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Sellers, Offer Val Vista Lakes Buyers Agent an Appropriate Commission

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Real Estate Agent with Captain Bill Realty, LLC

Sellers, Offer Val Vista Lakes Buyers Agent an Appropriate Commission

Marketing your Val Vista Lakes home for sale so that buyers will find your home, and be willing to view it, is one of the most important functions of your Listing Agent. On my Captain Bill Realty web site there is a series of articles on How to Prepare Your Val Vista Lakes Home for Sale. Val Vista Lakes home for sale found on internet

These articles deal with subjects from de-cluttering, staging, professional photographs, on through to how to show the home.

Buyer Statistics
The NAR 2011 buyer and seller needs survey shows the following statistics:

  • 88% of buyers Begin their home search on the internet
  • 37% of buyers Found their home on the internet
  • 35% of buyers Found their home through their Buyers Agent

It's extremely important to interpret that data correctly so you can market your Val Vista Lakes home for sale more effectively.

If 88% of buyers Begin their search on the internet, and 37% of buyers Find their home on the internet, then it is very important that your marketing material makes your home very attractive to those 37%. My articles on Captain Bill Realty describe how to provide market appeal to your target market.

Contact Captain Bill, a Val Vista Lakes Realtor and Resident to sell your Val Vista Lakes home.

BUYERS AGENTS
What can be easily overlooked in those three pieces of data, or not be interpreted properly, is the fact that 35% of buyers Found their home through their Buyers Agent. That is a large percentage. It means that 35% of buyers did not find the home on the internet by themselves; it was sent to them by their Buyers Agent.

Are you beginning to get the picture? Well, if you market the home so that it is attractive and appealing to buyers agents, as well as buyers, then you greatly increase the chances of your Val Vista Lakes home for sale being sent to the buyer agents clients.

Buyer agents are busy and are searching for homes for more than one buyer at once. Therefore, you must make it easy for the buyer agents to scan your Val Vista Lakes home for sale listing quickly in order to see if it is a match for one of his/her clients. That means professional photographs, well written descriptions describing what amenities are important for the target market. Poor photographs and bad descriptions, with statements like "honey stop the car"; "this won't last long", etc., are a waste of a buyer agents time, and only tells the buyers agent that the listing agent doesn't know how to write effective descriptions.

Val Vista Lakes home offering commission BUYER AGENT COMMISSION
The buyer agent who brings you a buyer expects to be paid; believe it or not. Buyers agents are in the business to make a living to feed their family, and they expect to be paid a fee that is commonly paid by other sellers in the given market. What I'm saying is that agents are going to place their clients interest ahead of their own; however, if there are three similar homes, and one seller will pay the buyers agent a xxxx% commission which is common in the given market, and another seller is offering xx%, and still another is offering x% commission, which home do you think the buyers agent is going to send to his/her client?

And here is another part of the picture. Many buyer agents require a buyer/broker employment agreement which states that the buyer will pay the buyers agent a certain fee. It further will state that the buyer agent will be paid by the seller and that amount will be used to offset the buyers fee. Meaning, if the buyer agent's fee is xxx%, and the seller pays xxx%, the buyer will not have to pay anything. If the seller only pays x%, then the buyer will have to pay the difference (xx%)to the buyer agent.

Consequently, when the buyers agent finds a listing that is paying less than his/her required xxx% fee, s/he will show that to the buyer to inform them that if they buy this home they will be required to pay the xx% difference in commission from what the seller is offering. In most cases the buyer will pass on that house.

What I've seen lately is that some listing agents are competing solely on their fee. They are lowering their total fee to the seller in order to get the listing. What the seller doesn't realize in may cases, is that the listing agent is not actually lowering their own fee. The listing agent is keeping the same fee, and reducing the amount being paid to the buyers agent. This hurts the seller. Here is an example using (x) instead of actual numbers.

Listing agent typical fee seen in the given market = xxxxxx%, with xxx going to listing agent and xxx to the buyers agent
Listing agent reduces fee to xxxxx% to get the listing.
Listing agent will get the same xxx% and only offers buyers agent xx%
Buyer agent has less incentive to send that property to his/her client.
Seller is not aware of the consequences of this action.Val Vista Lakes Home for Sale

To Review
Your Val Vista Lakes Home for Sale needs a strong marketing plan in order to sell the home for top dollar and in a timely manner.

  • Decluttering
  • Some staging
  • Professional photographs
  • Professional descriptions
  • Target marketing to buyers
  • Marketing to buyer agents
  • Monetary incentive for buyer agents to bring their buyers; which means offering a competive commission

Val Vista Lakes home for sale negotiation


All commissions are negotiable, so if a listing agent wishes to negotiate a lower commission for him/self that is their perogative. However, it is not fair to the seller to negotiate a lower commission, and instead of the listing agent taking the reduced amount, s/he doesn't reduce the listing agent portion; s/he passes the cut along to the buyers agent, taking away a buyer agents incentive to send this listing to their client.

 

The impetus for this article was a recent $100,000 REO (bank owned) listing. The listing agent confirmed that the buyer agent commission is one (1%) percent. That REO may have a difficult time selling. No agent can make a living selling homes for a gross commission of $1,000 when an agents annual marketing/advertising/overhead expenses plus broker split can consume up to $75% of the gross. So I just have to ask; what is that agent thinking?

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Sellers, Offer Val Vista Lakes Buyers Agent an Appropriate Commission

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