WHAT IS MEANT BY THE TERM ‘A TYPICAL AGENT’?

A typical agent is an agent you should avoid. Most agents are typical agents. As you will see (in answer to further questions) if the only agents you can find are typical agents you will be better off selling your home yourself. When a typical home seller is placed alongside a typical agent, the home seller will usually get the better result.

Australia is one of the most expensive countries in the world in which to sell a home. This is entirely due to the voracious greed of agents charging massive commissions. On top of the commission are billions (yes, billions!) of dollars in needless advertising costs. Plus a continual litany of new and ever-increasing charges. As much as naïve sellers can be persuaded to pay.

Australia’s total real estate market is worth around $11 trillion dollars. In comparison, the stock market is worth around $1.5 trillion. And yet the stock market is strictly controlled compared to the real estate market. If typical stockbrokers were doing the same as typical real estate agents, the stockbrokers would face criminal charges and likely be gaoled.

The real estate world in Australia is like the lawless frontier of the nineteenth century. The ethics have never been lower. Agents have never been more distrusted. Agents typically use systems designed to benefit the agents not their clients. And the visible costs (such as commission and advertising) are a fraction of the greatest cost of selling a home in today’s real estate market with a typical real estate agent. That cost is the cost of incompetence because typical agents are dreadful negotiators. Therefore, most homes are undersold. Often by upwards of ten per cent of the value. That’s at least a $100,000 loss for every million dollars.

Most agents (at least 85%) could be classed as ‘typical agents’. They follow the typical flawed and/or unethical systems that infect the real estate world and cost sellers so much money.

There are four main ways that you can recognise typical agents, most of whom are like clones of one another.

 1 LOCK YOU UP. They sign you up on an Exclusive Listing Agreement which is filled with clauses that benefit the agents and harm the sellers. They effectively lock you up and have complete control over you and your home for between three and six months. No matter what happens, if your home is sold the agents get paid (whether they sold it or not). Should your home not be sold, you will likely have lost thousands of dollars due to the second way of recognising typical agents.

2 PAY UP NO MATTER WHAT. Typical agents demand that you pay upfront (or agree to pay later whether your home is sold or not) thousands of dollars in “marketing expenses”. The main purpose of these expenses is not to promote your home, it’s to promote your agent. They call it “raising their profile” (at your expense). Typical agents also use your money to find new leads. If your home doesn’t sell you lose thousands of dollars, but the agent has received many leads and many extra commissions. It’s a typical situation of “Heads they win; Tails you lose.”

3 LAZY. Typical agents are extremely lazy. They rarely follow up buyers. They rarely qualify buyers. They will simply open your home for 30 minutes a week and hope a buyer turns up who love it. In which case the agent will make about $20,000 for every $1,000,000 value of the house. Typical agents do not sell houses. Buyers buy houses. There is almost no selling involved. Remember this: The typical agent is doing nothing that you couldn’t do yourself. In fact, you could do much better.

4 WRONG SELLING METHOD. Typical agents use whatever selling method gets them their commission the fastest (such as auction). Your goal is to sell your home for a good price. But the typical agent’s goal is to sell your home for any price. As soon as possible.

*******************

This is an Excerpt from Neil’s latest book “EVERY QUESTION YOU MUST ASK BEFORE YOU SELL YOUR HOME”. To pre-order the full book, click on the cover below.