Real Estate Agent question????

I've decided to sell out.

Today, I met with a Real Estate agent to represent me for
the properties that I want to sell.

From the initial meeting and continuing throughout the
day, I had an uneasy and awkward feeling about the agent.
I could not pinpoint my feelings for the uneasiness but
it was there.

After touring some of the properties, I abruptly halted
the interview......WAIT! That's it!

INTERVIEW!

From my perspective, I was "interviewing" an Agent to see
if I wanted to hire them to represent me to sell my
properties.

Here is where my problem arose: The Agent was "TELLING"
me what I needed to do to improve the property so they
could sell it easier. Heck, I was the one that pointed
the problems out to the Agent and I stated that I wanted
to sell it "As Is".

Anyway, I thanked the Agent for their time and explained
that I felt we had different opinions.

The Agent took offense and seemed to not understand being
turned down. The Agent was polite but perplexed as to why
I would turn down their services.

It seemed as though the Agent thought they were doing me
a favor for trying to sell my property.

Any of y'all ever experience this kind of behavior from
Real Estate Agents???

If he/she got you to spend your effort and money fixing the issues you pointed out, the property could sell for 12 to 15% more. That equates to 12 to 15% more commission for doing nothing. It is plane and simple. Jim

I am a Real Estate Broker and have been for 40 years. I generally tell prospective buyers, if there is a broken hinge or something simple needs fixed. I also tell them you may get a little more if everything is in tip top condition, but my opinion is that you may not get as much more for the property as you will add to it.
Just my prospective.
IowaBob

When I sold my parents farm. I had three real estate agents come and appraise. The first two said I needed to have a bunch of renovations completed , the barns all cleaned out, ect. The third real estate agent said to clean out the barns , which we were going to do anyways, but leave the house as is.
It sold for $50,000 more than the first two wanted to list it for and we didn't have to spend any money with renovations. The third guy specialized in rural property..
Cheers
Martin

The final question that I left out....Would you have not hired the Agent?

Sorry about using buyers instead of sellers in my first reply.
I specialize in Farms, then commercial, then Residential, we have 3 sales people with my firm.
I try to make it as easy as I can for the seller and the buyer.
IowaBob

If the agent did not listen to what you told him your decision to not hire him was right on. As the listing agent he works for you.
Also if you are selling more than 1 property, and it sounds like you are, I would also negotiate a lower fee. We did that when we sold 3 properties, got a 1% discount from the broker.

I had exactly the same experience. They'll try to talk you into spending as much as they can in order to make their job easier and more profitable.

And they'll tell you that whatever commission they quote is "standard" - that's nonsense, everything is negotiable.

Well, if we all know so much about selling real estate and how to go about it, then why do we all get real estate agents to put it on the market for us? To me, your post just seems to travel around in a circle. I think most agents know considerably more about selling houses and farms than non-agents, just like if you take your car into a dealership because it isn't running properly. They're the experts so they tell us what needs to be done and if you choose, they'll fix it for you. Except of course if you're a mechanic (or an everyday guy who can fix today's vehicles which is unlikely) and can fix things yourself, then you should do exactly that. In your case, do it yourself then using one of the commission-free outfits (up here one is called Com Free).

I used to do just that, sell my properties myself. When I got too busy, I found a realtor who works well with me. Because of repeat business, and the fact he knows I'll deal imaginatively so properties sell quicker than if I was stuck on each and every point and keep turning down reasonable offers. In any event I always do my own closings to avoid the errors professional closing companies always seem to make.

I am a former broker. The agent may have been short on "tact", but he was trying to help you get more for your property. If he makes more, so do you.

Full disclosure - wife and daughter and I are licensed brokers.
Your instincts are correct but maybe the reasoning is not quite on target.
Whatever the reason, you and that agent would not work well together.
I would recommend you interview a couple more agents and see if one of them fits your personality better.
In my part of the country an buyer looking at a property that needs work will try to deduct at least twice the cost of the repairs
from the asking price. It doesn't matter what your intentions were or whether the price was "fair" for the condition.
It's a psychological issue. You simply can not "make" a potential buyer see the property's good points if there are a couple of obvious issues that come up first.
As always, your mileage may vary.

Absolutely correct. He wasn't talking to the right agent.
An agent I know once said this about a prospective client
who was belligerent in the listening interview:
"Why don't you get mad at me now and save us both a lot of time."

