After seeing some absolutely abysmal listings (no photos, etc) we decided to do an in-depth analysis of how good/bad listing agents are when selling homes.
After all, they're supposed to be representing their client's best interests, right? And a listing agent stands to make $21,000 to $42,000 on a $700k house (surprised? visit our page on how agents get paid), so with that kind of money in play, one would think that agents would be sharp as a razor, looking out for their client's best interests.
Unfortunately, that isn't so. Here's proof:
72.8% of agents don't know how to market properties close to the Metro.Here's how we know: We ran an analysis to see how many agents checkmarked the itsy-bitsy little checkbox in a program called "Keystone", which is the program all agents must use when they list a property for sale in the MLS database system. Here's an image showing what the agent sees when uploading the listing (click on the image to enlarge):
We'll establish below that most agents don't know that the itsy-bitsy "Transportation" checkbox exists. But here's what the agents do knowhow to do: They write notes like, "Walk to Metro!" or "Close to Metro" in the listing notes. The only problem is, the listing notes aren't searchable! So when you as a buyer want to find a property close to Metro, you have to rely on the agents who knew to checkmark the itsy-bitsy checkbox in the "Transportation" section when they were publishing the listing. Here are some examples of listing agents who wrote the word Metro in their listing notes (click on the images to enlarge):
Well, we take it back (kind of): The listing notes aren't searchable on any property search site except ours. We created a tool called www.TheBestHomeSearchEver.com that lets you search for any piece of text in the listing notes, including the word "Metro". Here are two searches we did, illustrating our point (click on the image to enlarge):
As you can see, only 2,166 of a total of 7,967 properties (27.2%) near the metro were labeled as such in the listing, meaning the vast majority, 72.8%, did not enter the listing correctly, making their properties un-searchable by the Metro search criteria! What the vast majority (7,080 of 7,967, or 88.8%) did do was write something in the listing notes indicating that the property was close to the Metro. Nice to read, but impossible for buyers to search.
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