A few days ago, I wrote a post called "How Would You Sell This House?".  If you haven't already, please read that post before this one. In that post, I outlined the problems that a Port Orange real estate seller was experiencing in selling his house. He was interviewing real estate agents when I met with him. But his house is already listed with another agent at this time. If you're a real estate agent, you know that we frequently get calls from real estate sellers who currently have their houses listed with another agent, whom they are considering replacing when the term of their listing expires. This was the case with "Ed". But Ed wanted more than to know what I would do differently than his current agent. He wanted specifics on how I would find a real estate buyer for his unique home.

One thing Ed was up-front about was that he was not looking to just get rid of his current real estate agent. She hasn't done anything wrong, and he has no problems with her. He just wants to sell his house. He said this several times. I should also mention that I know Ed's current REALTOR® and she is a good agent. Let's face it. In the real estate industry, REALTORS® know which real estate agents are easy to work with, and which ones are... let's just say "difficult", and leave it at that. Well, Ed's agent is a good one, and I told him that. And the fact that Ed was NOT bad-mouthing her, made me respect him. I wish there were more people like that in the world. Ed's house has been on the market for almost a year, and his REALTOR® has been telling him that if he needs to sell quickly, he'll have to reduce his price. She has been honest with him. He's in a very slow moving price range. And she's been keeping him updated on the climate of the real estate market in our area. So although Ed was interviewing other agents in anticipation of the upcoming expiration date of his listing, he made it clear that his only motivation was to sell his house. If he could find another agent who could give him a plan of action that his current agent had not provided, he would list his house with that agent when his current listing expired. But he was not going to list with another agent, strictly because his house had not sold yet. And he was not blaming his current REALTOR® for the lack of a sale. But he was doing some investigation by talking to other agents. (BTW, Ed's house is in the jumbo loan range.)

On the day I met with Ed, we talked for over 3 hours. Obviously, we discussed many things during that time. And one of the things I recommended to Ed was that although his house is truly worth his asking price, if he really wanted to sell quickly, he should consider pricing his home the same as his closest competition in his neighborhood. When we looked at his competition, we knew that Ed's house is by far, much better than this other house, but by pricing his house the same as the other one, whenever a buyer saw the other house, they'd see his too. It's not hard to see the logic in this. When viewing the 2 houses at the same price, Ed's house will blow the other one away! Any buyer would be crazy not to buy Ed's house, when comparing the two.

Well, today I got another call from Ed. He and his wife had read the blog I posted on how to sell their house, and they really liked it. But Ed was calling to let me know that he had reduced his price, exactly as I, AND his current agent had both suggested. So Ed is going to leave his listing with his current agent, and extend the listing for a few more months. According to Ed, he didn't feel right reducing his price, as his current agent had also recommended, and just giving the listing to another real estate agent. His current REALTOR has been trying to sell his house for almost a year, and has met Ed's expectations in regards to professionalism, keeping him updated, and doing all she could. The fact that his house had not sold yet was not her fault. So Ed feels he owes it to his current real estate agent, to at least give her the opportunity to procure a buyer at the newly reduced priced, instead of reducing it and giving the listing to another agent.

WOW! If you're a real estate agent, I'd like to know how many times you've heard a real estate seller say something like this. Because I usually see the opposite. And I've been on both sides of the proverbial coin on this one. Many sellers, at the end of one listing agreement, will move the listing to another brokerage, while at the same time pricing it the way their previous REALTOR had advised. (This makes no sense, whatsoever.) For REALTORS, this is beyond frustrating. Over time, when it happens to us, we just accept it because we're so used to real estate sellers ignoring our professional advice, until they list with another brokerage. How many of you would like to see more real estate sellers like Ed? I know I would.

So this blog post is a tribute to "Ed". Ed has given me hope (I'm not sure if that's a good thing.) that there are real estate buyers and sellers out there who are loyal, and really do trust our professional opinions about real estate. It seems to me that Ed knows there are those of us who spend a 40+ hours a week, (probably a lot more than 40) in the field, keeping our fingers on the pulse of OUR local real estate market, in addition to the national real estate industry, therefore we must know what we're doing. Unfortunately, there will always be a few agents in the real estate industry who seem to enjoy making us all look bad. But overall, the percentage of truly professional, knowlegeable, hard-working REALTORS far outweighs the ones who are not. (I'll have a post about one of the "nots" in a couple of weeks. Ugh!) And I felt obligated to write this post about the greatest real estate seller I've ever met. Because knowing there are people like Ed out there means more to me than having his listing next month. Of course, if it still hasn't sold by the next expiration date, I'll be gunning for Ed's listing. After all, the house is great too!