) The “local agent” will always be the best agent as they have buyers on their database. This is a doozie. Another one of the oldest tricks in the book. “I have the buyer for your property on my database” is a good trick to hook in a seller to sign up their property with an agent. Yes, local agents do have buyers on their database. But do you really believe those buyers just give their details to an agent then sit back and wait for the phone call to come to tell them the agent has the property they are looking for? No.
Those buyers are setting up notifications on the major real estate portals and regularly checking to see if anything new is coming on the market. So these agents who promise that they have the buyer on their database aren’t lying. The buyer is on their database but they are also going to be checking the websites. If you want an off-market sale then that agent may be good but off-market sales often result in lower prices for the seller as you don’t get the competition you’d otherwise get in the open market. Agents who work over multiple suburbs not only get the buyers in that suburb (through the real estate portal listings) but can also introduce buyers who may not have considered that suburb but might still be interested in that property.
4) Selling without a price on the property will result in a better price.
This one has become popular over time. Often when an agent promises a price that is too high in order to secure a listing they will recommend advertising without a price. At least that way they won’t scare off all the buyers with the really high price so they will still get enquiries and they can slowly work the sellers down to where the market is. Realestate.com.au did some studies a few years ago into the number of enquiries received for properties without a price and also for properties without an address compared to those with an address and with a price. It was startling how fewer enquiries the properties without prices or addresses received. I’m yet to meet a buyer who likes seeing a property advertised without a price or address. This means they will have to call or email the agent and it is a well-known fact that agents are arseholes (please note: not all agents are arseholes. This is just a stereotype and I’m actually quite offended by it :-p ) who just want to steal all your contact details so they can spam you for the rest of your life until you end up selling a property with them. So instead many buyers just bypass those properties without a price or address. The reason agents do it is so they don’t have to disclose the overinflated price (and scare away buyers) and also so they can get the contact details of everyone who contacts them as these people may one day be sellers and that is how an agent gets paid. We really are sole-less, money-hungry bastards aren’t we.
Ok, I could go on but I’m doubting you even made it this far. If you did. Good on you. You will hopefully know how to avoid falling for a real estate agent’s lies.
