In this highly competitive market real estate agents jump on expired listings. So, when your listing expires you can expect a flood of calls from real estate agents eager to win your listing starting the morning your listing expires or gets canceled. Unfortunately, this is going to be a vulnerable time for you because you are probably not happy with the real estate agent you’ve been working with over the past few months and are ready to make a fresh start with a new real estate agent but don’t want to make the same mistake of picking an agent that can not sell your house a second time.
Expect calls from lying real estate agents trying to weasel their way into your home to steal away your listing. Failure to see through their lies may result in hiring a real estate agent that you will not be happy with. Here are a few of the most common lies you’ll hear from real estate agents when your listing expires.
Lies Real Estate Agents Tell
- “I have a client that I think would be interested in buying your house. May I come and preview it to see if it’s something my buyer would like?”
Never trust anyone that tells you they have a buyer if they sey they want to see your home before bringing the buyer. There is no buyer, there never was, and if you hire this real estate agent, there never will be. If the agent had an interested buyer either he would have shown the buyer your house when it was on the market or he would be bringing the buyer with him. This real estate agent’s only goal is to get into your front door under false pretenses and to shove a listing presentation down your unsuspecting throat.
- “I specialize in your neighborhood.”
If an agent claims to know your neighborhood make her prove it. Make them show you sales data of houses in your neighborhood that they sold. If she can’t then she’s just lying to you.
- “I can sell your home for $XXX,XXX.00, which is much more than any other agent suggested, if you list with me.”
This commonly used tactic is referred to as inflating the listing price.
When they name the price, its usually way beyond what they think the house can bring but they’ll say anything to get the listing. - “Here are all the houses my agency sold in this neighborhood.”
Whoopee! Who cares! Either show me the houses you or your team sold in this neighborhood or show me the agent from your agency that actually did sell them. But don’t try to take credit for something you didn’t do. Sometimes agents who can’t sell their own listings like to imply that they had something to do with the listings other agents sold.
- “I’m easily reachable 24/7/365.”
Unless they furnish you with several methods of direct communication, once the for sale sign is planted you’ll never hear from them again. I doubt they’d answer your calls at 3:00 am. However it would be fun to try.
How To Avoid Liars
How do you avoid being taken advantage of by agents trolling expired listings? Easy. Focus your efforts on agents that recently sold houses in your neighborhood. A good agent can usually overcome enough of the issues that originally kept your house from selling to get your house sold if you are willing to follow their advice. Agents who can’t impress clients with the truth have to lie to get a listing. If you can’t tell the difference your house may sit unsold on the market for another three months. AgentHarvest can help you find agents with successful track records in your neighborhood. Why hire someone that has to lie to impress you when we can introduce you to agents who can demonstrate an honest record of success in your neighborhood?
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I’d like to sign up for this referral service. I assume print the form & scan/email or fax to where?
We are next to Ft. Rucker, where the Army trains helicopter pilots, so we get 90% of our business from transfers – in, out, and management.
Thank you,
Travis Parker
Realty Executives
Meade & Associates, Inc.
Enterprise, AL 36330
Travis:
We don’t have agents sign up for this service. All our agents are selected based first on their track record in the client’s neighborhood selling houses similar to our client’s house during the past six months. From that list is where we find our agents. We start with the agents that sold the most and agents our clients have worked with in the past. Because we use this method to find our agents, we do not keep lists of agents or have agents sign up for our service. So if you’re interested in using our services then SELL, SELL, SELL and if we have a client in your area, we’ll find you.
Bill Petrey
AgentHarvest
So by the logic of this post and forum new agents can what? Go fish? In sales and particularly real estate there is a perception that new agents are bad, useless, and even dangerous. I really hate that attitude having been a new agent. By the way, some of the statements in this post are nearly word-for-word advice that was given to me from some brokers, and I do agree it’s bad. I’ll add my all-time favorite I encountered “Fake it until you make it” where you go fake it with potential clients. We all start at some point. Seriously though the sentiment and implication that only experienced agents are best suited is just not true. New agents can offer value.
So where exactly do all these experienced agents get their experience? I mean they were new at one time, no? The fact of the matter is quite a few of the so called experienced agents are horrible, lack integrity, and are just as capable of lying. In some cases it might be advantageous to hire a new agent.
The best bet anyone has of hiring a well-qualified agent (they don’t necessarily need to be a hyper local specialist, but same MLS would be a good idea) is to interview at least 5 agents. But do people do this when hiring listing agents? No. They call a bunch of agents and usually hire the first one that call them back.
Ask the agents questions like:
Are you full-time or part-time?
How many homes have you sold in the last 3, 6, 12, 24 months?
What is your list price to sale price ratio? Execution ratio in REO field?
Do you have a sales plan to sell my home and could you explain it?
Do you recommend syndicating my home to Zillow, Postlets, Craigslist and if not why?
(There are both good reasons to not syndicate and to syndicate)
Do you run your own website like a WordPress site, have it professionally managed, or use a basic
MLS or Broker site? (Here’s a hint you don’t want your agent having a cookie cutter basic MLS or some basic website created by their brokerage unless it has serious tools on it).
Follow up on the website: How effective is your website? How many people look at it in a month?
Has any property you represented sold as a result of your website?
Do you operate a Real Estate blog? If no blog why not?
How many photos can I have in the MLS? Will you prepare my listing prior to making it go live? E.g. will it have maximum number of photos a well written call to action description?
Will I get to review what you say about my home in the MLS (E.g., see the property description)?
