It’s so tempting isn’t it, to sign up the agent who says that he or she will work for low rates.
Every owner of every property deserves a fair chance at the market. If an agent is prepared to work for low rates, will he or she be prepared to lower the price you wish to sell for as well? To sell your property – you don’t need a bargain basement hawker – you need someone who knows how to sell and knows how to stand his or her ground. At open homes, one of the first questions buyers tend to ask is ‘What is the lowest the vendor is willing to accept?’ You want an agent who says the listing price and is ready to fight for your price.
For example, if a property is priced at $2,200,000 and the agent knows that the seller might take $2,100,000 you do not want an agent who says, ‘Oh look, I reckon they’ll take $2,000,000.’ If this happens, the buyer will be baited and think, ‘Well, if they’ll take $2,000,000, I might offer $1,900,000.’
You want an agent who stands their ground for you.
You want an agent who says, ‘I understand why you’re asking that but, look, we believe the list price is fair. However, if you’re willing to make an offer, I’m happy to present it.’ You want an agent who will work for you and try and extract at least one or two increases from the buyer prior to seeing the seller.
If you are considering a cut price agent, watch their skills at open homes, it’s a really good way to test. Ask them what they can get the property for? If they tell you a figure that’s below the list price, then what are they going to do when they’re selling your property?
What you need is an agent with a good recovery rate. A recovery rate is what agents will use to assess the increase in profit from the first offer to the eventual sale price. So if you have a property that was listed at $2,200,000 and the first offer came in at $2,000,000, a good agent will try and defend the seller’s list price and try to increase the offer.
If the agent gets the offer up up up and then finally reaches to $2,143,000 as the final price, the recovery rate would be $143,000. The recovery rate is the dollar figure above the first offer. You want someone that goes into battle for you, who has a good recovery rate, not someone who collapses and leaves money on the table for you. Nowadays, the Sydney property market has been crazy over the years, so when your agent leaves money on the table, it’s not $5000, it’s not $10,000, it can be $50,000 or even $100,000 or even $200,000. For property in a higher price bracket, the money left on the table can even be $500,000 or more. PICK YOUR AGENT CAREFULLY!. You don’t sell a house every week, some people may only sell their house once or twice in their lifetime. You want to make sure that you get the most money for your house in the current market.