Nefarious Real Estate Practices - Canceling and Re-Listing a Home

The tactic hurts everybody.  It hurt the reputation of certified REALTORS, hinders the progress of the sale, and does not create positive attention to the seller.

 BN at 4MySales.com

We have a rule in our statewide MLS here in New Hampshire that the listing has to be off the market a full 30 days for it to be listed as a new listing.  If it's less than 30 days, it must be listed aa back on the market.  There is a nice little fine/penalty doled out for those who don't abide by this rule, and they do enforce it, too.

There's enough other game-playing going on, and there will always be those that continually look for ways around the rules.  Why they don't expend that kind of energy actually working on their business instead of ways to break, beat or go around the rules amazes me.

Our MLS implemented two tracking metrics for days on market:
1) Agent DOM
2) Cumulative DOM

A property has to be off the MLS for a certain time period before the CDOM resets to zero.

It's a shame the MLS has to implement new systems to keep agents from cheating. I'd rather them spend the time and resources imporving the system for all than waste it all preventing "professionals" from cheating.

Recently they implemented new password procedures because apparently there were some agents giving out their passwords to out of area agents and CLIENTS so they could search the MLS themselves. Rediculous...

If a seller relisted with a different company it would come up as a New Listing. So, why should the current listing agency be at a disadvantage when it comes time to relist, they(the sellers)should have the choice of New or Not, most sellers would choose NEW.

Jim, you wrote: "First, make it clear to your Real Estate Agent that ... ANY changes (cancel, temporarily off market, etc.) will require YOUR WRITTEN PERMISSION for such a change.  All of this is actually in the 'fine print' of Washington State Listing Contracts..."

I say: what a shame that sellers have to tell their agent to do the right & ethical thing.

Jim,

This is an interesting idea.

It moves your listing to the top, new

listing get more attention that older ones.

It gets rid of the time on the market stigma.

As long as it’s with in the rules, I like it.

Before I go on, I'd like to remind you of some ancient wisdom from two strange sources, an old "Star Trek" episode and a very old joke.

When Kirk was fighting with another identical star ship, he had Spock searching for the control panel code of the other ship, as Spock searched Kirk explained to Bones (and the audience) that it's not necessarily the quicker or stronger that wins a fight, but rather the one who best understands how things work. That lesson was repeated in one of their movies, almost word for word.

There's an old joke that tells of a farmer standing behind a plow, wiping his mule and cursing up a blue streak at the resting animal. Not far away stands his much amused neighbor who shouts out "Have you tried asking him nicely?" After responding in words I was to young to know when I first heard this story, the farmer tells the intruder to try it himself! After carefully climbing the fence, the intruder picks up a broken fence post. As the farmer asks what the post is for the intruder hits the mule as hard as he can between the ears. He then leans in close to the animal while it stagers back to it's feet and says "please". As the farmer passed guiding the plow he's told "First you've got to get their attention!"

Your REALTOR® is doing a great job for his client. He got your attention by repeatedly moving to the front of the line. He obviously knows how the system works and is willing to use it. Well Done.

Your arguments look like you’re rationalizing being out maneuvered.

If you get the rules changed so be it, but until then I would list with the innovator!

Great Blog regardless of how it end up. This is a relevant area and there are conflicting options.

Good Job

 

Bill

It's an unethical practice, and we don't do it, regardless of how many others are. Fortunately they're a minority. Any changes must be signed by the sellers. Our MLS makes it easy to report anything like this that we see.

Be careful what you wish for ... our MLS "took care" of this issue a year or two ago with the introduction of Cumulative Days on Market - if it's been on the market in the past 90 days, the days on markey keep growing regardless of cancellations. There are a couple of ways around the system, but of course I wouldn't know anything about those. Well, maybe I've heard of one or two.

But here's the unintended consequence ... now that the market has slowed down, the CDOM has become an albatross around the neck of a majority of properties. Let's say a seller starts too high with an agent more concerned with notching a listing than selling a house. The listing expires and the seller moves on to agent number two, but at the right price. Should be fine, right?

