I held a house open today for another agent in my office. I do this quite often and I appreciate the opportunity to hold other agents listings open. Anyway today was Interesting. I had 6 sets of people/couples come in and view the home. Normally I would consider this a very good day, but I was only able to collect information from 1 of the people. I have a much better hitting record than that so I was a little put out.
A couple good things came out of this open house though. 2 of the people that came thru recognized me from previous open houses, so actually I do have their info after all. The first set are permanent lookers, I have seen them in homes ranging from 1.5 million to 500k and have actually shown them a few in the million dollar range. The second person who recognized me was a women who I had tried to get her expired listing. She told me that she had listed with another agent, who I know ( we used to work for the same agency). I told her I knew her Realtor very well and that she would do a fine job for the woman. I also asked how this other Realtor was able to persuade her to list. Her response was " it was an easy decision, the other Realtor said she would take my listing at 2%", this is where the frustrating really starts. After learning that the other Realtor was willing to drop her commission the women stopped talking to anyone else and signed the deal. This woman falls in love with the home I am holding open, she has already has told me where she is going to place her furniture, BUT she needs to sell her home first. She also wants to know if she can cut her listing agent out of the purchase of this home and save more money. You get the idea, this is a real gem.
My frustration aimed more towards the Realtor. WHY take a listing at reduced commission? This particular home is still over priced for our local market. So one of two things is happening. 1) The Realtor is not giving the home the marketing effort she would if she was getting full commission, or 2) She simply feels she can't et a listing unless she cuts her rate. She has spent good money and time marketing this home and is cutting herself short, along with setting the expectation that others Realtors will do this too, and we all know how word spreads, and she has done this for a woman who feels absolutely NO loyalty to her at all.
If the clients wants a reduced rate let them go to one of the flat rate or reduced rate company's, it is what they do. The rest of use do not work off a cafeteria pick a choose board for marketing. We spend a goodly amount of time and money marketing homes and I personally feel that we need to stop selling ourselves short. I am learning everyday, it is just that some days I don't like the lesson.
Thank you for letting me vent.
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