We're already at that point in the year when we often begin to take stock of our situation and start to formulate our plans for the New Year that's fast approaching.
If your home has been on the market for some time and has yet to sell, it could well be that you'll be reviewing the performance of your appointed agent in the coming days. Indeed, we would thoroughly recommend you doing so if you hadn't already thought of it yet.
With such a lively homes market this fall, very motivated buyers and the continuing shortage of available homes for sale in the Albuquerque area, any seller who isn't having success in these extremely favorable conditions needs to carry out a thorough review of agent performance.
Clearly the first thing you should be doing is seeking out your agent for a discussion to go over the strategy to get your home sold. But wait a moment. If you're having to chase your agent and you haven't had the marketing plan thoroughly explained to you, this could very well go at least some of the way to identifying the source of the problems.
One of the biggest issues the real estate industry continually faces is a widespread assumption that all agents make pretty much the same effort on behalf of their clients.
This is simply not the case and, all too often, it is the failure of the agent to perform that most accurately explains why a property is still not under offer.
The average agent in this country sells less than a handful of homes a year. It follows, therefore, that many agents do not treat real estate as a full time occupation and have various other calls on their time.
Emphatically, to be consistently successful in real estate requires a full time effort throughout the year. Nothing less than 100% dedication on a consistent basis will bring about the results every client needs and deserves - namely the quickest possible sale at the best price.
Part time agents simply cannot have the day-to-day intimate market knowledge that's required to price your home accurately and to be in constant contact with past clients and others who can influence a sale, not least other agents who may have someone on their books for whom your home is an exact fit.
In our experience, one of the most obvious telltale signs that an agent isn't pulling his/her weight is something we alluded to earlier, a distinct lack of communication. It's absolutely essential that you are kept in the loop at all phases of the sale, and not just so that you can be more confident in your agent's efforts. If the home isn't selling then some fine tuning in liaison with you may be necessary. If you're being left weeks, or even months, without any sort of update (apart from those updates you might instigate through sheer frustration) it graphically demonstrates that there isn't a dynamic approach to the sale. And when things that aren't going right don't get corrected, is it any surprise that you're not seeing any viewers, to say nothing of receiving offers.
Although we could talk for hours about what actually goes into making a successful agent, in some ways the only question you need to ask yourself is "do I completely accept the agent's reasons why the home is still on the market."
When you ask yourself that question, don't just take the agent's word for it. Ask for concrete evidence why the property remains on the market. It's completely fair to say that not all homes sell at the same speed and sometimes adjustments, including price, need to be made. Therefore, even you accept the agent's reasons why the sale is challenging, this needs to be backed up with a comprehensive plan to overcome the issues.
To double check on the agent's effectiveness you should also ask him/her to produce evidence of sales performance in the past quarter. What you need to see is that, even if your home isn't attracting a buyer, the agent's efforts are at least effective for others in the current marketplace, suggesting that the right kind of tactics are being deployed at all times and, hopefully, with some discussion about changing strategies in your own case, things can still turn around.
We hope the above thoughts at least give you a framework in which to conduct a performance review with your agent. We love what we do and expend our entire effort in getting your home sold - it's something we're passionate about. Why not contact us today and discover more about the Everest Peak Group total approach.
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