Jon Higgins http://activerain.com/blogsview/238239/Rent-your-house-out thinks that this is crazy that some agents suggest that their client's rent their properties instead of selling.
Guilty, we do that. Of course, we would be interested in selling, of course we would be interested in maintaining the level of sales we enjoyed in Seller's market, but this is not all about us. It is about our clients. It is about their interests.
And what we are supposed to suggest to a client, who bought at the height of the market, and now his property is not worth even close what he needs to sell it for simply to walk away? Or who bought really inexpensive in 1999, and then refinanced with cash out at the height of the market in 2005? to sell they need to bring a fat check to the closing. We are not talking about them making less money, or more money. We are talking about them being able to just walk away. Well, a lot of them can't.
Do you know what other factors beyond just the economy and the market shift caused a lot of grief to our clients? I guess that's us, the agents, who did not care much about the clients. How many of them you see now, who were lured into the deals because they were promised easy money/flip at closing. We can be saying whatever we want about them being greedy, and all that, but the truth of the matter is still that a lot of agents were so much for the money in that golden rush,l that they forgot about the interests of their clients.
I worked with one very difficult buyer. He signed for one condo, then he started going nuts, and signing for other properties. I felt very uncomfortable to ask him how much money he could afford to spend on that, as these were over half a million dollar condos, but I had to. So I told him that unless he can spend $2 Mil and have no problem to hold to the properties for at least 2 years, he should not do that. The guy went nuts. he started screaming at me that he was not expecting to hold a single day, he needed simultaneous closings. All he had was his down-payment. Yes, he walked away from me, because other agents were GUARANTEEING (his words) that he would make at least $100K on each of the deals.
So, if we can't make money for our clients, yes we are guilty of suggesting that they rent. With some of them we even help them get the tenant and do not charge anything just to help them now, and... it is a good chance we would have the listing when the time comes.
Being on your client's side is not crazy, whether we are selling or renting.
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