12/06/2018
Someone called me today and said “Hey I’m not ready to list the house but if you have a buyer I’ll sell it to them for $1.5m. Don’t worry, I’ll pay you 3%.”
I’ll tell you what I told him cause if you ever try to sell your home this way, you’re prolly gonna be sorry.
1. NWMLS rules prohibit “pocket listings” (when mls members market properties that aren’t listed for sale on the mls.) This can lead to losing your real estate license at worst, yuge fines at best. If an agent does this, you’re dealing with a con artist. I cannot market your property this way-It’s against the rules. Other states allow it, but those states tend to have other problems too, mmkurrr? That’s some trump university s**t right there and I won’t go near it.
2. By not exposing your property to the market you’re going to lose the benefit of competition. Example: if I bring him my buyer at $1.5, how will he ever know my buyer was willing to pay $1.7? How will he know if someone else out there sitting in their office perusing Zillow would have paid $1.8 if only they had a chance to even see it?
3. The commission angle: He offered me 3, but thinks he’s saving 3 by not paying 2 agents. If I could have gotten him 10% more, isn’t that worth paying out another 2-3 to a buyer’s agent?
4. By dictating my commission he’s taking away the opportunity for me to bring him a buyer and discount that commission on my own. Meaning that buyer won’t have the benefit of my helping them with some costs in order to get the transaction closed.
5. Also—it doesn’t work that way. You can’t call random agents and offer them this “deal” to bring their buyers. We aren’t keeping buyers in our pocket, we are actively marketing to them the properties that are listed, regardless of who listed it, and in some cases buyers that we are already working with will surprise us by wanting to see stuff that is the opposite of what they said they wanted.
6. Some agents refuse to act as a dual agent and some brokerages don’t allow it for the simple reason that it’s not conducive to earnest representation or negotiation if one person is working both sides of the deal.
So...Be best!!! 😂