Hi folks, earlier this week there was a discussion over at Agent Genius about REALTORS® only selling about 20% of their listings. The post was actually about Real Estate Shows but, as blog posts tend to do, the discussion got off topic. Anyway, I'm not sure where this percentage came from but let's go with it since it doesn't really matter for the sake of this post.
This post is about listing brokers not selling all of their listings and Barry Cunningham, from Real Estate Radio USA, arguing, mentioning that he sells 100% of his properties. He was dumbfounded that we as REALTOR(S) don't have a 100% success rate. Maybe he would have been happy with 75%, I just don't know.
I want to explore this topic a little further in this post. As a little background, it's important to understand, that Barry IS a real estate professional, he's just not licensed. He is a principle to the transaction. He buys houses and sells houses BUT he is either the owner or has an ownership interest in the property that he is selling. I'll get back to this later.
For now, I want to share my percentages for the last 3 years.
In 2005 I closed on 88% of my listings. Out of the other 12% NONE were listed with another company after I withdrew them. They were all taken off of the market. Some I re-listed and sold later. Some were rented out and a few of the Sellers just had a change of plans.
In 2006 my percentage dropped to 54%. 21% of my listings were re-listed with another company. 25% were taken off the market. Most were rented and 1 was foreclosed on. This year was the beginning of the market decline for Poinciana and it took a while for Sellers to accept it. Sellers were antsy.
In 2007 it got worse. I only sold 40% of my listings. In fairness, to me, some of these are still on the market. Only 9% were listed with another company. 51% were removed from the market. Most were rented, some are just waiting and unfortunately, there were a few that were foreclosed on.
My average success rate for this 3 year period is 61%. BUT...only 10% of my listings were listed with another company after they left me. 29% were withdrawn for other reasons and will be back with me in the future. The reality is 90% of my sellers were/are happy with my service. So stats can be deceiving if not analyzed properly. Do you know your stats?
Now let's talk about Barry's 100% success rate. Barry is an Investor. He sells 100% of his properties because he only buys properties he knows he can sell. That makes sense and I agree with it completely. I've sold 3 of my properties this year so I too have a 100% success rate although on a much smaller scale. The reason Barry sold his and the reason I sold mine is because we are the ones making the selling decisions.
As REALTORS® we don't have that luxury. We have to depend on our customer/clients taking our advice. And, as we all know, some do and some don't. AND... to make it even more difficult, they change their minds often.
For example, I've had two of my Sellers, lose deals this year over a few thousand bucks. They had great Buyers with what I thought were acceptable offers, based on earlier conversations with my Sellers, however, when it got right down to it they decided to negotiate further and the Buyers walked. In both cases, I told my Sellers the Buyers would walk if they countered and they did.
If these were my properties I would have accepted the offers and moved on to the next deal. BUT.....they weren't my properties and I didn't have the authority to make those decisions. Will I eventually sell them? One I will and one I may not, as they have now placed themselves in a short sale situation.
So what Barry does is different from what we do, not much, but in the one area that matters most.....decision making.
One thing I do agree with Barry on......a 20% success rate is terrible!!! I hope mine is never that low, but it's possible, if my market keeps sliding downward.
What are your thoughts?
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