I Cannot Pull a Rabbit Out of My Hat... Can You? 

Real Estate agents can do a lot of things:  

1.  A Real Estate Agent can pull comps (find homes that as similar to yours as possible that have sold, and find out the price they sold for).  A real estate agent cannot sell your home for more than the market will bear... IF they find someone willing to pay more than comparables will support, the appraisal will bring the value in at comparable levels.  Real Estate agents cannot pull rabbits out of hats.  

2.  A Real Estate Agent can give you advice about getting your home ready for market, such as listing areas that need cleaning up, de-cluttering, painting, obvious repairs that need to be done, etc to help your home sell better, usually sell faster, and hopefully attract more buyers interested.  A Real Estate Agent cannot make your home appear online as though these things have been done when they have not.  Photos tell the story.  Real Estate Agents cannot pull rabbits out of hats.

3.  A Real Estate Agent should take lots of photos and select the ones that do the best job showing what your homes looks like and should post those photos with a description of your home, it's location, proximity of shopping, lakes, other areas of interest, etc etc.. so that your home will be found when someone is using a search engine to look for "Waterfront 3 bed 2 bath home Fort Towson Oklahoma boat dock".  A Real Estate Agent cannot make a buyer be interested in areas that they are not.  Location is king.   They cannot make your home be located anywhere else other than where it is or make a buyer think your home in downtown Idabel should have the same comparables as a home that is waterfront on Lake Raymond Gary.  Those two homes may end up priced the same for various reasons but not because they are comparable.  A Real Estate Agent cannot pull rabbits out of hats and change the location of your home. 

4.  A Real Estate Agents should be marketing in ways that brings your property online on multiple sites.  Your property should be found on large websites such as Zillow, Trulia, etc. in addition to being on their own website.  Your property needs to be found online when buyers are looking for homes because estimates are as high as 95% of buyers that are shopping for a home, do so online.  They use major search engines such as Google and Yahoo.  A Real Estate Agent cannot make buyers be interested in your home or like your home better than the one that's in the Zillow list immediately above your home.  They can make sure that your home is found online but they cannot make buyers want to call about it or see it.  A realistic presentation of the home online is what's needed and then those interested will call.  A Real Estate Agent cannot pull rabbits out of hats and drag people in off the street forcing them to look at your home and you would not want them to.. :) 

5.  A Real Estate Agent should have a cell phone. Period.  It is preferable that it be a smart phone. They should answer that phone when they can and as their personal policy dictates.  They should return phone calls as promptly as possible, again as their schedule allows etc.  Real Estate agents need time away from the work phone, away from their business, etc.. They are people too.  They need time to close the door on website building, email answering, text returning, showings, phone calls, etc..  time with their family and friends.  Each agent is different and that amount of time may be different and the scheduling may be different but no-one can be available to clients 24 hours a day, 7 days a week even if they say they are.  They need sleep, at the least, and time to enjoy their personal relationships.  Real Estate Agents are not robots, nor are they magicians.. they cannot pull rabbits out of hats.  

6.  Real Estate Agents need to communicate with their clients.  Sometimes that is difficult when the schedule is full, either for the agent or for the client.  Thank goodness in our modern world, it's easy to leave messges on clients' phones, send them emails, texts, etc..  Messages are communicating.  Messages back and forth do form a conversation if the message contains any pertinent information.  A Real Estate Agent should be communicating with their clients. If a phone call is a must, messages left that indicate the best times to return the phone call usually work well.  At some point the tag game should result in voice to voice.  Real Estate Agents cannot put more hours in the day, should not be talking to two clients at once.. one in person and one on the phone, etc.. Real Estate Agents cannot pull rabbits out of hats..  be patient if you do not reach your agent and give them time to return your call.

7.  Real Estate Agents need to respond to inquiries about homes for sale.  Every inquiry.  Sometimes the response will be to initiate a pre-qualification process so the buyer can demonstrate seriousness about buying a home.  Sometimes it will be to answer specific questions about the home, sometimes it will be to schedule a showing of the home. Your Real Estate Agent responds to calls and other inquiries about your home but they cannot make people inquire about your home.  They cannot pull rabbits out of hats.  

8.  Your Real Estate Agent should have a "For Sale" sign on your property if they have it listed for sale unless for some reason, it has been decided that there should not be one on it.  Sometimes buyers drive around in neighborhoods they want to live in and look for "For Sale" signs.  The For Sale Sign will not insure that you will get inquiries.  Real Estate Agents cannot pull rabbits out of hats. 

• If your agent has helped you with pricing (see #1 above), 
• the home is as ready to show as possible (see #2 above), 
• taken photos of the home that show it to its best advantage see #3 above),
• marketed your home so that is easy to find on the Internet, 
• your agent is accessible to interested parties at reasonable hours (see #5), 
• your agent communicates with you and with interested buyers (see # 6 and #7) 
• and there is a For Sale Sign on your property (see #8 above),  your agent is doing their job.  

Can they promise you that all of this effort will result in a quick sale?  

NO.  

Can they promise that there won't be price adjustments necessary?

 NO.  

Sometimes the market is changing before the right buyer comes along for your home and pricing needs to go with the market change.   BUT if they are doing the above they are doing the job of a Real Estate Agent and after all, they are not a magician..

Real Estate Agents cannot pull rabbits out of hats unless of course they ARE also a magician...  

This post was originally posted at Integrity Real Estate Services on January 30, 2013 by Judi Barrett, Broker, Integrity Real Estate Services, Idabel, Oklahoma.  74745 

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Judi Barrett

Broker, Integrity Real Estate Services,

Office Address:  1280 Brown Addition  Rd., IDABEL, OK 74745  580-212-5946 

Judi Barrett, B.S. Edu., 

 

Integrity Real Estate Services 

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