This is yet another follow-up to the topic of "Is Price Always the Best Answer to a Non-Selling Listing?" that I started last week. You can read more HERE and HERE.
Real estate agents are quite fond of the philosophy that "Price conquers all," meaning that if you price a listing low enough, it will sell regardless of the challenges the property presents.
Fair enough.
But I must ask. So what? Is that our job as professional real estate agents to simply recommend a price low enough that any piece of junk will sell?
Or, rather, is it to help our sellers get the highest possible price in the shortest possible time, whatever a realistic price and time may be? If our job is to simply sell it fast, at any price, well, shoot, just about any idiot can give their property away! Isn't that why homesellers hire us in the first place, to do a better job for them than they can do for themselves?
Real estate agents are always bragging about their listing expertise and defending their commissions by claiming they MORE THAN EARN THEIR FEE. Uh, well, I have to disagree if the only solution we offer our sellers is to price aggressively. There ARE other things a seller can do to maximize his sales price, and it's our job to 1) know what those things are, and 2) be willing to share those secrets with a seller and 3) help the seller accomplish those things. (and those were the topics of the previous blogs linked to above)
What if you went to your doctor with a pain in your leg and the only solution he offered was to cut the offending appendage off? Yes, that would cure the pain in your leg, but maybe there's a better way that involves a little more effort on his part (and yours). Or if your plumber simply removed the toilet that wasn't flushing instead of figuring out how to repair it?
Of course, if I request that the doctor amputate my leg, or that the plumber tear out my toilet, or that my Realtor simply give my house away, well, then, they have my blessing. But in most cases, c'mon, our clients deserve a little more effort and expertise than that, don't they?
I'm not sayin' that price isn't important - of course it is. But if we keep preaching that "Price is the ANSWER!" to the exclusion of any other effort on our part, we may end up preaching ourselves out of a job...deservedly so, I might add.
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