Listing Agent No-No’s

Here’s part 1 of my effort to help raise the general quality of real estate agents by educating the buyers and sellers in what they should look out for or what they should expect from their agent. Part 1 has to do with practices of some listing agents that no seller should put up with. If your listing agent is doing or has done any of these things, have a serious talk with them. Greg from BlueRoof Blog in Utah has a wonderful post on the difference between good and bad agents. Anyway, here’s my list. Feel free to add to it in the comments.

Lack of communication with client - Communication between agent and seller is crucial. Do not put up with an agent who doesn’t return your calls or emails.

Incomplete or error-filled listing on the MLS - This is simply filling out a web-based form accurately and thoroughly. I’ve seen egregious errors such as a $400K house listed at $4 million (added one too many zeros) and had it sit on the market with the wrong price for 3 days before the error was noticed and corrected. A friend of mine gave me another example. The condo next to hers was listed with the wrong address. After days of no showing activity, the agent convinced the seller to reduce the price of the house. Never mind the part where nobody could find the house to go show it because of incorrect information.

Limited number of pictures or no pictures added to the listing – Pictures are worth a thousand words. In this day and age of digital cameras, there is no excuse not to have multiple pictures included in the listing. It’s fast and easy. Yet, every day I see new listings with no pictures. I even see listings near the million dollar mark without pictures. It really isn’t doing the seller or their house any justice. Equally disappointing is just bad pictures; pictures that don’t really show anything. For instance, 10 pictures of the yard doesn’t tell a buyer anything about the house. Is there something wrong with the interior?

No follow-up with potential buyers and their agents - Your agent should follow-up (or try to) with any buyer or buyer’s agent that expresses interest. Even if they’re not interested in buying, your agent should try to get as much information out of them as possible. What did they think of the property, why aren’t they interested, etc.

Pressure tactics to drop price - Price drops are sometimes inevitable. However, it shouldn’t be the first thing the listing agent turns to if there’s no action on the house. Have they properly marketed the house? What’s the feedback been saying?

Buying the listing - This is the practice of promising the seller that their house can fetch a very attractive (high) amount just to get the listing. Once they’ve got you under contract, they’ll complain that nobody’s interested because the price is too high. Make them justify their price.

Cheap flyers – There are some agents that want to save a buck so they go cheap on their advertising material. Flyers in the flyer box, in my opinion, has to be in color. Preferably a somewhat designed flyer to showcase the house as well as possible. I’ve seen agents use the standard printout from the MLS system or what looks like a print-out from a website. Then when the price changes, they cross out and hand write the new price on the old flyers. Thank goodness I don’t see this a lot, as it would drive me crazy that someone is actually paying that agent for that kind of marketing.

Lack of knowledge or due diligence – About a month ago I took a client to look at this one house. It was okay, nothing great, yet nothing particularly bad about it. My clients thought about making an offer, but we ended up not doing anything about it. I tracked it to see when it would sell and for how much. It recently closed and I noted its final price. Almost a week after that house had closed, a new house came on the market $50k under the house we had looked at. The catch was…this new house was right next door; same style home and similar size but $50k less. My clients (the same ones) wanted to make a move on it just because it was so cheap. I get a call from the listing agent that evening telling me basically that they didn’t realize how much the house next door sold for so they are raising their price $20k to be more in line with the market. I don’t know the exact circumstances, but as a seller, I would expect my agent to know about the house right next door that closed just before I was going to put my house on the market.

This list is not meant to alarm you. There are many agents that do their job as they should with the interests of their client at the forefront. However, if you or anyone you know encounters a situation where they don’t like the performance of their agent, the listing contract can be cancelled at anytime regardless of how long the listing is for. Some agents will claim you can’t get out of the contract until expires. Nonsense. It can be cancelled,… anytime. If they refuse, document what you don’t like about your agent’s performance, your attempt(s) to cancel the listing agreement and then contact the listing agent’s managing broker. Or when you sign the listing, include a written agreement that you will be let out of the contract with no hassle should you choose to. If your agent isn’t working for your business, they don’t deserve your business.