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You Know You Shouldn't Take That Listing If......

By
Real Estate Agent with Keller Williams Realty Signature Partners

 

When you're in real estate, there are only two ways you can make money.  One is working with a buyer, which many times is unproductive and introduces you to a myriad of nut cases who think they are ready, willing and able to purchase  a home but many times are not.  Often, the reason they can't is just sheer stupidity on their part and then you are left out of time, gasoline and having to move onto another potential client that you hope isn't as bad as the doofus you just finished working with.  The other way to make money is by listing homes.  This is preferrable to working with buyers in my very humble opinion.  Sellers, more often that not, are educated about the market and where things stand.  If they're not, you have ample opportunity at the listing appointment to educate and screen them as to whether or not they would be good clients.  Now, we all know as Realtors that we work very hard to do that.  No one in their right mind wants a high maintenance client with where things stand in the market.  New agents may be desperate enough to take whatever they can get but seasoned agents?  We're a lot smarter than that.  But just case you have one on the fence and you're not sure if you should take the listing or not, here are a few things that may help you out.

You know you shouldn't take that listing if:

1. You pull up in the driveway and notice yellow police tape cordoning off the house.

2. The sidewalk chalk drawings are actually those of bodies and have been drawn by the county coroner.

3. Your sellers ask you to write a special stip that the gleaming silver pole in the middle of the master bedroom and the handcuffs installed just above the headboard of the bed are not to be removed until the night before closing.

4. There is a full frontal nude velvet painting of the owner's wife in the family room for all to see.

5. If it looks as though it is owned by Fred Sanford (and son.)

6.The owner asks you to put in private agent remarks that " Two friendly dogs (Rottweillers) Killer and Bruiser will be kept in the basment during showings and it might be a good idea to not go down there even though they are really sweet animals.

7. The sellers want to overprice by$50,000 "just so we have room to negotiate."

8. The address they give you when you make the listing appointment is 1313 Mockingbird Lane.

9.  You ask the seller to walk the property with you and show you the property lines and he says he can't because his ankle monitor the state made him wear will not allow him to go that far from the house.

10. They tell you they're not in a hurry to sell and won't do so unless you bring them a full price offer.  At that point, they then want you to consider cutting your commission by a half percent because "you people make too much money anyway," and ask if you can check in with them everyday "even if nothing is going on."

We've all had clients like these and agree that we knew at the beginning we shouldn't have taken that listing!  But hey, at least we got some great war stories from it, hhmm?

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