Should you change agents if you’re haven’t yet achieved a sale?

It seems to be a hot topic at the moment and from what we’ve seen and heard, there’s plenty of owners that are considering this option right now.

The question is…Can another agent produce a different result?

There are many agents and real estate companies that do nothing more than target other agents’ listings and consistently work on the sellers to convince them that they have all of the answers in producing a sale when the reality is that they will do nothing more than work harder on the owner to reduce the price and obtain a result that the first agent could have achieved anyway.

Their theory is that if the first agent can’t sell it, the owner might be looking at the agents’ ability but if the second agent can’t sell it, then perhaps it’s not the fault of the agents and could be something to do with the price…and a result, the second agent is more likely to achieve a price reduction and obtain a result.

The logical question to ask any subsequent agent is “What are you going to do different to what my current agent is doing?”

In a recent blog, I shared some of the things that we will do differently if we’re engaged on a property that hadn’t yet sold at that stage, but my advice is to seek clarity and detail about the agent will actually do differently.

If they ramble on about a “Fresh approach”, don’t be scared to ask for details as to what a “Fresh approach” means.

What fascinates me is that some people do believe a flimsy sales pitch as it’s easier to believe that the fault lies completely within the current agent’s inability.

Only yesterday, I had a potential seller tell me that the reason they chose a particular agent (rather than us) was because they believe that buyers won’t want to deal with an agent that has an office outside of the suburb that the property is listed.

As they are looking at purchasing a home themselves right now, I asked them if they consider the location of the agent if they see a home they like for sale advertised online and they said “No we don’t”…to which I replied… “So how do you subscribe to the theory you’ve just given me?”

They looked at each other and couldn’t answer the question.

Around 18 months ago, one of our sellers did decide to list with another agent who claimed that they’d have a “fresh approach” but they listed the property with the same photos and copied my advert word for word…so it was the exact same online advertisement – so much for a “Fresh Approach”….and it ended up selling for a figure of $295,000 after we took an offer to owners of $320,000 originally but they rejected this offer.

If you ask the question to a second prospective agent about what they’ll do differently and they ramble on about their “incredible database”, there’s a 99% chance that you’re hearing another unrealistic sales pitch.

The reason I say this is because it’s very rare that a buyer (the buyer that’s prepared to pay the highest price) is lying dormant on a database without being out there are physically searching for properties themselves.

Any buyer not actively in the market would have to be considered reasonably unmotivated (unless they came across a bargain…which is not the buyer that we want to sell to anyway).

We have a huge database ourselves, but the truth is that less than 1% of our sales come from buyers that aren’t actively looking.

We do make a portion of our sales that might be “Off Market” listings from our database, but if these properties were advertised, then the buyers would almost certainly have seen it online.

So again, this pitch is nothing more than an unethical way to persuade a seller to change in the hope that this agent will succeed in reducing the price to obtain the sale.

If another agent offers a pitch that goes along the lines of “We have buyers that would buy your property?”, I often counteract this with a written declaration that I will pay the other agent 110% of the commission should they produce a buyer that pays the asking price or more for their property.

So how would this work?

I would pay 100% of the commission to the agent that supposedly has a buyer and I would dip into my pocket and pay an extra 10% to them for effecting the sale…and I’d even allow them to promote the fact they were the agency that made sale.

If the buyer pays less than the asking price and a sale is effected, then we’ll split the commission with this agent on a 50/50 basis.

I’ve been offering this arrangement to other agents that have been hassling our sellers for almost 12 months now…and have a guess how much money I’ve paid out to these other agents? Not a single dollar.

So, if other agents come swarming around you and your property if it’s been on the market for a little while, ask your agent to make the same offer and then you’ll quickly find out whether they legitimately have a serious buyer or whether they’re just trying to list your property and do the same thing.

The truth is that a change of agents can often stop momentum and if the original agent is working on a few buyers that might be keen, this agent is to cease all activity with these buyers as they no longer have an authorisation to act on the sellers’ behalf so it’s not necessarily the ideal scenario.

When an owner changes agents, many buyers that are studying the market will make an assumption that the owners might be desperate…and there’s always a percentage of sellers that will constantly change agent after agent until the property is sold (these sellers usually blame the agent when it is not their fault)…and this is definitely not the best way to achieve an optimum price.

So, in conclusion, if you see fault with your current agent that they can’t rectify (and it pays to be reasonable about where the fault may lie), then by all means change your agent.

We have honestly sold at least 15 properties this calendar year that were first listed with another agent who didn’t produce a result but don’t change agents for the sake of it if you can’t really find fault in what they are doing.

Many times, you might be surprised to learn that when you change agents there’s no silver bullets and that your property is still on the market with little change to the outcome unless you’re prepared to compromise on price which is what many agents will bank on.

Until next week, Happy Listing & Happy Selling.