NOPE! The cumulative days on market keep on building, so this right-priced house now will sit because "there's gotta be something wrong with it if it's on the market so long." The only problem was the price, but that's not what it looks like with CDOM.

I'm against those trying to manipulate the system, but I also know I can discover what they're doing by researching through the MLS. Might take a little more time on my part but that's why I make the big bucks, right?

Incidentally, several of us wrote letters to the local MLS' DOM task force in support of eliminating CDOM. The full text of my letter to the Arizona Regional MLS is here:

http://jdalton.realtownblogs.com/phoenix-real-estate-market/phoenix-mls-0907/

 

It happens here.

At least the MLS system recharges them the listing fee for doing it...I guess that is some penalty. 

Agents can play with the numbers all they want but they ultimately can't hide what they have done.  I want to be one of the responsible agents who can inform my buyer how long a home has actually been on the market. I always take the extra five minutes to check the history tab.

I love all the comments since this has been an issue that has bugged me for a long time.  I disagree with those who say, others do it so I have to also.  That goes back to my parents reminding me that two wrongs don't make a right.  I belong to two boards...Pinellas and Manatee.  I like the way the Manatee board has a button to see the Property History.  It will then show all of the times the property has been listed by the board and you can see who listed the property, how long it was listed, and at what price (also tracks every price change, not just the original and most recent prices).  This allows me to see what properties are actually new, and tells me which agents are just playing games with there listings.

The great idea here is to get the MLS to send out another email. And the one I like the most is to reduce the price even if it is only $100. And of course I have the signed document from my sellers to reduce the listing to see if we can get any hits on it.

Some online MLS services allow users, (clients, customers, searchers) to sign up to receive notices of new listing fitting their criteria. 

Does your online MLS only recognize new listings?  Or would it recognize new entries.  Would it recognize and announce updates such as price changes.

I worked with one that recognized new entries.  Not changes; so a price reduction or new paint or anything that would enhance a listing's appeal was left drifting in the wind.   Renewals didn't get noticed.

When the listing was removed from the online mls, or allowed to expire, the notices went right out upon re-entry.  Despite prompt renewals in the office, we were wiser to let that listing disappear on the MLS screen, then re-do it than to allow it to remain just another face in the crowd. The purpose of marketing real estate is to get the attention of a ready, willing and able buyer.  Beware of dumbing-down rules that are burdensome to the buyers and sellers in the final statement, provoking the children to wrath and a move to another agency.   Some of the solution may lie in the programing for the MLS.

Learning the quirks of your service and requesting reasonable programing/engineering or working with the quirks information within the boundaries of ethics could be common virtues.

Our MLS ties the market time to the PIN # so there is little to no benefit to the cancel and re-list game that we used to have to play. It's a relief.

Now if they would do away with MLS #'s that start with the year the property was listed... we would see far fewer re-lists in January.

As far as relists go, an agent that still has a property with an 05 listing# in the spring of 06, has really done their seller a disservice.

We can change the price on a listing and the MLS flags it as reduced for 7 days or so.

If you withdraw a listing and relist it for whatever reason you can still get the total property history of that listing by just typing the property address in our MLS.

I see this practice as on the dark gray side of unethical.

I don't do and if I were the principal broker my agents would not do it either.

What if we REMOVE Days on Market from the MLS?

http://activerain.com/blogsview/55345/What-if-we-remove

There are many reasons. I believe in providing a history report for any property. DOM data shouldn't be and doesn't have to be one of the fields collected and distributed. This field serves no purpose or value for the seller, my client, our client, and our sellers.

 

Hey guys,

Question, if you were truly working for the "sellers" best interest as a listing broker, should you tell the world how long he has been trying to sell and how desparate he is?

I think not. Now on the other hand, if you were a buyers agent working on behalf of the buyer, your duty and loyalty would to obtain this information and pass it on to your client, the buyer. 

So who is incompetent one? The listing broker trying to hide days on market to aid his client, the seller, or the buyer broker trying to aid his client the buyer to prepare a lower priced offer?