Stephanie says...
…it often falls to the real estate agent to help set realistic expectations. The Market judges a home’s value – not appraisers, not agents and believe it or not – not past home sales in the neighborhood. A home’s value is totally and completely based on what a buyer is willing to pay for it at any given time. Buyers in 2009 are simply not willing to enthusiastically pay the same amount they would have just a year ago in most markets. This is no doom and gloom scenario -quite the opposite. Nashville’s market is one of the healthiest in the country. We were recently named to Forbes Top 10 Places to Buy a Foreclosure. They only way you make that list is by having a sunny outlook and a probable appreciation in the vary near future.
Most agents right now are working with sellers who have forced them to set a price higher than the market will bear. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a listing agent say “please, just make us an offer” after watching the days on the market number hit critical mass.
Another common experience for agents right now – losing listings to other agents. An agent might tell a seller that their price is too high until they’re blue in the face, but the seller won’t budge and they become unhappy with the agent’s service. The seller’s contract expires or they withdraw their listing with the intent to list with another company. The seller listens to yet another agent tell them that their price is too high so the seller now lists at the last agent’s recommended price with the new agent. The house promptly sells at the lower price. The new agent is very happy while the old one is cursing the day he got his license.
When working with sellers, I regard my job as an agent to be a hand-holder, a fire-putter-outer, and an advocate. When you hire me to sell your house, my goal is to get the transaction to the closing table as quickly as possible without any hassles. This can be very hard to do without seller cooperation and level-headedness. People become a little looney with it comes to money and transaction negotiations can become tough and bogged down without objective agents to keep the fire under control. This is the primary reason it is so hard to sell your home without an agent. Well, that and the under-exposure FSBOs get without being seen in the MLS.
So maybe I’m rambling – it’s a frustrating, rainy day. My point here is that sellers should approach sales price and negotiations with the objectivity that today’s market demands. Agents are not, though some may claim to be, miracle workers.