RE: "It seemed as though the Agent thought they were doing me a favor for trying to sell my property."

I don't know the sales agent nor do I know all the minute details of the conversation. In some ways, maybe he WAS trying to do you a favor. I assume you have considered using a real-estate sales-agent because you feel he/she knows more about the local real-estate sales then you do?

I worked as a sales-agent for a few years in NY for ERA - back when "Electronic Realty" was something unique. I was not very good at it mainly because I was NOT pushy enough. I also found a general disrespect from many property sellers, as if all sales-agents are shysters and it is okay to jerk them around, lie to them, waste time with, break promises with, etc. This stuff works both ways.

That all said, I sold my last two properties myself. My farm and woods in central NY had a farm-house in need of a lot of work. I was told that if I wanted to get top dollar, the place would need to get fixed up enough so a potential buyer could get financing. I took no offense to that, since it was true. I just wanted to get out of central New York so bad, I took a down-payment on the one place and hold a 5 year mortgage on it (3 years to go before the last balloon payment). I did that by advertising on Craigslist. I tell you what. After dealing with over 50 people who treated me like a real-estate agent (even though I am just a private seller) - it almost cured me from ever dealing with the public again. Lots of BS and lying, along with many who could not afford to pay for a six-pack of beer, much less my property.

Recently sold our other place in the central NY Adirondacks for cash. Hired an agent from Blue Mountain Lake who was very straight forward. I told him I just wanted out and was doing no more work on place. He said fine - he'd just list it, and show it, and see what kind of offers came in. Sold it for cash within three months. Heck, the agent even then bought my chainsaw I had in storage there.

Had nice home and new barn in Colorado mountains. Little hard to sell and get value for barn. Commission was 7 %. I raised the price accordantly and offered the broker 10 percent if sold and closed in 30 days, 9 percent 60 days , 8 percent 90 days then cancel sales contract if not sold. Sold in 30 days for full sales price. She got her little carcass in gear , placed ads in papers for 100 mile radius.

(quoted from post at 13:40:51 09/06/17)

Any of y'all ever experience this kind of behavior from
Real Estate Agents???

Click to expand...

All the time.

TELL the agent what you want to do with YOUR property. If they can't help you, another agent will be along in a NY minute. They work for you, not the other way around. However, that shocks some RE agents who have forgotten who writes the check they get to cash.

I interviewed several agents when I went to sell my house. I was very careful NOT to answer the one question they all ask; 'What do you want to get for it', because too many will tell you exactly what you want to hear to get a listing. The one I went with had a disagreement between the partners as to what the place was worth and let me decide on what to list it at. I went with the lower price because I wanted OUT!!!!! It took about 6 months to sell but I had to admit they brought through one heck of a lot of traffic. Their only recommendations were to get a carpet of a brighter color for the living room (which we did). They brought in a couple of knick knacks for staging and had a professional photographer take shots. This, I think, was one of the problems; his pictures were so fantastic I almost didn't want to sell the place. I think that after seeing the pictures the place never looked as good in person to those who came.

I have been on both sides of this. I sold real estate in the late 1980s. I started with a couple of fellows that sold mainly farms and vacant land. Many of these where their own land. So they made their profit on the land sale not just commissions. I enjoyed it and it was a good part time job. The one partner got divorced and his wife ended up with the business. She had to make her money on commissions. So it became more residential/housing listings. I left in six months. The housing markets sucks to try to sell in a rural area.

I have sold 15-20 houses/rentals myself since then. What I have found is that if there are major problems then the property will not sell. Most buyers are going to finance. They usually can not afford the cost of major repairs. I would put wells, septic systems, roofs and structural damage as the most common stopping points. Small stuff like appliances, paint and carpets usually never pay to replace. One thing I have done is to pay for repairs the new buyer wants done and then make the selling price my asking price plus the repair costs. That required a large deposit and approved financing. Then have the repairs settled at closing.


An example is one house I actually had listed when I was an agent. It had a bad well. The water would not pass a nitrate test. To the current owner it was not an issue as they liked spring water and got all their drinking water from his father's spring. That place would not sell as most lenders require a water test to finance the house. Several years later I bought the house. I had a new well drilled and resold the house. The well cost me $5500. I sold the house for $15,000 more than I gave for it. The cost of the well was not the issue. The new buyer not being able to finance the house with a bad well was the issue. With a "new" well the buyers had no problem getting financing.

