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ALL REALTORS® ARE NOT CREATED EQUALLY!

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Smokerise I keep wondering, when I bring buyers to see a house, and compare the house itself, to the Daytona Beach MLS information, why I see not just discrepancies and mistakes, but sometimes what can only be defined as downright laziness on the part of the listing agent.

A couple of days ago, while showing several houses, I found

One that had no mention of the garage!?!
One that had only 3 photos of a gorgeous home, when The Daytona Beach area Multiple Listing Service holds 12.
One that had no mention of the pool ??
One that had no mention of the new granite counters, solar hot water heater, and place to store your boat behind the side-yard fence.

laughing smiley One of my biggest issues is with lazy agents who don't write a thorough description of the property. I mean, I can understand if it's a REAL fixer-upper (like one of Rich Kruse's listings, yeah I went there) and the listing agent is having trouble finding some positive light to shed, but these were upscale, beachside (meaning on the peninsula, or strip of land between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway) single family homes. Just walking through with my buyers, I found plenty of things that should have been mentioned in the MLS descriptions.

Why is it that some real estate agents are OK with providing sub-standard service to their sellers? Do they have so many listings that it just doesn't matter? As a professional, I consider these things to be the minimum level of service. I feel like I owe it to my clients to do EVERYTHING in my power to present their most valuable possession in the most positive light, in order to place them ahead of the competition. After all this is a buyer's market and we have unprecedented levels of listing inventory in our MLS right now. living room

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Posted by Lisa Hill (Daytona Beach Real Estate) on 05/21/2007 10:09 AM

Comments (38)

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Originally posted at: Daytona Beach Real Estate Blog: ALL REALTORS® ARE NOT CREATED EQUALLY!

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38 Comments on ALL REALTORS® ARE NOT CREATED EQUALLY!

MAY

2007

I'm soooo with you on this one! It's really amazing!

I think the brokers should insist on a quality appraoch from their agents. Brokers now a days have little idea of what their agents do.

Lisa - I've written so many posts about this same subject it's not even funny. It is very frustrating and can't understand it at all. We just got 3 listings from a seller that had these S.Beach units listed for 8 months with the same guy and had no idea what the agent had done in those 8 months - when I printed the MLS sheets without photos, she was in total shock!

Yup yup yup! It happens here all the time!

The more information, the better traffic you will have to your home. I think some agents don't get that. I don't understand if they don't work with buyers or they just don't "get" how to execute a search and how drips work.

On the flip side, there are agents out there who put stuff in that doesn't belong JUST to get the traffic.

It seems soooo many agents just do enough to get by. But, the alternative is more regulation. I'll take the pain of the slackers.

Renee- Good point. I've run across the ones who've exaggerated beyond the acceptable boundaries.

Ines- I've seen a couple of your posts where you were venting about the bad information in your MLS. My problem with this stuff is, they're not violations. They're just bad business!

Lisa, you're right on with this. It's ridiculous IMO that any agent would let even the smallest thing slide when it comes to representing their clients. I treat every listing as if it were my own home I was selling. I would want EVERY opportunity taken to sell my own home, so I expect the same from myself when it comes to selling my clients' homes. It just doesn't make sense to miss out, especially on something so easy as pictures or descriptions in the MLS. Pure laziness is the only explanation.

Lisa you are right on the point here - congrats on the gold star

Thesa- I got a gold star? Yay!

hula smiley

Right on Lisa. Even on a dump you can always come up with a comment like, "You won't forget this one in a long time!"

Rob

Lisa...so very true. One only has to look at the MLS and see what is missing in every area. I recently had a builder ask me to show his two spec homes listed with another Realtor. I had avoided showing them in the past because there are no photos in the MLS even though it is required. I have written posts before that there is no longer an 80-/20 rule. It is now closer to 90/10 and has been proven by real estate trainer Howard Brinton. Great post and have a great day.

I've read many stories here and experience the same in our listings as well....go figure.

Rob- I'll have to remember that one.... no pun intended

Lisa-This is all too common in my marketplace. One thing that I had found out was that agents will be trying so hard to impress their seller with how good they can make their home look and sound on the internet that they will be able to get the most showings for the property. Their sellers might think that they are doing a great job for them but the agents that take buyers through can see right through the misleadings. Our property conditions get rated here and posted on the MLS but there is no specific criteria to rate. Excellent, Above Average, Average, Fair and Tear Down. As you could imagine, there are a lot that get over-rated. Have a great day and Aloha.

Yes, not only are they NOT mentioning things that they should, but they also mention things that they shouldn't:

"These sellers are so motivated that they are going to reduce their price by $2000 per week until it sells"
"Move-in condition" when it is not
"Super location" when it is on a busy street
"Gourmet kitchen" when it has formica counters, electric stove and a microwave

They also do things like:

Provide a key that doesn't work, or put the lockbox in a hidden location, or use a combination lockbox and not provide the combination
Post the property on MLS with no photos and no description. (I guess they really want you to go out to the property!)
List the property before it is ready with signs around the property saying things like "hole in wall to be fixed prior to close of escrow"

Wow, Kelley, that's amazing! Especially the one about lowering the price $2k until it sells. Absurd!

Kelley- I've seen the one about lowering the price too. I thought the same thing. HELLOOO! And the combination boxes really irk me. We pay a lot of money to have Supra boxes. Use them!

David & Tonya- I've never heard of an MLS rating system. I would be afraid of the system being misused by spiteful agents with a vendetta against someone. You know- I don't like this agent so I'm going to give all their listings a bad rating. Does that happen?

I posted a while ago about my frustration over lame photos (or no photos) on the MLS. This just gets me steamed again...I review all the ML input sheets and web printouts for my listings, scouring for errors or misstatements. Again I ask, what ARE the sellers paying for if the agent can't even get the listing itself right?

