Is your real estate agent sabotaging your efforts to sell your home?
Real estate agents can be incredibly valuable assets for both regular homeowners and real estate investors. In some cases they may even be the best option. However, there are some real estate agents who could be sabotaging your dreams of selling a home anytime soon or for the best possible price.
What do you need to watch out for?
1. Poor Customer Service
Anyone who has tried inquiring about a rental or home for sale recently has no doubt found it incredibly difficult to get responses. For whatever reason many real estate agents seem to have stopped replying to emails or phone calls at all. In fact the few that do answer are probably guaranteed immediately sales by default as home buyers are just happy to finally get a reply. If this is going on with your property listing you have probably been missing out on many prospective buyers and those willing to pay the most.
2. Incorrect Listing Information
Is your home being advertised accurately? Do listings and ads reflect the right square footage, price, number of bedrooms and location? If not the confusion probably means losing buyers and seeing the perceived value of your home plummet the longer it sits on the market.
3. Steering
During the last boom some real estate agents became notorious for steering home buyers only to homes which netted them the most commissions. This can include steering buyers to listings which are offering a higher percentage of commission than yours or refusing to present offers to you unless the agent is getting both sides of the deal. Of course you can’t blame them for this in one way but it certainly breaks ethics boundaries and their responsibilities to you.
What to do? Test and check up on them as a mystery shopper regularly to make sure they are doing their job. If you have to, fire them. Before hiring another make sure you interview them carefully and ask for referrals. However, if you are running out of time to sell you may need to consider selling a home for cash.
