ATTENTION HOME SELLERS
A buyer's agent is NEVER your friend. Anything you say to the buyer or the buyer's agent can and will be used against you in negotiations.
Representing your best interests in negotiations is one of the many services your listing agent provides. In many cases, you will never know the problems your agent anticipates and avoids or the objections she answers, as she puts her training, knowledge, and experience to work for you.
Do you know how to get buyers to choose your home?
Do you know what it takes to sell a home during periods of inflation or recession, war or peace, seller's market or buyers' market, winter blizzards or summer heat waves?
Would you know how to handle it if someone alarms your prospective buyer by telling him a stream runs under your home? If the appraisal comes in below your sale price, do you know how to save the sale of your home? Do you know how to increase your bottom line after all selling expenses? Your agent does.
She has sold starter homes and retirement homes, brand new homes and run-down older homes, teeny little condos and huge executive homes... homes in urban, suburban and rural areas...
She has sold hundreds of homes like yours for people who are a lot like you - folks who want or need to sell their current home, who would like to have a smooth and pleasant home-selling experience for their families and enjoy the most possible $$$ in their pockets. She DOES know how to get buyers to choose your home.
Do you want more money for your home?
Sure, you might sell your home "for sale by owner" and save the commission. But you could end up with less money in your pocket than you would with your agent working for you.
Just ask the sellers who listed their rental property with your agent via email and fax, without ever meeting face to face, and sold it for $6,000 more than they expected - in less than three hours. Ask another seller, who listed his home with your agent, and she recommended selling the side yard separately - for a total of $35,000 more than he expected. Most of your agent's listings have sold at TOP DOLLAR - many of them in less than a week.
Do you know how to get your home ready for selling?
Should you paint the basement walls, or will that look like you're trying to hide something? Should you replace the carpet, or just clean it? Should you turn on the lights, or leave them off? Should you re-arrange some of your furniture to make the rooms look larger?
Any wrong decision could cost you money, or even a sale. Do you have the experience to really know what's necessary and what's not to make a buyer say "yes!" to your home! Your agent DOES know.
Beware of Buyer's Agents!
Since most of today's qualified home-buyers are busy people with demanding jobs, family commitments, long commutes, and other responsibilities, they hire a buyer's agent to help them find and buy a home. The buyer's agent will always advocate for the buyer and protect the buyer's best interest - NEVER YOURS!
Your most casual and innocent conversation with an experienced buyer's agent may provide valuable information to help the buyer take advantage of you in negotiations.
Yet, it is very likely that any offer you receive will be conditioned upon YOU paying the fee for the buyer's agent, usually about 3-4% of the sale price. And there may be other conditions in the offer that are unfavorable to you. Will you even realize the impact of language in the small print of the offer? Your agent DOES know, and will explain it to you.
Sellers, your agent does more than install a sale sign in front of your home and place a lockbox on your door; she does more than create a multiple listing report. She is your advisor and advocate at every step of your home sale.
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved.
For answers to your real estate questions about Bowie, Crofton, Davidsonville, Fort Meade, Gambrills, Odenton and other communities in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, contact Margaret Woda at Long & Foster Real Estate, Inc. or simply click on a button below for information you can review online at your own pace:
Excellent. And the other side of the coin is, of course,
Mr. and Mrs. Buyer, please ignore anything you hear, see or read from a listing agent or seller".
Give me a FSBO and I will get a VERY good buy for my buyer. Always have, always will.
I'm so happy that a well trained and professional Seller agent will be able to shield the seller from so much of what goes on behind the scenes. There is so much that happens that the seller doesn't know about that it makes the transaction look seamless. Yes, the buyer's agent is there to look after the best interests of the buyer, as the seller agent is there for the seller. This is an integral part of the Real Estate transaction that should never be taken for granted...by either side of the deal.
Thanks for the post.
Very nicely done. Thanks for sharing your wisdom.
Tim, I'm glad you liked t. Thank you.
Lenn, so true. I LOVE non-listed homes because they are so easy to charm them while representing my buyers' best interests. And my buyers usually make out big time.
Andrew. Fair negotiations really do require an agent representing each party. If one is not represented well, it is likely that it won't be a win-win transaction but a one-way transaction.
Chris, I always use that quote with them "... anything you say can and will be used against you in negotiations." They do seem to get that.
David and Kristin, The mere title of my brochure seems to grab sellers' attention.
Thom, You're right, listing agents SHOULD beware of buyers' agents for the same reason -...anything they say can and will be used against the seller in negotiations... And then there are the ones you describe, who don't do their job well.
Great article! I hope all agents read this and remember what they are saying inside someone''s home. I've even had a seller leave a recorder on to hear what people are saying about their home. They fired their agent after hearing she made negative comments.
Bridget, The title does grab sellers' attention!
Adam, Are you speaking of situations where the listing agent is showing his/her own listing or sub-agents or ??? I'm confused.
Kay, I appreciate your reading and your comment, but my intent is to advise sellers to watch what THEY say, not what the agents say.
Rich, it is illegal in Maryland - but I was just confused by Adam's comment, so I was seeking clarification. In Maryland, you either represent the buyer or the seller or you are a dual agent, i.e. both agents work under the same broker, so everyone then becomes a dual agent. I don't run into that often, since I'm in a small office.
Barbara-Jo and Bill, Thanks, I do agree with you. This post really isn't intended to address that topic, but I was seeking clarification on Adam's comment. 'Sounds like there is some interest in this, so maybe it should be a topic for a future blog.
I've even known buyers agents to check out the sellers calednar to see if they happen to be closing on a listing soon. UGh!
Debbie - You're right. Never thought about that. I just put it together in a 3-fold brochure as a hand-out for fsbo's, but I don't use it nearly often enough.
Katerina - If only there were more hours in a day to pursue those fsbo's.
Paula - Thanks for saying this is direct and to the point. When I copied my brochure into this blog, I realized it needed some editing to make it that way. I'm going to have to make some changes to my brochure now. Fortunately, I only print about 10 at a time.
Jeff - It's so true. I remember one time when the seller insisted on holding the buyer's baby so the buyer could look at the house - and the buyer never saw a thing because she was so worried about her baby. That house never got any consideration. So it doesn't even have to be conversation about the house that backfires.
Beth - You're right, and sometimes it's hard not to notice the sellerl has the brochure, contract and photos of their new house spread out on their kitchen table... that's a sure sign of seller urgency that can be used against them in negotiations.
Margaret, great information. This is one of the best FSBO's brochures I've seen. Thanks for sharing.
Kay, I'm sure you could come up with some real life stories from your experience to substitute for my stories. It's the title that grabs them, and the little stories make them think about what they would do in those circumstances.
Hi, Jeff - Not sure which story you're referring to. Let's assume it was the "spring under the house" story. I don't know what the buyer expected, but I went to the tax records and pulled up property reports in the area. Little or no turnover, and I speculated that people in the area would be smart enough to "get out of Dodge" (including the next door neighbor who told him that) if they had a spring under their houses. Additionally, the home inspection showed no sign of any current or previous water damage. When I pointed out these things and suggested that we might have more of a discrimination issue than a water issue, the buyer's agent agreed. However, in the case of a FSBO, I doubt the seller would have known where to start, except to get very angry with her neighbor, and there wasn't much else she could have done from her home 1300 miles away.