So you did not say what he wanted you to do? Some things may need to be done to make the property sell for any price. An example would be sheds full of junk. New buyers are going to discount the cost/bother way more than the true cost of even hiring them cleaned out. Now it he wanted rooms painted and new carpets then heck no. The new owners will redo most of that anyway. IF the walls and such are real ugly hire them painted flat white.

I've bought and sold property at different time for most of my adult life. The 1st few sales and purchases I went through an agent. The last purchase and the last 3 times I've sold I did it without an agent. The last farm I sold was for 750K and the agent wanted 6%. They also told me that they doubted that I could get what I was asking. I sold the property myself for asking price and saved $45,000. I thought that was pretty good for less than 20 hours of work.

JD Seller- "So you did not say what he wanted you to do?...Small stuff like appliances, paint and carpets usually never pay to replace."

The Agent wanted me to install new carpet(entire house) and paint all the interior.

Greg the only way I would replace carpet is if they had bad pet smells or some thing. Usually just have the steam cleaned and sell as-is. Now on paint. If the walls really look bad then a few dollars of cheap white paint may easily pay you dividends. Just hire it done. Painting a room with white paint usually does not cost that much. Usually less than $100-150 a room.

I think the agent was just telling you what to do to get top dollar for your property. Agents want to get the most money out of your property as a matter of pride. As a real estate agent and painting contractor I couldn't agree more. Painting is the number one thing you can do to sell your house people can't see past the dirt and grime. Carpet is number two. Lots of investors all they do is repaint and new carpet. I get you think the agents pushy and they might very well be but that's what gets it sold.

Most people want to paint it to there liking anyway. When I sold my little house back in 02 the people did not like the colors( hey what's wrong with a john deere green room?). Anyway at closing I agreed to buy them paint. We were all happy. I bought the house back from a tax sale in 2012 and they sure did paint it some ulgy colors.

A lot of real estate around here,farms mostly are being sold by lawyers. For a set fee they will advertise and have a sealed bid auction.Sometimes they bring in the top three bidders and let them raise there bids.A friend of mine sold 150 acres for less than 2000 bucks.

Greg, so if you sell out, then what??

Ross

Before you disregard someone's advice, it's a good idea to figure out where they're coming from.

You may not be in a rush to sell, and willing to wait months or years until Mr. & Mrs. Right come along and pay your asking price. I can assure you that most Realtors are not of the same mind. The real estate agent is investing his own time and money in the sale, and the faster it sells the better. If it sells in a couple of weeks, he hasn't made a big investment and he turns a nice profit. On the other hand, if it sits on the market for six months, doesn't sell and he ends up showing it to 50 buyers who turn up their noses at it, he's wasted a fair amount of time and money without making a cent.

You don't say what he suggested you fix, but there are certain things that will immediately turn off most buyers. And even small issues, if there are enough of them, will hurt your chances of a quick sale. If the next agent you talk to brings up the same issues as the first, I'd listen up. Now you can probably find an agent who is willing to list the property as-is. But that's probably not the same agent who will bust his butt to make the sale.

YUP that's the real estate agents of today. First they do you a favor by even coming to look at your property then they will go get comparables from outside the area because if they use the comparables from the area the price is higher then they want to sell your place for.
I'm readying my place for sale and that is exactly what is occurring. I had one agent come that wanted me to remove a slate entryway and replace it with hardwood. I listened to what they all had to say then decided which changes to make and still spent over $40k. As I said to the wife the negotiating amount just got really small. I have decided that the agents today want to sell a property really fast with no effort and walk with their fee. They forget who they work for!

I had one agent show me a contract which I reviewed. In the section where it discussed Buyers agent it was all goobldee goop. When I asked what it meant she could not explain it.

In a way I'm glad others are having the same problems but it's sad.

Case in point: Recent real estate explosion has driven property from $5k/acre 5 years ago to $10k for a baseline for what it's going for around here right now. It's a seller's market for urban and rural property.

20 acre property across the road went up for sale. Rectangular and on the side of a hill with the long side parallel to the slope. Too steep for tillage and been in weeds for many years, plus the back ⅓ was useless due to underbrush and thick scrub trees; basically useless. On it is a 1400 square ft Morgan building, concrete floor double door garage section with a 2 bedroom single bath apt built on the other half of the slab. Built in 1981.

