Stupid Realtor Strategies – “We Have Full Price Offer”

SUMMARY

One of the worst things that can happen to a seller is to get stuck with a lazy real estate agent.  A great listing agent always thinks about how to help the seller get the best offers and the most money for their house.

Here are two stupid mistakes the listing agent made on a property we were looking at:

1. Making it hard to show the property.

“Agent present to show,” makes seeing the house a pain in the neck for buyers. The harder it is to show, the less likely a buyer will want to look at it.

2. Announcing “We already have a full price offer.”

This basically talks other interested buyers out of making an offer which would create a multiple offer situation which is always better for your seller.  Your job is not to get the job done fast. Your job is getting the seller the best offer on the property. Instead, say, “We have an offer, but the sellers are open to a better one…”

That’s how to help your sellers win, and that’s how YOU win!  Don’t be one of those lazy real estate agents who couldn’t care less about their clients.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

To me it just epitomized a lazy realtor strategy.

I’ve got to admit, this one drove me a little crazy. We just recently bought our own house, bought another house. We sold the condo and bought a house, and while we were looking at houses you learn a lot about being a realtor, and you learn a lot about being a buyer or seller. We were looking at houses and our agent, we were using one of my inner circle members as our agent, and she was trying to schedule a showing with a property in Los Angeles. We were there in the car with her, and we’re scheduling an appointment for later that day, and I heard the agent say, “Your buyers may not want to bother. We already have a full price offer.” Now, she was first off, she was explaining to my agent that she was out of town, so she wasn’t going to be able to show the property today. So it was just like, to me, it just epitomized a lazy realtor strategy.

I want to just talk about today what this lazy realtor did that I think was bad business for her seller, and bad negotiating strategy, and just bad representation all the way around, so that you don’t make the same mistake. I think their lazy realtor strategies are huge mistakes. So I want to break down what the mistakes were that she made, and why they were mistakes, and how not to do it.

The first thing that she did was the agent made it inconvenient for a buyer to see the property because it was inconvenient for her or whatever reason. So part of the showing instruction was “agent must be present to show.” All right, so first that’s a pain. Unless there is some really, really valid reason why it’s important that the listing agent be there, buyers don’t want the listing agent there. Buyers agents don’t want the listing agent there. It doesn’t help sell a property most of the time. So the first thing she did was she made it where, and I think most of the time, I know a lot of times that listing agents do this because it kind of validates their value. It makes them worth their commission. See how hard I’m going to work? I’m going to be at every showing so I can really sell the daylights out of your house. You just, it doesn’t work that way.

Buyers aren’t going to buy a house because you’re a good salesperson. They’re going to buy a house because they like it. They’re going to walk in the house and then go like, “I don’t like this house.” “Well no, no, no, no, come in. Come check this out.” And then you try to convince them. Buyers like it or they don’t like it. It’s like they’re going to live in this house, it’s their home. So first is don’t make it hard for buyers to see a house. The harder it is to show, the less likely buyers are going to look at it, and if they do look at it, they’re annoyed and when they’re annoyed they’re not excited about a house. I want to fall in love with this house and you already annoyed me just trying to see the house. It’s like if it’s this much trouble to see the house because of the way you work, I don’t know if I want to do a deal with this agent or these sellers because it’s too much of a pain.

I’m telling you that as crazy as it sounds, buyers will literally pass on a house just because it’s too much of a hassle. Buyers are emotional. They’re emotional creatures and they make an emotional decision. So one, don’t make a house hard to show. That’s what she did. She made it inconvenient for us to see the property. One, to have it agent must be present to show, and two, because it was that way, she was out of town and it was inconvenient for her so she made it inconvenient for us. Big no no because we were highly motivated, highly qualified buyers who wanted to see this house. This seller lost out on us. So that was the first mistake, is making it inconvenient for buyers to see the house.

The second thing was they already had an offer. Which is awesome, congratulations for the seller, good for the seller. However, how do we know that’s the best offer? So when the listing agent said, “Your buyers may not even want to bother seeing the house, because we already have a full price offer.” She was basically trying to talk us out of coming to see the house, and trying to talk us out of coming and making an offer. What if we love the house? What if we were a perfect buyer, and what if we were willing to pay more money for the house to the seller than the other buyer? Do you think the seller would want to know about that? Do you think the seller would want to give us a chance to write an offer? And the answer is 95% of the time, absolutely yes. Because 95% of the time the seller wants the best offer, and here was this agent had one offer in the hand and they’re turning away other offers. They’re discouraging us from even doing that.

So that’s the second mistake and that is turning away buyers because you may have a deal. They didn’t have an executed contract. They had an offer, and apparently she liked the offer. I don’t know, but here’s what I know. Your responsibility as an agent is not to get the job done as fast as possible and make it easy for you to get a commission check so you can move on. Your responsibility is to represent the seller’s best interest. In real estate, as a real estate agent, you are a fiduciary of the seller. Which means you have a fiduciary responsibility and obligation to represent their best interest, which is typically to get them the best and highest offer on the property, right?

So instead of saying, “You know, your buyers probably don’t want to bother because it would be a pain in the neck for me to go show the house. So I’m just going to, just tell them not to bother. We already have an offer. We’re good, we’re good, we’re good.” Is the right thing to do would be to say, “That’s awesome. We’ll figure it out how we can get your buyers in there. We already have an offer, but the sellers are certainly open to getting a better offer.” Now you’ve got the buyers, you want the buyers knowing two things. Number one, that the seller wants to sell them the house. They want them to see it, it’s important, and letting them know they can’t dilly dally around. There’s an offer on the property, but the sellers want more offers. So again, your job is not just to get the job done fast to make it simple for you. It’s to get the best results for your client.

Now it is very possible, very likely that by turning away, if she turned away us who knows how many buyers she turned away that day. In a sellers market, it was on a weekend, no telling how many buyers got turned away because it was inconvenient for the agent and I guarantee you the sellers never knew. It could have literally cost those sellers tens of thousands of dollars to one, miss out on being in a multiple offer situation, and two, miss out on potentially getting the better off was still out there. But they never would know because the agent turned buyers away. That my friend is a lazy realtor strategy. We’ve got a full price offer, we don’t need any more. Come on now, you represent sellers. Getting a better result is going to grow your business, helping people win, they’re going to spread the word about it, and you’re going to get more business that way. No lazy realtor strategies please. Play to win and help your sellers win.