Selling

Did you know that the majority of salespeople working in real estate today have little or no training in negotiation?

Best selling real estate author Neil Jenman (yes, the man on the television) claims that the average home seller misses out on $20,000 when selling their prized asset. 

How long would it take you to save $20,000? For most of us that will be months or even years. If it can all be lost in poor negotiation wouldn’t it make sense to at least interview an agent and discover their ability to negotiate?

Many home sellers want to know the answer to two questions. How much and How much?

How much will you get me and how much do you charge? These questions seem perfectly fair however they miss a very important point. The agent can simply lie (yes some agents lie) and win the business.

When you start in real estate almost every training course will offer a variation on the same theme. Tell the owner what they need to hear about the price and then work on reducing it after you get the listing.

In booming markets the lie price is overtaken by the market price and although it may take a little while the property is sold and the owner is none the wiser. In flat or falling markets this can be catastrophic. By the time the owner has wised up the chance of a good price has passed and the buyers start thinking of it as a lemon. You may have said this yourself, “there must be something wrong with it”. Often the only thing wrong was the pricing strategy. In some cases this has cost owners tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So what are the simple ways to avoid this problem?

• Ask you a price guarantee with the quote. If the property sells below the price quoted by the agent then don’t pay the agent. Why reward them for lying to you?

• Look for highly skilled agents, with a record of excellent results and interview them carefully. Imagine you were hiring someone to look after $20,000 cash. Would you be keen to know that they were trustworthy?

• Don’t shoot the messenger. Remember if you punish the agent for telling you the truth you will end up working with a liar. If they lie for you, they will lie to you.

• When pricing your home, look at it as though you were a buyer. All buyers shop by comparison; it’s how we all make decisions on almost anything we buy. If you were buying a home today in the current market, how much would you pay for your property?

Ultimately it’s about trust and skill.

 If you wouldn’t trust the agent with your cash, then keep looking until you find someone you do trust. Achieving high prices from buyers is a job that requires skill, highly skilled agents charge a fair fee for their work and should be able to demonstrate their worth.

There are plenty of agents out there who would like to sell your property, naturally our team would too. I believe that if you give us a go that you will be delighted with the results, but of course no agent is going to tell you that they will do a poor job.  I would invite you to interview me or one of my team. I am sure you will be delighted.

John Buckley

Director

To discuss selling your property call us on 02 6297 9191 or vial email sales@bhps.com.au