by
Neil Jenman
The author Earl Nightingale once told how the famous philosopher, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, on a visit to London was asked by a journalist: “What’s wrong with people today?”
The doctor paused for a moment and said: “The trouble with people today is that they simply don’t think.”
This question was asked in the early 1950s. It’s just as relevant today. Especially for those who place importance on their financial assets.
Imagine something for a moment if you will. Think about something.
Imagine your most important financial asset, probably your family home.
Now, imagine you looked at the value of your home as if it was money – cash in the bank.
These days, the average Australian home has a value close to a million dollars.
So, imagine your home is worth at least a million dollars. Think about this money, it’s ten thousand one-hundred-dollar notes. Imagine it in a suitcase.
This is your money. Your million dollars – or more.
How important is this money to you – on a scale of one to 100 with 100 being the highest level of importance?
Is your million dollars worth 100 out of 100 in importance? If you are prudent, hopefully your money, your million dollars (or more) is highly important to you.
Okay, so now that you have agreed that your home is ranked as high as it’s possible to rank an asset – one hundred out of one hundred – imagine something else.
Imagine handing control of your most important financial asset to someone who is completely and utterly untrustworthy – a scoundrel who has one goal – to exploit you as much as possible.
And, in doing so, someone who will greatly damage the value of your home.
This person belongs to a group of people who are distrusted by 95 out of every hundred people.
And imagine you have only known this person about 90 minutes. Maybe even less.
And then, of course, imagine this…
Having given control of your most important financial asset to someone you should not have trusted, that person runs true to type and damages the value of your asset.
Imagine their incompetence, their lack of honesty and their untrustworthiness literally translates into you damaging the value of your asset, your family home.
It causes you to lose at least one hundred thousand dollars.
Think about your friends or your family members – people you love deeply and trust totally – imagine you told them that you gave control of your greatest financial asset to someone who’s distrusted by 95 per cent of the population.
And this decision had caused you to lose somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000.
They would probably ask you:
WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!!
The correct answer, sadly, would be: “I wasn’t thinking.”
This is what happens to thousands of home-owners every week in Australia. When it’s time for these owners to become home-sellers, they give control of their home to a real estate agent.
Ninety-five per cent of people do not trust real estate agents. And for good reason. Most agents – about 95 per cent – cannot be trusted.
This is why most home-sellers under-sell their homes. Some lose hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Far more home-sellers under-sell their homes than sell their homes for the full value.
Why?
Because they trusted someone who did not deserve to be trusted. They trusted one of today’s typical agents, a group of people who have never been more distrusted.
And deservedly so.
Almost all of today’s home-sellers lose money in three ways.
First, they pay too much in commission, far too much.
Second, they are massively ripped-off by a system called VPA which means “Vendor Promotes Agent” in which agents convince sellers to pay thousands of dollars to promote their homes when the main reason is to promote the agent and find more victims (sellers) for the agents.
And the third way home-sellers lose money is the worst. It’s through under-selling their homes – on average by around ten per cent of their home’s value.
It happens to most sellers.
The reason is simple: Most sellers deal with agents who can not and should not be trusted.
Oh, to be sure, these agents – especially the worst – are so convincing. The sellers know that agents are dodgy, they have heard stories, they have read polls, they know. But then, when an agent gives them the pitch (the “con”), the sellers fall for it.
Hook, line, and sinker.
They seem to abandon thought. After all, this agent seems so convincing, so trustworthy.
Here’s a warning to all home-owners who are thinking of becoming home-sellers.
Forget what you see, forget what you hear. Focus on one factor alone: What an agent does.
It’s what they DO that signifies whether they are among the five per cent who can be trusted or the 95 per cent who will cause you to lose tens of thousands of dollars.
Here is how to recognise agents you can trust:
Keep this list handy. Think about it. Use it to measure the worth of any agent who is pushing to sell your home.
And please, be careful of fake reviews. Look at Rate My Agent, and think about something, please. If credible research shows that 95 per cent of people do not trust agents, why does Rate My Agent look as if 99 per cent of people love real estate agents.
Yes, think.
And please, never say you can’t find an agent with these 12 ‘TRUST QUALITIES’.
Think please. Your home is your greatest asset.
If an agent says they can be trusted, never mind their words, look at what they do. Do they agree to give you all of these 12 ‘TRUST QUALITIES’?
If not, why not?
Henry Ford once said: “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.”
So, please THINK before you sign.
Protect your greatest asset. Hire an agent you can trust.
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If you feel you can trust us at Jenman Support, we will be proud to help you find an agent you can trust. Please email us on support@jenman.com.au or call 1800 1800 18. Thank you.
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