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Want to start out with a High Sales
Price?
Meeting With Realtors
So you’ve decided
to sell your home and have a fairly good idea of what you think
it is worth. Being a sensible home seller, you schedule
appointments with three local listing agents who’ve been hanging
stuff on your front doorknob for years. Each Realtor comes
prepared with a "Competitive Market Analysis" on fancy paper and
they each recommend a specific sales price.
Amazingly, a
couple of the Realtors have come up with prices that are lower
than you expected. Although they back up their recommendations
with recent sales data of similar homes, you remain convinced
your house is worth more.
When you
interview the third agent’s figures, they are much more in line
with your own anticipated value, or maybe even higher. Suddenly,
you are a happy and excited home seller, already counting the
money.
A Sales
Practice Called "Buying a Listing"
If you’re like
many people, you pick Realtor number three. This is an agent who
seems willing to listen to your input and work with you. This is
an agent that cares about putting the most money in your pocket.
This is an agent that is willing to start out at your price and
if you need to drop the price later, you can do that easily,
right?
After all,
everyone else does it!
The truth is that
you may have just met an agent engaging in a questionable sales
practice called "buying a listing." He "bought" the listing by
suggesting you might be able to get a higher sales price than
the other agents recommended. Most likely, he is quite doubtful
that your home will actually sell at that price. The intention
from the beginning is to eventually talk you into lowering the
price.
Why do some
agents "buy" listings this way?
There are
basically two reasons. A well-meaning and hard working agent can
feel pressure from a homeowner who has an inflated perception of
his home’s value. On the other hand, there are some agents who
engage in this sales practice routinely. |
