Special offer

"I'M TAKING THE BUYOUT"...IS "RELO" A WASTE A TIME FOR AGENTS"?

By
Real Estate Agent with Keller Williams Realty West Bloomfield Market Center
Well, once again, I take the referral from my Relo company, knowing full well that I will have 60 days or less to try and get an offer in and accepted! So, from the get-go, I am working against time and with obstacles! I fully appreciate the opportunity to get hooked up with a house to sell, but first, I will have to spend two hours doing an ERC/BMA, preview three houses for comparables on the market now, meet with the home owners and take photographs of the house inside and out, do a full lising presentation, and compete against another agent to actually TAKE the listing! I am STILL grateful! However, once the listing docs are signed, the owners inform me that if they don't get the house sold in 60 days, they are taking the buyout! Good for them! I really WANT to get the house sold, but is there a great incentive knowing I will also have to give up 47% of my commission (unless I take both sides of the transaction and THAT would be nice!)? I don't know. I do everything in my power to inform the Sellers about all of the money they are saving in the fact that Relo is picking up their closing costs and even offering them an incentive to sell on their own, but they often just don't want to list the house at bottom of the market for fear of not getting enough at the buyout! I fully inform them about my CMA methods and how they will compare to an appraiser's methods, but sometimes Sellers are not even giving me price reductions because they think it will harm their chances of getting a better buy-out price! Half of the relo Sellers are already living out of town! I don't want to take a listing just for the sake of taking a listing, or expecting that I'll get sign calls that may pan out. I don't want to cheese off my Relo directors either! So, I will do everything in my power to speed thru a sale, Open Houses, buy print ads in my local market magazines, enhanced listing service in Realtor.com, you name it! Then, my 60 days is up, they take the buyout for where I wanted to put the price in the first place, and the listing goes to another agent where the price is reduced YET another $10,000 and the house sells in less than a month! Any thoughts on this? Peace.
Herb Hamilton
RE/MAX Preferred Inc. Realtors - Portland, OR
Real Estate Broker ,CDPE, Downtown Portland
You have all of the answers in your post. My suggestion is to reccord this post and play it back to yourself while sitting in front of a group of friends. Listen to the post as if you were a friend preparing to give advice to the person who had done the recording. Then DTR.
Jan 24, 2008 01:32 AM
Terry Lynch
LAR Notary and Closing Services - Saint Clair Shores, MI
Herb is right, the only relo deals to get involved with right now are the buyers.
Jan 24, 2008 02:43 AM
1~Judi Barrett
Integrity Real Estate Services 116 SE AVE N, Idabel, OK 74745 - Idabel, OK
BS Ed, Integrity Real Estate Services -IDABEL OK
Michele, Herb's right.  I don't do relo listings.  Have turned them down from the very beginning.  I put too much work into a listing to have someone jerk it out from under me.  Good luck with this one.  I hope you sell it right away!  Thanks for stopping by my blog yesterday.
Jan 25, 2008 12:41 PM
Maureen Francis
Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel - Bloomfield Hills, MI
Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel
Better to be the second lister on relo's in metro Detroit, especially the ones with buyouts.  I was upset last year when I did not get a good listing first round, but the relo company gave it to me 3 months later and I sold it in 15 days.  That's much better than having been "chosen" first...
Feb 14, 2008 01:16 PM