Interesting perspective from Marilyn at WAV Group on selling her house.
I Didn’t Hire FOUR Listing Agents!
“First, every one of the premiere agents and my listing agent called me back within minutes. This is not the normal response time I have experience in the past, so I was very pleased. Checkmark for all of them on responsiveness.
Now let’s get to the area that was very troublesome to me. I asked each agent to tell me a bit more about the house. I wanted to see how much they actually knew about the property. Had they visited it? Were they familiar with the neighborhood? The town? The Street?
I was very disappointed to find out that NONE of the premiere agents had been in the house or even in the neighborhood recently. They knew nothing about the property. They were simply using my property to troll for potential buyers. They were not experts in any way regarding the community or property they were representing”
Her experience mirrors mine in regard to agent responsiveness. I think Zillow is doing a great job of training agent to respond to inquires. In tests I’ve done on Zillow, agents are getting back faster than ever.
I’m not sure other agents not knowing the market is really Zillow’s fault, sadly its really a problem the whole industry has to deal with.
Greg, I had the same experience just yesterday.
I was on R.com looking at a condo located in a high rise in downtown Cleveland. I made a request for more information, and within 2-3 minutes I had a call.
Later that day I went to look at the listing. I met the gentleman who managed (in the first few minutes) to sell me on the fact that he was a downtown specialist, and “had an MBA”.
That’s nice to know he as schooling, but when I asked him, how many other units had previously been in (in the building)…, he said one (and I think he was not telling the truth).
For instance, when looking at the condo, he pointed out a feature of the kitchen island having an electric outlet. Turns out, all the units have the same feature.
Point being he didn’t know anything about the history of the building. He couldn’t find the gym, or the common areas, and he even got us locked out of the building by going into the garage and the door locking behind us.
The research I did on Zillow, gave me more background on the building than he had (like previous sale of the condo we were looking at, or for that matter, any of the other units).
He know about properties on the ‘other side of the flats’.., which is NOT downtown Cleveland.
To me (I’m a 4th generation broker first licensed in 1965… YIKES!!!), the idea of being an ‘area specialist’ seems to have fallen by the wayside.
Maybe it’s because of all the mergers, or maybe even before then with Board of Choice, but agents will drive anywhere for a commission. Maybe this will change when gas gets expensive again!!!!
Thoughts?
My point in writing the article is not to say that all agents need to know all properties. My point is that when a consumer looks at an agent attached to a particular listing, there’s an assumption that that they know that specific property. I don’t think any consumer expects an agent to know all of the inventory in their area intimately, but they DO have an expectation of expertise when you’re promoting yourself on a particular property.
I fundamentally think the consumer should clearly KNOW who the property’s expert is – the listing agent. They also can work directly with the buyer’s agent they have chosen. What I don’t like is that agents are using other people’s listing to troll for buyers. I feel like my house was used as bait and I don’t like it one bit.
This type of stuff happens in everyday life.
I get in a cab and they ask me for directions.
I go to a restaurant for a meal and its undercooked.
I could go on and on….
Who’s to blame?
Well, to be fair, the only test for becoming a premier agent is whether one has a valid credit card.