Everything A Real Estate Agent Doesn't Want A Home Seller To Know! Part-02

if you plan on selling a home you may want to read this article. As a home seller you have to make a decision whether you will sell your home through a real estate company, for sale by owner or a combination of both. Not many sellers know they can do both—it all stems around the language of the listing agreement (contract) you enter into with the real estate agent and their company. If you are a smart negotiator you can have the ability to sell both ways expressed in the listing contract in a way that basically creates a "race" to sell the property between you and the agent. The concept is easy to do but hard to explain within the space limitations of this article—any real estate attorney can help you negotiate and write the face of the listing contract to reflect your dual selling option during the listing contract period. Actually, it’s a good idea to have your attorney review ALL listing contracts you are considering BEFORE you sign them. And if you ignore that advice then at least use these 5 Magic words to help protect yourself before you sign any listing contract--write the following words right ABOVE you signature:

"Subject To Sellers Attorney Approval"

Then sign the listing agreement. This way if you have a change of mind for good reasons or the listing contract is not in your best interest, you can weasel your way out of a deal with the help of your attorney.

Speaking of listing agreements—do you realize that when you contact a real estate agent to sell your home that you are basically hiring a salesperson to sell your product? That makes you an employer. I constantly preach that home buying and selling is a BIG business deal. Have you ever been interviewed for a job? Have you ever interviewed anybody for a job? If you have participated in either of those scenarios you know that you are asked (or ask) some tough questions before the employer "hires you"…and the job you are seeking is competitive —other people want the same job right?

Well, the same holds true for hiring an agent. If you have a decent home, most every agent wants to list it for sale…there’s competition to get your listing. Knowing this basic information don’t you think you have the right to ask some tough questions of your real estate agent? Don’t you want to see a resume? Don’t you want to know there business background? What is their selling background? To many times agents are part timers with one toe in the tub and from my experience as a mortgage lender, many agents, especially new or part-time agents basically throw as many offers-from-buyers-as-possible on the wall and hope they stick—costing sellers time, opportunity and money. This is NOT a blanket indictment against real estate agents—there are full time professional agents in the market who have business degrees and marketing and sales experience—the top producers— but finding them is a different story.

The point of this article is to bring to your attention as a home seller that YOU are the one that has to make a hiring decision when retaining the services of a real estate agent. Many sellers choose people they know…their friends…especially in small towns…and sometimes that works okay. Sometimes it ruins friendships. The key is to treat your home like a business deal and to make sure you do everything in your power to give it the best representation in the market with a full time, knowledgeable agent who has a business background. Agents hate you hearing this kind of stuff but let me put it this way: Lawyers go to school for seven (7) years to learn the law so they can write a fifty dollar ($50.00) will. Real estate agents on the other hand, go to crash-course-training programs for 30-90 days or so and represent sellers in transactions in excess of $100,000.00! What’s wrong with THAT picture? You get the drift…

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Copyright © 2006 James W. Hart, IV All Rights reserved