-On that note if an agent posts only one photo and sends a listing live they should be fired (just my 2 cents).
Google some other questions for agents. You should interview listing agents seriously not just hire anyone. Also listen and be careful of agents trying to buy a listing, which is where that agent proposes a price point that’s higher than is realistic.
Sam:
Great Post!! Thanks for sharing.
The purpose of this blog is not to scare you away from new agents, but to make it harder for bad agents to fool homeowners. Unfortunately, an agent’s track record is the best indicator to determine future success. It’s the best because is hard to distort or cover up and is comparable to all other agents. Sure there are lots of traits that good agents use to sell a house but how do you measure them? The one thing all of the traits have in common is that when used effectively, they sell houses. So given that logic, why not look at sales records. I’m not saying that you should solely rely on a track record, but it does make a good start in weeding out the bad agents.
Go fish? Never! My advice to new agents everywhere is to find the agency with the highest sales volume in the area you want to cover and find the agent or team responsible for a majority of those sales. Take that agent to lunch. Agents like free lunches by the way. See if you can team up with that agent, either by joining the team or assist the agent. Learn everything you can from that agent. If you don’t have a track record then join a team and take advantage of their track record. Sure, you’ll only be one of several cogs in a wheel, but it will be a wheel that’s rolling forward.
I agree with your point that in real estate, the early bird gets the worm. Most people will hire the first agent they contact. Rarely does this work.
Your questions are great. However I don’t place as much importance as you do on a website as you do. They must have a good looking site, but the most traffic is going to come from the other areas they advertise in like Realtor.com, etc. You should think of an agent’s site as a place to get more information about the house. I doubt it will be the first place they notice your house. More than likely that’s MLS or one of the MLS syndicated sites. I don’t think blogging is that big a deal, nor are social networks. Yes, that opinion came from me, a blogger. I believe these are great ways to establish trust and to win over new clients, but they do nothing to promote a listing. In most cases, they distract an agent from their listing due to the amount of time needed to make a good blog or social presence.
I would add one more thing to your MLS photo suggestion. Demand your agent uses a professional camera, strobe flash and tripod. Make sure they take the time to take good pictures. If the agent relies on their smartphone to take MLS pictures, you can bet they will be dimly lit and unappealing.
Thanks again for your great comments.
Bill
LOL. Funny post, Bill. I would add the old classic “I am taking new clients and your home is the perfect candidate”.
Great post, thanks for sharing. Keep up the fantastic work and keep em coming!
I have listed and sold many many many listings that had expired with another agent. It had nothing to do with how many other homes I’d sold in their neighborhood, and all to do with managing the homeowners expectations and pricing the home correctly. In fact my most recent sale was 20 miles from the nethermost reach of my area. I was far from a neighborhood expert, but I did the comps. I don’t think pointing out how many homes a company sold in a particular neighborhood is lying. I have however, been a victim of Mike Ferry kool aid drinkers who have cold called around my listings and sales, implying they were representing my client.
Jane:
You’re right, great agents sell houses and you can sell a house anywhere. However, when given the opportunity to find one of those great agents that know your neighborhood, then why not take advantage of it. In Dallas / Fort Worth, there are lots of little neighborhoods, towns, etc., that have their own quirky appeals and followings. Some areas even have their own small publications. Knowing all this info and knowing the right demographics that would be attracted to the neighborhood certainly makes for a better marketing campaign. However, I’m sure you’ll agree with me when I say that I’d rather have a great agent that worked 30 miles away than a bad agent that lived next door, knew the area but didn’t care to do anything about it.
Tell me more about the Mike Ferry KoolAide drinkers implying they represent your client. May be a great item for Really Rotten Realty.
We had one agent tell us they’d be available 24/7. We told them no but we would call later if we changed our minds. We tried to reach them the next day with no answer. Not even a call back. Glad we waited. Good list of tips!
Thanks
I can honestly say I am really tired of agents and their empty promises. I’ve had my house on the market now for 3 years and the number of “I have someone interested” stories we have heard, only to not even hear from them!
Agents seem to always do the bare minimum which drives me mad, but then they are always around to collect their commission which they seldom earn.
Are there any honest agents out there?
All the best
Bill Jenkins
Bill:
Yes, I am happy to say that there are lots of good agents out there. You just have to know what to look for. To me, the most important thing I want to know when finding an agent is how many houses like mine, near mine has that agent sold and which agents sold the most. That’s the service we offer and best of all, it’s free. Unfortunately, the 80/10 rule applies to real estate in that 80% of all homes sold are only sold by 10% of the agents in that market. We help you avoid the 90%. If you need help finding an agent in the Dallas/ Fort Worth area, let me know.
The most important is we have to know what we like so that we do not depend our decisions to the agents. We should never trust anyone. We have to be careful always. We must make sure that agents are not lying to us before we believe them.
Jane:
So true, but they’re not all that bad. The most important thing you can do is be skeptical during the interview and do some homework before hiring your agent. If you put the efforts into hiring, you can find an agent you can trust and rely on.
The thing that gets me about real estate agents is if they just took a little bit more time to get to know your property, its features and selling points rather than just trying to get you on the books this additional knowledge would shine through when carrying out viewings and would lead to faster sales. win – win. Unfortunately this level of interest is not too common.
Steve:
You’re so right. Taking the time to know the house and neighborhood may also give them better marketing ideas too. Not only would familiarity increase sales, but if they just followed up on interested clients to try to encourage the sale.