1. "Your open house is really a party for
me."Hire a real estate broker to sell your home and one of the
first things he'll likely suggest is hosting an open house, so potential buyers
can casually check out your property on a weekend afternoon. While open houses
are promoted as a great way of finding a buyer.
Having
an open house serves another important purpose - for the broker. It gives him a
database of clients, At open houses, you get all kinds of people walking in.
2. "My fees are negotiable."Brokers
like to make it sound as if their fees are engraved in stone, but that's rarely
the case - especially in a brisk market, when brokers fiercely compete for
properties they can unload fast. Sometimes the brokers lowered their fee by a
full percentage point because there was so much demand for good properties that
he needed leverage. The sellers should shop around for broker's fees. It
suggests their negotiating tactics: If somebody's willing to commit to sell one
place and buying another, they give a discount
3. "Think you've had no offers? Actually, there've
been several."Legally, the broker you hire to sell
your home is obligated to tell you about all offers that come in. In reality,
some don't. Perhaps he thinks the offer is insultingly low for you, but more
likely, the broker thinks it's too low for his own purposes. He wants to hold
out for a bigger commission, Or else there's an outside broker (or
"co-broker") circling your house, and the primary broker is waiting
for one of his own clients to make an offer so that he can keep his full commission..
4. "I talk about you behind your back."You
spot your dream house as you're driving through a neighborhood and call the
broker listed on the For Sale sign. That's how a lot of buyers stumble on a
broker - who, in turn, happily shows you other houses, asking about your needs,
laughing at your jokes. It's easy to get loose-lipped and forget whom you're
dealing with: someone else's agent. Brokers are obligated to provide their
sellers with any information that can help them to get the best prices for
their homes, If you tell the broker that you're willing to pay Rs.5,00,000 but
want to offer Rs.4,50,000, they'll pass that on to the seller. They have to.
5. "Sometimes I forget whose side I'm on."The
past 10 years have seen the proliferation of the buyer broker; agents who are
supposed to work strictly in the buyer's interest, helping him get a fair price
on a home as well as avoid pitfalls along the way. Unfortunately, things don't
always unfold so nicely. While buyers may think they're getting a broker who
isn't commission-hungry, many buyer agents are just that:
6. "I know zilch about zoning."Realestate agents love to suggest big ideas to prospective buyers - say, removing
trees to enhance a view, or even squeezing a rental unit out of a roomy garage
- meant to happen once the deal is done and they're out of the picture. We had
a client who bought a dilapidated house with a beautiful piece of property. The
broker told him that he could fix the house up however he wanted, insisting
that this was a sleepy little town where nobody would care what he did. He put
up a Rs.75,000 shed in his backyard, pulled down trees, filled in some of the
marshland. Now the town is making him put things back because of environmental
zoning regulations.
7. "I won't let termites - or pesky inspectors
- kill a deal."If a broker is selling a house, you
figure he knows the place pretty intimately - after all, he talks a good game
about the new kitchen, the big closets, the heated garage. What you need to
worry about, though, are the home's features that he keeps to himself. We have
had cases where brokers have been
deceptive about termites and flood damage.
8. "I'm not a lawyer, but I play one in your
house."Most states strictly regulate the contracts used in real
estate transactions, stipulating the use of boilerplate agreements that offer
little room for creativity - but some brokers can't keep their clause-adding
instincts in check. I see brokers pushing the envelope all the time with
amendments and addenda. They draft language that can have consequences without
really understanding it - but they want to keep the sale going.
9. "My Web site is a dead end."Considering
that over 50% of house hunters look on the Web, according to the National
Association of Realtors, sellers might assume that using a broker with a site
can help make a sale happen. But some brokers' sites are better than others,
and you need to look beyond a well-designed home page to figure that out.
One
common flaw: posting houses that sold long ago. While the mistake can be simple
negligence, others think that it's a bait-and-switch-style ploy. It brings
people in, but it gets them upset when they find out that the property's gone.
If a broker has to advertise properties that are already sold, it tells you
that he doesn't have enough inventory to keep his roster of houses full.
10. "You may not need me at all."Brokers
like to create a lot of mystique about selling homes, insisting that the
process is complicated and best left to professionals with multiple listings
and loads of house hunters. Not so, say homeowners who have sold their homes
themselves about 20 to 30% do so each year. The properly priced and advertised,
a house sells itself, adding that
sellers should plant a yard sign and post online ads with local sites aligned
with print publications (call current advertisers to see if the given site is
effective).
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