Seller didn't want to fool with it. Realtor picked it up for $165k. Spent an estimated 40 k doing what he thought would sell the property. As soon as it was finished it went up for sale. It sold in a week for $250k. But that's not the catch. The realtor cut out 5 acres in the front and listed it as a separate sale for $69k. So the buyer spent $250k on 15 acres and the "Barndominium" with half of it sloping, weed infested and half of that was in dense brush and 2" diam. give or take trees.

The realtor will spend maybe $5k to sell the remaining 5 acres, nothing to do but time spent showing it. 165 + 40 + 5 = $220 invested. Sale price $250 + 69 = 319. In less than 6 months, he picks up a cool $100k.

You might want to listen to him.

My experience has been different than yours. I would have split the 20 acres with no improvements and come out with the same $100,000 or $110,000. I have found buyers will take repairs for a small discount so they can do what they want (which is usually nothing).

This post hits VERY close to home. My experience:
We put our house (in a suburb) up for sale in June. The agent lives in our subdivision, i.e. knows the market very well. I've known him for 20 yrs. We started fixing up the house for sale in February, making a list of all of the things we thought needed attention. Took us until June to get them all done. He walked through and mentioned a few more, which we addressed. I told him that we'd be willing to spend "hundreds" of dollars to make it more saleable, but not "thousands". At the time, he said homes were selling in days. We were expecting a quick sale at a premium. We listed it for about $10k more than we thought it would sell for.

We had very few showings the first few weeks. Since first impressions by a buyer come from the online listing (with pix) or drive-by, I figured that any of the interior shortcomings (older furnace, older carpet) weren't keeping interest down. Our realtor stressed that neutral colors sold best. At the time, I felt that someone who's looking at a house would probably want to repaint anyway to suit their tastes, so why bother with redecorating. The realtor said that 80-90% of buyers want "move-in" condition. They're not interested in redecorating or modernizing kitchens, baths, etc. (IMO, they're lazy :lol: ). We've since done some interior redecorating to get rid of 30 yr old wallpaper, drapes and paint colors. Our guy said neutral colors are best, grey is the new "in-color". A big concern was "clutter". Being a handy guy (like most on this forum), I've got lots of tools, wood, steel, etc. That is a big turn-off, according to our realtor. I pitched a bunch of wood and made my workshop as neat as I could. We also had the carpets cleaned in the entire house. Had a showing this past Saturday that I thought had promise as they spent quite a bit of time looking. The feedback was very negative: Price too high, location (main street in sub), weeds in cracks of pavers :roll: , carpeting was old, clutter in garage. :shock:

This whole experience is very stressful on my wife and myself. I was looking to our realtor to advise us on what needed to be done to sell our house and at what price. He's done a "fair" job of that. I wouldn't say great because I think he could have been a little more forceful about some things. For instance, I suggested the original price based on comps he provided. It was on the high side. He said "sure, let's try that". When we lowered it, he said "yeah, that's a good idea". We did get an offer that was $20k below our original asking price and I suggested a counter splitting the difference. He said, "yeah, that's probably about right". The potential buyer walked away. Looking at newer comps, the offer was probably about right and I should have taken it. I'd take it if offered again.

Anyway, I think our realtor has a good feel for what buyers want which is hard for me to understand sometimes. (Some grass growing in sidewalk cracks? C'mon) When we've looked at property of any kind, we looked past the surface and saw the potential. But our realtor says we are in the minority. I understand now that most people don't even care if there's a workbench. My wife retired in July, I was going to retire at the same time. The only thing stopping me is the sale of our house. Hope to have it done by Nov. 1st so we can move to the house we bought in the country and build our retirement home out there on vacant land. BTW, the 2nd house we bought was a disaster, we pulled carpet, repainted the whole place, new hardwood floors, etc. Which is why we got it very cheap and with some work, it's now worth triple what we paid for it.

Go with your gut. I recently had to sell 3 properties to settle my parents trust. All were sold as-is because we didn't want repercussions once the money was distributed to the beneficiaries. I sold the farm myself and got the appraised price. My brother recommended a realtor friend for the other 2. I didn't like her from the beginning. After a year of listening to her drivel and no sales I dumped her. Sold the properties with a new realtor in 2 months. Good luck.

