Last week, I mentioned that I’ve never seen a time in real estate where more sellers are changing their agent (or considering changing their agent).
From the numbers that we’ve found, more property sellers tend to change agents in Queensland (as a percentage of the properties on the market) than in any other State or Territory in Australia.
I mentioned last week that in other cities around the country, it’s probably more accepted by sellers that the reason their property hasn’t sold is due to changes in the market…particularly when changes in other States have been so pronounced.
The market in South-East Queensland has been pretty stable and has not experienced the huge growth periods and huge declines that are as equally dramatic over the past twelve years.
If you asked most people (whether it be real estate agents, economists or anybody else) “How much growth or loss has there been in the market since 2008?”, most people wouldn’t have too much idea and some wouldn’t even know whether there has been a growth or a decline in median property prices.
The other factor to consider is that there’s always ‘a market within a market’…in other words, there are some suburbs of Brisbane that have experienced 20% growth over ten years and there are some that wouldn’t have yet seen 5% growth over the same period.
And you’d have to be an alien from another planet if you didn’t know that units have performed dismally over the past decade in comparison to stand alone houses.
So, when should you be blaming your agent and when should you look at other reasons your property has not yet sold?
It’s true that some agents simply lose enthusiasm for a particular property if it’s been on the market for some time.
Personally, I don’t subscribe to this theory as some of the most satisfying sales we’ve ever made are the ones we’ve really struggled to sell.
But if your agent offers no suggestion to change things up or increase the enquiry level, then perhaps they simply don’t have the training or experience to effect a sale until either A. the market turns a little (enough for the property to be viable in a buyer’s eyes)..or B. The right buyer just happens to walk into the market.
There are plenty of times when I’ll say to my sellers “We might not have found the right buyer yet but we’re experiencing a level of enquiry that is above average for your area and price range so I don’t want to change a lot right now as I feel we’re close to a result”.
I’ve had this discussion with plenty of sellers over the past few months and more often than not, we have achieved a good result that’s pleased our sellers within a fairly short period of time.
But if things are not happening, what else can be done to bring in new buyers?
As you know, most agents just revert to “We need to drop the price” as this is the only strategy that they know…and sometimes, there’s other things an agent can do to increase enquiry levels without having to compromise on price.
One thing I encourage every seller to do (even our sellers) is to mystery shop their agent and find out how long it takes for an agent to reply to the enquiry (and I’d try e-mails and phone calls).
I was chatting to one of our sellers last week and they told me that they have sent 8 email enquiries on different properties that they were looking to purchase and only one of the agents actually returned their email.
They included their mobile phone number for contact and not one of the agents actually called them.
If I was a seller of one of those properties and found out about this, that would infuriate me.
Also, I would mystery shop the agent and ask about the owners’ expectations on price.
I strongly disagree with the mantra “feed the greed” that too many real estate sales trainers feed their agents.
If your agent is telling you that they are constantly receiving low offers on your property, you want to make sure that this is not because the agent is implying that you’ll accept a low offer on your property.
So, if the agent is still enthusiastic, if they are representing your property with professionalism and if they are representing you in the right way, is it a good idea to change agents?
The truth is that the answer is probably a ‘No’.
Next week, I’ll share some ideas about how a change of agents could affect the sale in negative way and I’ll give some ideas on how to test an agent to see whether the pitch they’re delivering about why you should change agents and list with them is the truth.
On a final note, Happy 72nd Birthday to my amazing Father Reg (or Mick) as he’s more commonly known.
I still can’t beat you at golf but every day I feel blessed that I came into the world with you as my Father as I don’t know a better man than has ever walked this Earth.
Until next week, Happy Listing & Happy Selling.