So I have a long blog coming soon that will reveal to sellers EXACTLY the steps necessary to sell their house FSBO. Including how Flat fee MLS services work (ie only paying the buyer agent).
But I had to write about this first.
A buddy of mine in Chicago wanted to sell his place. He, like almost every person in the United States NEEDS that last $5k, or $10k, so he wanted to "save" and sell it by owner. I, the oftentimes Anti-Realtor, told him NOT to take this approach (I guess I am more of an ANTI-SUCKY-ASS-AGENTS agent).
So I told him I'd find him a great Realtor (no I didn't take a cut).
First I had him email me a couple agents that he knew of, and I did a stealth interview of the agent. There I was ,an agent from Virginia, and this Realtor was feeding me B.S. His marketing materials boasted that they put your house on 600 websites and they put your house in front of 700 million homes. I recently read in BusinessWeek that India now has 50 million internet users. Thank God they can all see my friends condo! I hate marketing that is just short of flat out lying and meant to confuse customers, or to play the "I have a longer checklist than yours" contest.
Oh and that 600 websites... as I suspected (after calling him out on it), he only puts it onto this thing called the "M" "L" "S" (ever heard of it?) and the 599 other websites pull from the MLS and rebroadcast the data (in other words all Realtor get on the same 600 websites).
So I was on my own. I looked to ActiveRain to get a good Chicago Realtor.
I didn't care too much for the agents that were on here in Chicago, so what does one do....
I found the PERFECT solution for finding a great agent! GO TO A STAGER!! I went to a top stager and asked him "Give me some names of agents that have used you. By merely using you, they are 99% ahead of the game and they 'get it', and they will help me friend net more."
Sure enough, my buddy got the property staged. The agent was young, but sharp, he got it. And low and behold...
it sold in 4 days for OVER what he wanted (net) to get FSBO and it got bid up $7k - $10k over what he wanted.
He couldn't be more excited.
Thank you stagers! How do we get more customers to take a HANDS-OFF approach and just say "Do what you need to do" and not debate every $500?
Frank LL0SA Broker FranklyRealty.com Virginia
p.s. Good photography was also a requirement when I was checking out agents.
On your p.s. did that mean the agents had to look good in their photos - I'm thinking maybe glamor shots should get a link there.
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