Lies Real Estate Agents Tell Homeowners With Expired Listings

In this highly competitive market real estate agents jump on expired listings. So, when your listing expires you can expect a flood of calls from real estate agents eager to win your listing starting the morning your listing expires or gets canceled. Unfortunately, this is going to be a vulnerable time for you because you are probably not happy with the real estate agent you’ve been working with over the past few months and are ready to make a fresh start with a new real estate agent but don’t want to make the same mistake of picking an agent that can not sell your house a second time.

Expect calls from lying real estate agents trying to weasel their way into your home to steal away your listing. Failure to see through their lies may result in hiring a real estate agent that you will not be happy with. Here are a few of the most common lies you’ll hear from real estate agents when your listing expires.

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Top 10 Signs That You Hired a Bad Real Estate Agent

Not every real estate agent is worth having.  How can you tell a good agent from a bad real estate agent?  Here are the top 10 signs that you might have hired a bad real estate agent…

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Beware of Real Estate Agents That Inflate List Prices To Get Listings

Beware of a Realtor that inflates the list price to get the listing.

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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Is Your Real Estate Agent Doing Everything Possible To Sell Your House?

Snotty AttitudeImagine 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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Freakonomics: Real Estate Agents Get 3% More Selling Their Own Home Than When Selling Yours

BarChart-w-cloudsAccording 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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Is FSBO a No No???

SoldDue to the anti-real estate agent sentiment and the promise of saving lots of money, selling as a FSBO seller has never been more popular.  Over the past 10 years, selling the home yourself, or FSBO (For Sale By Owner), became popular and marketing companies selling FSBO kits and promotional materials have quickly cashed in on the craze.   Internet shopping for homes has increased in popularity and it’s much easier now for the do-it-yourself home seller to promote their own house.  But I don’t think that’s the reason FSBOs became popular.
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5 Tips for Selling a House in a Tough Market

Make Your House Stand Out

No matter how bad the market becomes, there will always be buyers and sellers.  Make sure that you fall into one of those categories.  If you are getting ready to list your house, there are several things you can do to ensure that your house sells as soon as possible for as much as possible. « Continue reading article »

Analyzing a Real Estate Agent’s Track Record

When narrowing down the field of agents to interview, analyzing an agent’s track record helps to separate the agents that can sell a house from the agents that just interview well. Use these stats to eliminate the bad agents before you start interviewing. [Read More...] . . . → Read More: Analyzing a Real Estate Agent’s Track Record