Move To Nanaimo

24 May 2010

The House That Wouldn’t Sell (Part 4)

Posted by Ryan Coffey under: Uncategorized .

Here is part four of my series which features a fictional account of a couple who have trouble selling their home. It is based on an amalgamation of some of the most common errors made by people hoping to sell their home which ultimately are detrimental to their efforts. Please read from the beginning of part one in order to understand the context of the following passage.

Ryan Coffey

Discount Realtor

After these two mishaps and three months of working hard to peddle their home to the masses with no (happy) results while trying to keep it spotless and presentable on top of both working full time, Roger and Shirley decided that it was time to hire a professional. After all, who knows what other unanticipated problems lie between them and a successful sale.

The discount Realtor, the third one if you were counting, came and took some photos and had the Pilkingtons fill out some paperwork. In a few days they saw the listing on the realtor.ca website and it looked pretty good. They felt much better now that they had someone to guide them through the process.

What no one told them is that paying half the commission for the real estate services means that half as much money is paid to the buyer’s agent BEFORE deductions and other business costs. At the end of the various deductions to the company, taxes and expenses most Realtors would be working for about the same as minimum wage or maybe less were they to sell this property to their Buyers. The Buyer’s agent has three choices: Work their stressful job with unpredictable hours for nearly free, refuse to show the property (and risk losing the client) or tell the buyer that they will have to kick in the extra comission in order to make the sale a part of the sustainable business model for that Realtor (and risk losing the client).

It never occured to Roger and Shirley that having the sign up and the listing on the internet would draw buyers to their Realtor. Nor did it occur to them that it would be a more sustainable business plan for that Realtor to sell other Realtor’s listing for full commission and leave up the for sale sign and listing of the Pilkington’s property in hopes of attracting more of such business.

Again days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. A few showings happened here and there but there was no serious interest.

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