Grrr.

Jeff- I'm in total agreement about the photos. That's why I included 2 in this post, that I took myself! I'm no professional, but I take my photos very seriously.

Holy cow I am! I went on a listing appointment recently where the seller wanted way more than I could comp it at. I didn't take the listing. Check the new listings this morning on MLS, there it was, listed with another agent. I saw buckets of mistakes, lots of carelessness, and I was shocked. How are you going to attract buyers in that price range if you can't spell?

I have seen lots of horrible pictures, details left out, mis-spellings, lack of remarks, and more.

One thing I always know - I maximize the MLS. I put everything in there I can fit. I pride myself on that one little detail. :)

Lisa,

This is a hot button topic for me. My office mates often chuckle as I go from MLS listing to MLS listing commenting out load that the clients are paying good money on a million dollar listing and there is either no photo or one that is taken with a camera phone. Drives me nuts!

Lisa-The rating is given to the listing by the sellers agent when the listing agreement is taken. The sellers agent is the one who rates the property and lists that condition on the MLS. There is no input from the buyers agent as to what the condition of the property really is/was.

Oh yes, Lisa, it is rampant. Amazing, given the market, that so many agents do such a poor job of marketing and even using the tool we ALL use...the MLS.

But what also surprises me is that some do not see fit to return phone calls to answer questions or to confirm appts. to show. Guess they don't need to sell the house (but does their client know what kind of job they are doing?). Makes the rest of us look better.

Jeff

It also irritates me when someone says something like, "Completely Updated and Remodeled" but then they don't mention any of those upgrades or anything. What was the point in saying anything if you're not going to say what they are?

Fact is, there are lots of agents out there. Some are excellent and some are downright awful. Some listings do indeed do a horrible job presenting the home...

Hey Lisa, this drives me nuts too! I just don't understand it! You would think they would want to be responsible to their Sellers, be professional and keep their word, but some are just simply too lazy....and, especially in a Buyer's Market, don't they realize what the competition is and understand that no one will readily show houses when there are no pics? I feel that even the least expensive listing deserves careful attention to detail and effective marketing. I e-mail my Sellers the link to their MLS listing online as well as Realtor.com and other links + I mail hard copies to them of the same + their property Brochure, "Just Listed" cards, etc. I want them to see that I do provide all the things I said I would and that I'm working hard on their behalf.

they learned to list properties like this by starting out representing buyers. they changed to listings because they couldn't/wouldn't fill out the contract properly

We need to put ourselves in the shoes of the consumer. Underpromise and Overdeliver - it's the way to impress clients.

Donna- Great example! Why say it's completely remodeled, then not say what was done?

You are quite right ,sometimes agents wonder why they are not getting traffic on their listings when in fact they are not describing all the great features, thanks for your posts .

Hi Lisa,
Allow me to play the Devil's Advocate :)

There are a couple reasons an agent might not mention EVERY SINGLE neat item about the property in the MLS descriptions. I don't.

Why?
DISC.
Those are personality types. And different kinds of people want different kinds of information. And they won't read the same parts before going to the property, if ever.

Those long, eloquent paragraphs are read by people who want to know how the house will make them feel. Is it updated and airy and ready for entertaining? Will their children or dogs be safe? What is the lifestyle this property accomodates?

The people who want all the details read through the listed detail info (which I am very careful to complete) They want to know not only beds, baths, square footage before going into the property, but type of heat, number of garage spaces, dimensions of lots, etc. Does it really need to listed out in sentence form?

Another reason an agent might not list out that information is simply space. Mt MLS only allows 500 characters in the main description. It does allow additional comments alongside the photos, and that is where I put the detailed descriptions. I also put in lots of details in the House Book at the property.

But I do agree with you that the listing agent should know all those details and should present the property in the way that will appeal to the potential buyers.

With the real estate boom that FL experienced in the last few years thousands of people jumped on board and became agents. What you are seeing is just as likely to be inexperience, lack of training, and general lack of skill.

MAY

2007

In this market, with so many real estate professionals, it's an honor and a priviledge just to have clients. I would think that agents would be doing everything possible to be at their best. I'm shocked at some of the stuff I run into these days. It's no wonder people are screaming about our commissions.

I have "issues" with it too.

Hi Chrystina! That's exactly what I thought! It's stuff like this that gives Redfin any room to operate at all.

Sarah- Great information for anyone who's not familiar with the DISC system. I used to administer it to applicants when I was in management, years ago. And you're right about the personality types. But as Realtors, we have to conform our own personalities to whatever is required to do the job. We'll always have strong and weak areas, but it's not like an outgoing person is incapable of shutting up when they have to (I fall into that category :P) And an aggressive person can pull back if they see it's overwhelming a client (I fall into that one too) And if someone is low on the detail scale, then they need a checklist, or they need to partner with someone who can compensate for them.

I have a lot of physical problems that I have to overcome on a daily basis, as well as morphing my personality to make a client feel comfortable. It's part of what we do. FTR, I'm super high on the D, just below it on the C, above the mid point on the I, and I bottom out on the C. So I have to really WORK at being "warm" when I really want to just get to the point and get it done right. But I CAN do it. It's just a matter of being aware of what you have to do if you want to be successful.... I may have to write another post :P

frog

Chrystine, you're right on. They hve room to complain when the level of service is so low. We all have to raise the bar. Lisa, I've heard a little about this DISC stuff but have never actually seen how it all works. Is there a website where I can learn more?

Ryan, I'll have to Google it to see if there's a site. It's a pretty old system. I used it over 12 years ago, but I have heard it taught since then. It's a pretty good way to quickly get an idea of your customer's personality, so you can adjust yours accordingly.

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