Who Are The Geniuses Authoring Those Automated MLS Feedback Questions?

I have a box that says what did they think? Agents do a great job of telling me exactly what they think. I sometimes have sellers who are of I need to see it to believe it.

I had one the other day who had some pretty negative comments. That weekend I had 2 offers and the seller accepted one. The agent who thought so little of the house at first, went back one more time the next day to see it. She had offer in hand what a surprise, it was sold.  Had she told me I would have certainly wanted the seller to see it. Her buyer was so upset she cried over it all. Oh and the buyer was her daughter. She was a bit too coy and lost an opportunity.

I'm a bit late to this party, because I only recently found it after a Bing search for "showing feedback questions."  While I've seen my share of vague and poorly worded questions, I shall also take a bit of a contrarian view from most of those expressed.

I have to say that feedback has some merit, especially when your seller clients don't believe what you are telling them about the deficiencies of their home.  Also, even though we've been in the business a while, we do occasionally miss things that would help a home sell more quickly.  True, an offer is oftentimes the absolute best feedback.  Even a low offer is an opportunity to negotiate!  However, if you haven't gotten an offer in, say, the first four weeks of the listing period, what do you tell the sellers?  If you haven't gotten 8-10 showings in the first four weeks, what do you tell your sellers?  Is it *always* a pricing issue, even if the comps seem to show otherwise?  Also, what if you, the listing agent, haven't visited the home for a while?  Suppose that some deficiency has crept in that hasn't been addressed, especially if the property is vacant.  You and your seller may want to know about that.

As a buyer agent, you do have to be circumspect about what you tell the listing agent, but does that mean that you shouldn't give ANY feedback?  I'll admit to copping a generic, "floorplan won't work for my folks," response on occasion.  Certainly, some flaws are inherent with a property and easily identified.  That's where our marketing and advertising skills come into play.  Some such flaws really can't be fixed without the sellers incurring substantial cost either through correction or a price reduction.  If the seller has confidence in that from multiple feedback responses it can help them address competitive over-pricing issues or condition issues much earlier in the process.  Who wants their home to sit on the market for a year with no offers?  How many of us have lost listings to other agents because of such issues?

For the rest of the questions, it sounds like those who craft such requests for feedback, also need some feedback on the choice and wording of the questions asked, as well as the "canned" responses provided.  There is value to having at least one free-form question to allow the buyer or agent to vent.  That being said, it might be very helpful to have a small set of very pertinent questions and responses that are truly meaningful, so that sellers can become educated on how their property is competing with others over the duration of the listing.  Unless the seller gets "unbiased" feedback from someone other than the listing agent, how else will they know what moves will work best for them, especially if its a *problem* listing?  It would seem that good feedback can help our seller clients sell more quickly and target more precisely the counter-productive issues that otherwise would escape them.