From a Realtor friend:
I was working with a buyer about a year ago, we had spent some time looking at homes and narrowing down different options for him and his wife to make a decision that was good for them as well as their daughter.
We found a home that met the needs and wants list and was in very good shape. Pride of ownership was apparent with this home. The listing agent was a well advertised selling agent in the local market. We submitted an offer, following the listing agent’s instructions. We were told by the listing agent’s office that offers would be collected up to a certain date and then sent to the seller for consideration.
After a couple days had gone by, the property popped up in an automatic search which had been set up for my buyer. The price had been reduced by $5,000 on the property days after we had put in an offer! I immediately went to work drafting a new contract at the new list price. We withdrew the first offer and replaced it with the second at the new lower asking price.
We ultimately did not get this home for our buyer, but we’d like to use this example to focus on the selling agent’s tactics. This particular ”mega agent” advertises a “system” to get your home sold quickly if you choose to list your home with him. His tactics are not much different on a house for house comparison to what most agents would do for their client, but let’s explain exactly what happened from the seller’s perspective.
This particular seller most likely saw or heard this mega agent’s advertising in their local market. They fell for the advertising tricks the listing agent was using to get them to call and once they had the seller on the phone with this agent’s office (not the agent himself) it was “game over”, as they say. It’s highly likely this seller never even spoke to the agent.
Ultimately what happens is the sellers list their home and follow this agent’s formula for getting it sold, which primarily consists of periodically lowering the price until the home has an offer on it. From my buyer’s perspective, the only thing we saw this formula do was lose the seller a significant amount of money for this property.
In this particular case, the agent did a better job of advertising than actually working real estate. This agent not only was negligent to the seller, but also to the bank because the very system he pitches to his clients is also costing them precious dollars in today’s market. This “Mega Agent” was also unreachable by phone and had automated processes set up to avoid contact with people. I even heard this agent speak at a conference bragging about how he hasn’t had a buyer in his car “since 1984.”