Or you could have the realtor that stole the property across the road from me. Old couple went to the realtor to sell 80 acres, she immediately called her husband and they bought the property without ever listing it. It sold for $1500 an acre with seller paying back the CRP payments. On the open market the real price was closer to $4000 an acre. They made a cool $200,000 by screwing over some old people.

Real Property is a lot like cars,trucks and tractors we all own we see the usefulness and ignore the faults.I see the agent just trying to tell you what you need to do to be able to
sell your property and expect anything like the prices other properties are bringing in the area.Plus they know what the area buyers expect to get/want in what condition.They are your agent
trying to sell your property for the most they can get for you.Yea it may help their commission but at 6% commission you get 94 cents of every extra dollar.I see the same thing all the time with
tractors owners think that a beat up, engine smoking tractor is going to bring almost as much as a great running nice looking one of the same model.Doesn't work that way.If you're prepared to
sell for a lot less than the market value then just have an auction to sell the real estate as is,although you will probably wish you had listened to the real estate agent when you
see how much it brings.

Friend of mine from high school got the task of selling his parents place to finish settling his parents estate. Other siblings no longer live in the area. 160 acres of farm/recreation land. His siblings wanted to go with a certain realtor that they had all known for years. This guy tried talking my friend into putting in access roads and dividing up into 5-10 acres development parcels. None of the kids wanted to spend the money and told him no, just list it as the whole 160 acres. With some wetlands and woods and only about 50 tillable acres no farmers were interested. And the potential buyers (mostly people who would divide it up and resell) brought in by the realtor the place wasn't selling. After 6 months my friend went to a different realtor that he knows well who told him "let me hook you up with a guy I know from the twin cities who specializes in recreation property". So the kids went with this new company. Who 1: told em to clean the place up (old crap in the fence rows that did sell at auction) 2: raise the asking price by almost 50K. They hired a local guy to get the crap out, listed it and sold the place in under 30 days. I'm pretty sure the first realtor didn't like being told no so didn't really work hard at selling the place.

One of my sons and his wife bought a home in Fargo this past Feb. The realtor, when they were shown it told them the seller would have the washer and dryer (near new very nice high tech ones) hauled out to scrap and the very nice heavy duty garage storage shelving removed prior to the sale. They had to sign papers saying they were OK with the sellers abandoned property. Realtor was very happy that went the way it did as the seller was an old couple moving into assisted living.

Rick

If you are uneasy with the agent look for someone else that you are comfortable with. Went thru that back in 10 with Father-in-law house. 11 years old and in new subdivision. Wife was co-ex with her oldest brother but Wife and I ended up with most of the work. Youngest Sister wanted a woman she knew. Upon first meeting I felt she did not know what she was doing and wanted somebody different, got over rulled buy the other brothers and sister. Finlay about gave it away to only person she ever had look at it. Wanted to have concrete drive replaced that was perfect and installed just the way the building permit required as someone she liked thought it should be made different and against what was required to build the house 11 years before. It was a speck house and inlaws bought it before was finnished so got a few changes made that suited it better. And one was doubling the size of the covered patio that you went out the back door to. So if you are uncomfortablr with one keep looking untill you find one you are comfortable with. If you are uncomfortable with one there will be a reason and go with your feelings.

(quoted from post at 14:33:38 09/07/17) The realtor, when they were shown it told them the seller would have the washer and dryer (near new very nice high tech ones) hauled out to scrap and the very nice heavy duty garage storage shelving removed prior to the sale. They had to sign papers saying they were OK with the sellers abandoned property. Rick

Click to expand...

My seller left abandoned property that we did not want, an old broken up hay feeder, a old JD combine laying on its side and some other misc. junk laying around. Even after making it a condition of sale they still left some stuff, luckily his sister was the realtor and lives just down the road about a half mile and she and her husband took care of getting the junk hauled. The water softener company had been trying to get into the house too to get their leased softener for some time. I made the seller buy me a new unit and take the old one out and set it on the porch so the owner could get it. Of course his sister actually took care of that too. The seller is a real "piece of work", he's since moved into the family farm just down the road too when his Mom and Dad passed.

Yep.

Back when my parent were sell their farm after retiring the agent they got did everything she could not to sell the farm.She and her husband were in some farm preservation group.Six month and didn't bring anyone around to show the property.The second one they got all he could say to mom and dad if it was his he would raze the two houses 3 barns and other buildings.They got one after 3 years had it sold in 3 weeks.