When it comes to Selling your home...No you can't have your cake and eat it too!!!

Every once and a while a person I speak with about listing their home will call me and say “we loved everything you had to say, but we are listing with someone else”. Which is fine but then they proceed to say well "You have such a great marketing plan, why don’t you use it and try to find a buyer for my house" …. EXCUSE ME? You just said I wasn’t good enough to list your home but hey if I want to take my time and resources and try to find a buyer and then get half the commission, feel free??? So, let me see if I can get this straight…I put forth the effort that I can guarantee the agent you hired is too lazy to do, I go out and market a listing that isn’t even mine, then I find a buyer… At this point the agent you hired says “See I told you I can sell your house” and they get at least half the commission too?? Sound to me like you want your cake and to be able to eat it too??

Yes, I said I will guarantee the agent you hired is lazy! How can I make such a statement? Because I know what I do to market a home, and I also know what every other agent does in my area! Now I know what you're thinking there are hundreds of agents in my area how can he possibly know what they all do? Well the answer to that is pretty simple I know the agents that actually try and sell homes, and I know the ones that simply park them on the Multiple Listing System and that is all they do. And believe me the latter far outweighs the agents that actually do something, anything more than sit on their backsides and hope a house sells….oh and they will do an open house too, just as the listing is about to expire so they can say “hey look at me I am trying….”

As I explained to this gentleman when he called me, and as I had told them when I met with him and his wife; you have decided not to hire me, I wish you the best of luck with the sale of your home. However I will not spend time marketing a home that isn’t my listing, it is unfair to the people that have entrusted the sale of their home with me for me to take time away from marketing their homes. I also told him in six months when it hasn't sold, I would be happy to speak with him again, and I might still be willing to list, market and sell their home….

Oh and here is the funniest part… The agent they picked has according to the MLS, over the last 7 years, has never SOLD A HOUSE HE HAS LISTED!! And he only has one sale in total and that was a buyer that bought something for a whopping $110,000….Yeah that was a good choice!!!