Sellers must avoid biggest mistake they can make

Sellers often fail to ask a vital question when interviewing potential listing brokers. (Flickr photo by David Davies)

When interviewing brokers to list their apartments for sale, prospective clients ask a lot of questions.

In many instances, the question that property sellers often want answered is how much of a fee the broker will demand.  (Many a listing presentation and meeting could be spared if sellers with commission as their sole criterion simply asked for the percentage before a meeting is scheduled.)

Among the other bits of information that sellers may seek relate to a broker’s track record — for example, how many sales the agent achieved in what amount of time and in which neighborhood or apartment building.

But the most critical query centers on

Agents don’t sell homes. Buyers do it themselves.

Bill Gassett

In no uncertain terms, Massachusetts real estate agent Bill Gassett declares in a post he wrote that “accompanied real estate showings do not sell homes.”

I am inclined to agree with him about the practice, in which the listing agent requires her or his presence when a buyer’s broker shows a property.  Says Gassett:

There is a long standing misconception amongst some people that Realtors “sell homes”. It may come as a surprise but

Broker’s unsolicited offer can cost sellers money

Accepting an unsolicited offer can lead to regrets. (Flickr photo by Muhammad Taslim Rasin)

Some brokers faced with tight inventory have been reaching out to owners of properties that are not listed for sale in an effort to meet their buyers’ needs.

I admire their enterprise, but consider the implications for a seller who decides to entertain an unsolicited purchase offer.

First, they have to conclude whether they need professional assistance to evaluate the offer and the buyer.  If they depend on the buyer’s representative, however, they have to confront the issue of divided loyalty in likely a dual agency arrangement.

Should such sellers decide to

Sellers always have the last word on offers

Submission of a back-up offer is where the rubber meets the road. (Flickr photo by theilr)

Back-up offers exist in the gray area of real estate transactions.

Nobody likes them more than listing brokers and their clients.

When pricing low, think through some outcomes

In a seller’s or even balanced market, one strategy to get the best price is to offer the property below its estimated market value.

The idea is that a low asking price will engender competitive bidding, otherwise known by a term I don’t much like — a bidding war.

However, wise is the seller who

There are sellers who can’t handle the pressure

(flickr photo by massdistraction)

The pressure on buyers making an offer or waiting for a seller’s response often can cause them to lose sleep.

What they may well forget is how intense the pressure can be on a seller as well, whether hoping for a good offer or deciding on accepting one that already has been made.

A recent experience underscored the point, which centered on

Sellers fall into five categories before listing

Dirk Zeller

Brokers frequently rue the difficulties of getting sellers to appreciate how their homes must look before putting them on the market.

In a lively Realty Times column, real estate guru Dirk Zeller puts sellers into five categories: Mr. Fix-It, a gung-ho renovator, a stuck-in-the-60s lover of the past, a do-nothing couch potato, and a human calculator.

He describes Mr. Fix-It as a type to

My own aunt ignores my advice about selling

Old Town Hall, Boca Raton (flickr photo by StevenM_61)

My 79-year-old aunt became a widow last year and put her home in Florida on the market with the idea of moving to a much smaller place and probably giving up her condo in the Boston area later on.

We happened to speak four days after it was listed for $884,000 at the end of December.  There was one buyer who visited the house in that short interval.  He professed interest, but my aunt is smart enough to have conceded that his interest likely will be fleeting.

The buying season was getting under way, she noted, correctly pointing out that it was too early to draw any conclusions about her prospects.

“The broker wanted to price it lower,” she told me with some reluctance.

“For how much?” I naturally asked.

There was a pause before she answered:

The High Road: ‘We have received several offers’

Take my offer, please! (Flickr photo by Kaptain Kobold)

Listing brokers and their clients like nothing more than receiving at least one offer.

Getting an acceptable offer can mean the end to open houses and diminishing anxieties about price, time on the market and that tired old kitchen.

Many brokers love to gin up the motivation of other prospective buyers by intoning the magic words, “We already have an offer.”  The hope, of course, is that providing the information will create buzz and generate even more offers, often better offers at or above the asking price with improved terms.

But

A home stager offers good advice for free

Karen Ginsberg

The first seller’s “don’t” offered by New Jersey home stager Kristine Ginsberg of Morris County is the one I liked the most.

In a blog post, she begins by saying that sellers shouldn’t think that they know more than their broker, insisting on a higher price than the broker advises.  Says Ginsberg:

They are the experts and know the market.  This is the most important “don’t” when selling your home, bar none!

It is good advice, though the notion of using what a professional suggests is hardly novel.

In her blog, the stager also distills some of the most important measures an owner can take to ensure a successful sale.