Real Estate Agents - How much do they do?

[Red]

Not many people pay full commisions, especially when you sell and buy with the same agent.

Open houses are not recommended. It's usually a red flag, it means that you are having a hard time selling. Plus who wants your neighbours coming it just to see how you live.

House market in calgary is set by your neighbourhood, not you or the new granite counters you just put in. No one cares how much you spent on the renos, your house is worth as much as most similar homes in the neighbourhood. Having a clean or done up home means that you will sell faster.

My 2c. I've sold twice and bought 3 times. Those are the impressions I got when on the market each time.

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by Dan02

as long as you're willing to move around/get certified where ever the hot markets are then you're going to make a mint being a agent, as much as we might hope Calgary won't be the hot market it is forever.

I'm actually in Van, where I expect the market to remain burning hot for a long time.

[Buff]

Originally Posted by Red

Open houses are not recommended. It's usually a red flag, it means that you are having a hard time selling. Plus who wants your neighbours coming it just to see how you live.

House market in calgary is set by your neighbourhood, not you or the new granite counters you just put in. No one cares how much you spent on the renos, your house is worth as much as most similar homes in the neighbourhood. Having a clean or done up home means that you will sell faster.

Great. Our realtor believes in open houses. We've had one every week since we listed at the beginning of August. Its not just our house though as he has been having open houses with all his other properties too.

I'm probably just frustrated because the house isn't moving quickly. I'm sure we've figured some stuff out on our own on how to make the house look appealing. The time of year isn't great, it was just unfortunate that we found our dream house too late in the summer.

[Buff]

Originally Posted by fotze

Realtors usually have open houses to drum up future clients. People walk in without a realtor and leave with yours as their realtor.

Thats how I got my realtor!

[troutman]

Why use a realtor:

http://www.creb.com/public/hseller/h...-a-realtor.htm

I'm frustrated with people who sell homes without a realtor, then expect they can get all of the advice that a realtor would normally provide, from the lawyer (for free).

[boobaloo]

Different realtors do make a huge difference. We had our house listed for 60+ days with a realtor who wasn't marketing it right. Changed to the "area specialist" realtor and it sold inside a week. It's all about marketing. And knowing the market inside and out. Not every realtor does.

Oh, and I didn't mind paying the commission, either, because it got the house sold and we needed it done. It is alot, I know, but they have to split it with the other realtor and their office depending on the arrangement they have.

[return to the red]

Originally Posted by Buff

Great. Our realtor believes in open houses. We've had one every week since we listed at the beginning of August. Its not just our house though as he has been having open houses with all his other properties too.

I'm probably just frustrated because the house isn't moving quickly. I'm sure we've figured some stuff out on our own on how to make the house look appealing. The time of year isn't great, it was just unfortunate that we found our dream house too late in the summer.

who are you listing with Buff? Our house just listed on Thursday. Hopefully we aren't competing for the same type of buyer. It's such a pain in the ass making sure everything is perfect before you head off for work

[Red]

Originally Posted by fotze

Realtors usually have open houses to drum up future clients. People walk in without a realtor and leave with yours as their realtor.

Exactly and some have thier assistants to actually do the showing. Just say no to open houses.

[NuclearFart]

The realtor situation out here in Vancouver is ridiculous. I've never dealt with a larger group of uninspiring, pretentious, dishonest and artificial people. I take it as a sign of the times, as the houses sell themselves out here irregardless of what a realtor is doing.

It seems that virtually anybody is able to do very well for themselves, while barely lifting a finger, let alone bothering to smile. As a buyer, I went through 5 different agents before I finally found one that was half decent, or at least tried to give me the impression that they cared.

Are they all like this? No of course not, but there is definitely an inordinate amount of no-talent hacks running the show out here. You can be the worst used car salesman on the lot, but with a quick "career change", suddenly become a millionaire. I feel sorry for the good realtors, as their professional name is being soiled. Bring on the recession please, it's time to clear out this garbage.
________
Volcano Vaporizer

[Ironhorse]

Originally Posted by Red

Exactly and some have thier assistants to actually do the showing. Just say no to open houses.

It may be a bit different now than last year, but when our house was listed, we immediately had an open house on both Saturday and Sunday. I think they had about 50 showings (judging from all the realtor's calling cards) and on Sunday night we had three offers, one of which was 20K over the asking price. Mind you, that was a pretty crazy summer.

[teamchachi]

The 80-20 rule applies to realtors. There are a lot of bad realtors out there and there are some really good ones.

20% of the realtors sell 80% of the real estate. There is a big difference between a realtor who simply lists your house on the MLS, and a realtor who is connected and really knows what they're doing.

I flipped 7-8 houses over a couple of years and spent a lot of time with my realtor as both a buyers agent and sellers agent. I ended up having contact with a LOT of realtors and it became very apparent who was good and who wasn't.

