Your Real Estate Agent! You Get What You Pay For....Or NOT?

Hi Thom!  Great post.  I despise these companies.  They dilute our MLS with their CRAP listings, and they ALWAYS leave their sellers in the dark.  They should be banned and shut down.  I hate them.  Dealing directly with a seller is absurd.  Have I gotten my point across?  :)  

Thom that is pretty bad and your are right especially the part about them not calling the seller.  I'm not bashing the limited service company because they have the right to operate that kind of business as long as it does not violate any real estate laws in their area.

I am further convinced that the sellers knew what they were getting which is another reason I'm not bashing the limited service company.

Thom, nice letter they sent, but their autoresponder didn't come close to answering your email. Sounds like the company just put the listing in the MLS for a flat fee and left it up to the sellers to do the rest.

This is precisely why given a choice, I do not make showing appointments with this type of listing.  In this market there are alot of listings and i can be choosey.

Hi Thom - These companies advertise that they save the seller money.  I guess they save them some of the commission, but sometimes those properties sell for a lower price because sellers aren't always the best marketers of their own homes.  I have wound up doing at least double the work on some transactions, but sometimes it is simply due to a lazy "full service" broker on the other side or one who doesn't know what they're doing. 

I have even attended finall doc signing and settlement with the buyer when I represented the seller because the buyer was unable to reach his agent or broker and he didn't understand what was happening.  I couldn't reach them either until I got an email that said, "I'm tired of holding this guy's hand and if he can't go to a simple appointment without me, he shouldn't be buying a house."  What?!?

Oftentimes in life, you get what you pay for.

Limited service brokerage is no exception.

Hmmmm The seller did get what they wanted. They sold their property and you earned your commission for both sides, Fuhgetaboutit.

I sold one of these "limited service listings" several years ago, before Texas Real Estate Commssion passed a law that the listing agent actually had to DO something.  The transaction went pretty well even though I had to negotiate the price, terms and repairs with the seller.  At closing, the seller signed the papers, even though he had just discovered a $7000(!) prepayment penalty on his existing mortgage.  He then got up from the table and asked to speak to me in the hallway.  He said he had no intention of paying a buyer's agent and where did I get the idea he did.  So I pulled my MLS sheet that offered 3% to buyer broker.  He then went back to the closing agent and said he wanted to rescind the closing.  She told him it was too late, as the file had just funded.  He started to get angry when my buyer stood up and told him if I didn't get paid he would sue him into oblivion!  His phone rang, he looked at it, said he had an emergency and we never saw him again.  

Limited service: You do get what you pay for. I have seen sellers leave a ton of money on the table due to the non-actions of their agent.

Oooof!  i haven't had to do one of those in a loooong time thank goodness.

But the house sold, right?

I don't find that very different from some of the biggest, full-service agents in my area that I have to deal with. Same dissapearing act.

I recently sold a listing that had been previously listed with a limited service brokerage. Needless to say, it was on the market 8 months with no nibbles. I had it listed two days and it was under contract with multiple offers. I will tell you if my seller had sold through this limited service broker, the deal would have gone away. He was high-maintenance. There is no way a buyer would have continued to hang in there. He freely spoke his mind and it probably would have jeopardized the deal.

Unbelievable! What's next? Self-service brokerage!

Hi Thom,  Of course, there are good and bad agents regardless of the nature of the brokerage but it seems like a highly disproportionate number of negative experiences from this segment.

I love dealing directly with the other side. Makes it super-easy to get a SCREAMING deal for my client! Ever seen a shark play with a injured seal??

Talk about customer service . . . NOT!  The we do this at this time, we do that between these hours . . . is annoying.  People try to save money and when they do, they make it easy for companies that "we only do this between 5:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m." annoying to deal with. 

That's completely ridiculous... What an agent.

Thom - I first ran into this years ago, and was baffled at first.  I never did talk to the other agent.  I love call us; we won't call you.

I worked with an agent here in Marietta that had brought me into a home to do a consultation. The home had been on the market for 2 years without a single offer.  Not only did the homeowner have add their own photos, to make matters worse, he used his phone to take the pictures. Ughhhh....

The good news - within the first week of listing with the new agent, the home had two offers. In fact, they had a bidding war.

 

We used to have 3 limited service brokers in our town.  When the market has turned, they all packed up and left.  I wonder when they'll creep back into the market place...