I’ve often been criticised from within the real estate industry for writing about the unethical tactics that agents use in order to obtain listings and sales.
The nature of selling real estate dictates that it is normal for an agent to work without an income unless they make a sale (and even if they are paid a salary, they have firm quotas to meet in order to keep their job) – it is one of the few industries where this occurs (however the regulating industry body is working to overturn this kind of remuneration…as described in some of my recent blogs).
This might be great for real estate sales employees but (in many instances), it actually places more pressure on the owner of a real estate business to ensure that sales are made, and that income is flowing through steadily through the door.
Because my personal team and I have been established and have a good track record, we don’t have this constant pressure at ‘Innov8 Property’ but from what we hear through the eyes of our clients (that might be selling through another agency if they’re buying through us or buying through a different company if they’re selling through us) is that the boundaries of ethical and legal activity in real estate are being crossed (and sometimes completely disregarded) on a frequency that is quite alarming.
Unfortunately, one of our past clients just fell for two tricks in one hit that is an all-too-common procedure…
We initially listed this client’s property for a figure of “Offers above $699,000’.
To be honest, this was a little higher than we recommended as we had initially appraised their home for $650,000 to $670,000.
They were on the market for a couple of months and it was one of the few listings that we were struggling with as we weren’t obtaining many enquiries at all (despite our best efforts of altering the marketing, strategy and presentation of the home).
We did receive a very clean offer of $650,000 (the initial offer was $600,000 so we worked them up $50,000) but the owners declined the offer as they really needed more money in order to move forwards.
Anyone that has sold through us before will know that we don’t place any pressure on our sellers to accept an offer that they aren’t comfortable with – our theory is that it’s not up to us to determine how the sale affects their next move.
If an owner asks for our advice, we’ll certainly provide it based upon how the campaign is tracking to date but you’d be surprised to know how many offers we advise our sellers to reject (or at least counter with a higher figure).
Anyway, the offer of $650,000 was rejected.
We kept working on their property and they did come to us and ask us what they needed to do in order to get the property sold.
I recommended to change the price to “Offers above $649,000” in order to invoke some enquiry and I was hoping to drive the price up to $660,000 or $670,000 but the owners remained firm with their price which was fine by me.
The first deceptive trick of some real estate agents (and usually the ordinary agents that don’t receive constant enquiry based upon their reputations and results) is to target other agents’ listings in order to lure them over to list with their agency.
There’s a myriad of scripts that they use that include…
“We have buyers for your property” or “You need a fresh approach”… and often these agents will place pressure on the property owners and make them feel like everyone is watching their listing because it has been “On the market for so long”.
Only a few weeks ago, I had an agent target one of my listings that had only been on the market for 3 weeks using this exact dialogue and when I viewed their listings, this particular agent carried 4 listings that had all been on the market for more than 4 months.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, these owners of my property believed the agent that was hounding them (again, with similar dialogue as described above) – they finished up with us and listed with them.
I was surprised to see it first listed for a figure of “Offers above $649,000” when it came on the market with them…the exact figure that I recommended only weeks earlier.
I didn’t really think much more of this listing after I first saw it online as I figured that it would be sold reasonably quickly at this price.
You won’t believe how this story quickly unfolded from this point…and without trying to keep you in complete suspense (OK I am trying to keep you in a little suspense), next week I’ll share the events that happened next and how this listing took an incredible turn of events that you won’t believe.
Until then…Happy Listing & Happy Selling!
Before I go, I did predict that interest rates would fall and I also predicted that the major banks wouldn’t pass on the full cut (as per last week’s blog) and this all followed script a little too well…so hopefully I can make three predictions in a row when I predict that Queensland will win the opening ‘State Of Origin’ with a field goal in the 79th minute (and a winning score of 21-20).
Go you Mighty Maroons…and here’s a little gem that is all so true!
