Using a Realtor to Sell or Buy A Home

As anyone who follows this blog knows, we recently purchased a new home, despite not being able to sell our existing home. It is really a scary proposition and a major risk to take on dual mortgage payments. The question now becomes how do we sell our existing house, or do we go down the rental path.

Let me begin this story by looking back on the past year. My wife and I knew we wanted to move since the day we got married. While our existing house was fully livable under normal circumstances, the major issue was the house did not have a backyard. I am not talking about a small backyard. I mean literally the home was built all the way to the side and rear property lines and there is NO yard. Rather, the property has a large front yard. Apparently when the home was originally developed, it was acceptable, and I assume someone must have gotten variances to allow such a build. So the point is, with two young kids, we needed to buy a new home with a yard, as well as of course we would love more space, but it was not a necessity.

So right around the time the U.S. government home buying program was about to end last year, our great friends sold their house in a matter of a month, just before the government deadline. By that point, we realized, maybe we do want a Realtor to try and sell our home. The advantage being they do all the marketing, showing the house, and assistance with the process. The biggest advantage we felt was that someone else would be showing our house, and we would not have to hear people’s criticism, as people would naturally comment about the pluses and minuses of the property. What we failed to factor into our friends situation was that the house was new and beautiful, and in a great suburb, so we think the house sold itself, not the Realtor.

Since our friends sold their home so fast, we decided to use their Realtor. The gentleman was with a smaller, local realty company, and after meeting with him, we decided to sign with him. We tried “negotiating” the fee with the Realtor, but the only give he would give us would be to reduce his fee if the buyer came without an agent. It was not much, but at least it showed some willing to deal.

Pretty much right from the start the entire process was a disaster. The Realtor had made some recommendations for some things to improve around the property, all of which we performed almost immediately. The Realtor would than make promises to return to take new pictures and never showed. We would ask him to do things, and if we did hear back, it was usually several days later, if at all. Our biggest issue was we would request open houses because no one was coming through the door. When we did get open houses scheduled, our Realtor was not even the one doing the showing. Followed by we would not hear from our Realtor till at least 24 hours later, if at all about how the showing went. There were countless other issues we had with the Realtor, and finally a month or so shy of our contract end date, we fired him because all he wanted to do was argue and make excuses.

I eventually had to play hard ball and document every single mistake our Realtor had made along the way. Luckily I had emails and text messages of every conversation that I could use as my backup. After sending the list to our Realtor, and copying his boss, we finally got out of the contract.

The whole Realtor process really tarnished our opinion. We quickly realized apparently no one would work as hard as we would to meet our expectations. That was really surprising to us considering a Realtor does not get paid unless they sell the house.

Our Realtor at the end kept coming back at us telling us we needed to lower the price. The funny thing was, we were totally willing to lower the price. However, our Realtor chose the starting price of the home based on comparables. We agreed to the listing price based on his guidance, and we told him ahead of time he had complete control of the price to get the house sold. Then, when we saw how little the Realtor did for us throughout the whole process, we held back on lowering the price because we figured if this guy was not going to put any effort into selling the home, why should we lower it and give him the commission?

So then we had to decide what the next step was since we were now Realtor free. By this point it was October 2010, and with the holiday and winter season approaching, we decided to pull the house from the market. There was another Realtor we found by accident when we wanted to see a home for sale and it sold immediately. So we sat down with that Realtor to come up with a game plan.

Since our next son was due to be born in February 2011, under the guidance of the new Realtor, we wanted to get our house back on the market by the middle of March 2011. We knew what all the comparables were around us based on the new Realtor’s research.

We ultimately decided when it came time to list the house that again, nobody was going to work as hard to sell the house as we were. In addition, our goal was to continue to drop the price as low as we feasibly could, which makes it a lot easier when you do not need to pay a listing agent fee. So we went down the for sale by owner path.

Our best friends also were doing for sale by owner at the same time, and went with a flat fee listing agent to get their home on the MLS. We did the same thing. For the flat fee, they get you listed on the MLS, which then gets you on countless websites. In addition, we paid a fee to have a professional sign in our front yard, as well as our phone number to schedule showings. With the for sale by owner approach, we could put the same, if not more, effort into selling our home that a Realtor could.

My only major gripe unfortunately is I still need to deal with a buying agent if people show up with representation. Luckily though, I dictate how much commission they will receive up front. I almost consider Realtors like snake oil salesman. I just do not trust them because at least in my experience, they are only looking out for themselves no matter how much they claim they are working for you.

Our biggest complaint in dealing with Realtor’s, from the selling standpoint, is that when they do call the schedule a showing, they do not give you any heads up. Typically I will receive a phone call just hours ahead of when they would like to show the house. Quite frankly, this is almost impossible with our schedules.

My wife and I both work full-time jobs and do not get home till around 5-6 at night depending on our work schedules. Then we have two children under the age of two that require food, play, baths, and bedtime. On a typical night, this takes the whole night. Our sons have their toys out everywhere, and the house needs time for a showing.

As my wife said the other day, back when the housing market was great, it did not matter how you showed your house because it would sell. In today’s market, you absolutely need to have a home in the best shape possible for a showing. This means everything must be neatly put away, cleaned, dusted, and organized. With two young children, this just does not always happen overnight, let alone within a couple of hours.

If the Realtor had at least given us 24 hours notice, that is a completely different story. We can get the house show worthy and make accommodations for our boys so as not to interrupt their schedules completely.

I received a call from a Realtor last week requesting a showing. I politely explained we were having an open house that weekend, and we were not available that evening for a showing. The Realtor instantly began berating me on the phone because I could not show the home. I eventually thanked her and hung up the phone. Shortly after my call with the buyer’s agent wanting to show our house, I received a call from our flat fee listing agent that he was contacted by the Realtor. She was claiming we would not show her the house, and that she was threatening to report our Realtor to the board since it is a requirement that a home be allowed to be shown if on the MLS. We quickly added a provision to the listing to require 24 hour advance notice for showings. My Realtor said this was very typical of Realtors to attack his flat fee business plan and he said he deals with this all the time. The agent never even let me get a word in to try and schedule an alternative showing. Again I despise Realtors!!!

As a follow-up, I sent the Realtor an email explaining our schedules and our two young children, and that a 24-hour notice would be nice. I also mentioned I was completely offended by her actions. Several hours later I received an apology phone call, and she is working with her clients to try and schedule a future showing

So basically the purpose of this is I still have very little respect for Realtors. I am sure there might be some great Realtors out there, but in my first hand experience, they are terrible to work with and we recommend avoiding them if at all possible. If you have the least bit of knowledge, and are willing to put in some work marketing and showing your home, you too can sell without the need for a Realtor.

On a side note, we are represented by a Realtor on the new house we purchased, as I discussed in my post Our Hectic Week and Big Secret Revealed,and he has been absolutely amazing! Maybe we found the diamond in the rough. Or maybe it is because on the buying side we made him a killing on commission without having to put in much work. Either way, I have someone to turn to with my abundance of questions so I can pass on some valuable lessons to my readers.