A good realtor can easily cover their fee by getting you more for your house. The includes staging your house, advice on improvements before listing, listing properly and timing the market, and negotiating skills.

Anybody who thinks a good realtor is a waste of time has no idea what they are talking about.

And no, I'm not a realtor.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

With respect to that 80/20 comment on realtors, wiht with all due respect to the realtors here, I've noticed a trend for people to get their realtor license as a get rich quick thing. Maybe it seems easy, but there sure are a lot of bad realtors who just seemed to get into the act as it seemed like an easy thing to do.

The selling agent for our place was a prime case of that. Had no idea a condo of 3 people still needed a reserve fund. Mispriced the place so bad (30% more) that when 200 people came through on an open house weekend, not one offer was given (this was at the peak of the market 1.5 years ago). Unilaterally cut the commision the buying agent would get - I'm told under normal circumstances a buying agent might not even bring a client to a place if they did that. Dealing with her was a nightmare - it was clearly her 1st sale. She did stage it well... must have watched some house flipping shows...

[Buff]

Originally Posted by return to the red

who are you listing with Buff? Our house just listed on Thursday. Hopefully we aren't competing for the same type of buyer. It's such a pain in the ass making sure everything is perfect before you head off for work

I hear ya. We left our house in a "mess" one day because we figured there wouldn't be a showing... it was a weekend and we weren't tied up at work but we found ourselves rushing to get the house nice and tidy for a showing.

I won't say who the realtor is, I don't want to tarnish anybodies name or reputation. For all I know my house doesn't need much work or changes and it isn't selling because of the time of year. Its one of those situations where it could be his advice, or it could be the time of year plus current market situation.

[Slava]

All I can say is that our realtor did a phenomenal job for us this Spring. He took care of everything and we sold our place much, much faster than the people on our street using welist.

I also think that the whole realty commission debate here is largely slanted. Sure, they can make $20k in a deal...but they do have a lot of expenses, and they tend to work extremely long days for that money. I don't begrudge another guy doing a job very well and being very well compensated for that job.

[Sylvanfan]

^^^
Yeah, as was mentioned above...we know how much money they make and thats what probably ticks people off more than anything.

In Edmonton and St.Albert most peole use Comfree if they try to sell a house themselves. I think it's similar to we-list where you pay a $700 fee and they'll advertise your house until sold type of thing. Well I have not seen a Comfree listed house in my area with a sold sign on it for at least 5 months. And there have been a lot of places started Comfree that are now on the MLS. When the supply is what it is these days most people are going to use a realtor to buy because realtors are better for buyers. When you pay a realtor to sell you home, you're more or less paying them for the service they do for the buyers who buy the houses because in most cases thats where the bulk of their work is. But without a buyer...you can't sell.

[ken0042]

The other thing with using a service like Welist- buyers often know you are saving money on not using a realtor, and expect to see that much of a discount in the price of the house. So instead of paying a realtor $20K to do all the work for you, you can end up paying the buyer $20K to make you do all the work.

[Radley77]

There is currently a lot of seller's on the market with record levels of inventory right now. Realtors are probably focusing on finding potential buyers right now. Daily statistics are available at www.bobtruman.com
Inventory has increased as follows for single family homes:

June 15: 4229
June 30: 4443
July 15: 4592
July 31: 4510
August 15: 4633
August 31: 4821
September 15: 5268

Unless you sell your house under what the market is right now it likely won't sell in a hurry. The average price of a single family home has declined by $20000 in the past month making a lot of people nervous to buy right now.

[4X4]

Buff, you said that you listed in early August? Unfortunately, that was kind of a bad time to list. Now, the listing has gone stale.

[Incinerator]

Originally Posted by ken0042

The other thing with using a service like Welist- buyers often know you are saving money on not using a realtor, and expect to see that much of a discount in the price of the house. So instead of paying a realtor $20K to do all the work for you, you can end up paying the buyer $20K to make you do all the work.

This is absolutely the #1 reason why welisters finally converts after 3 months of not being in the actual market and wasting time with low-ballers and tire-kickers. 99.999% of the time people who successfully sell privately it's to someone they already know.

[Incinerator]

Originally Posted by I-Hate-Hulse

With respect to that 80/20 comment on realtors, wiht with all due respect to the realtors here, I've noticed a trend for people to get their realtor license as a get rich quick thing. Maybe it seems easy, but there sure are a lot of bad realtors who just seemed to get into the act as it seemed like an easy thing to do.

It's not that hard to get a licence, at least up to a year ago, and you are absolutely correct in that 80% of them out there got their licence dreaming of get-rich-quick schemes, these people often tank within the first year because they can't even make enough to cover their expenses. Just because it's easy to get your foot in the door doesn't mean it's easy to stay in and many find out about it the hard way and thousands of $ later.