Rarely is it a good idea to use the same agent that sold your last house to sell your current house.  You should focus on finding an agent that is successful in your new neighborhood instead of using your old agent that was an expert in your old neighborhood.  Successful real estate agents focus on a targeted area and because of that focus, they perform better in certain areas than they would in other areas.  So the same agent that you used to sell your last house may not perform as well selling your current house.
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Most people will tell you that real estate agents are all the same so it really doesn’t matter which one you decide to hire.  If you practice that philosophy, you are guaranteed to have a hard time selling or buying a house.

Top producing real estate agents know the market and know how to position your house to sell in that market.  They sell houses like chefs prepare exquisite cuisine in high-end restaurants.  On the other end of the scale are real estate agents that overprice their listings, don’t market them correctly and don’t aggressively sell their listings, relying solely on fate to sell their listings.  Bad agents are like cooks, shoveling greasy food in fast food restaurants.  Do you want to hire a chef (top producing real estate agent) or a cook (bad real estate agent)?  You should focus on hiring chefs. Continue reading » »

Beware of the Inflatable Realtor

A real estate agent that inflates a list price beyond reality just to get the listing is deceptive and may be harmful to the sale of your house.  The deceptive practice of inflating the list price is effective because the client wants to hear that their house is worth a high price.  Bad agents are more than eager to feed into this delusion.  Good agents base their suggested list prices on real conditions so they will be lower than an inflated price.  If you want to get the most for your house, and everybody does, you’d naturally pick the real estate agent with the inflated price.  Now you’re falling victim to the Inflatable Agent’s trap.
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Imagine this scenario.  It’s been 120 days since your agent put a for sale sign in your yard.  On the day you hired your Realtor, she promised it would be a successful working relationship.   Weeks later, this “relationship” somehow turned into a “one-night stand.”   She doesn’t return your phone calls, she never drops by and now there’s a bird’s nest occupying the empty Info Box that use to hold your house’s brochures so many months ago.
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According to the book Freakonomics, written by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt, real estate agents sell their own homes for 3% more compared to what they get when they sell their client’s houses.  The authors suggest dishonesty and double-standards as the reasons for this finding, but I think there’s a more honest reason why Realtors may be able to get a higher selling price for their homes compared to their clients’.
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