Dec

29

Real Estate Agents: Updating Your Listing

Filed Under Sellers | Comments Off

As a homeowner, you expect the best from the so-called professional that you hire. Unfortunately, sometimes you will not receive the best service and you may not know the actual lack of service that you’re receiving from your real estate agent. That’s where I come in to shed some light on the situation.

If you hire a real estate agent/broker who is a member of the Long Island Board Of Realtors, your home will appear on the Multiple Listing Service or www.mlsli.com. On this website, real estate agents have access to upload and change/update their listings. This is the “agent side” of the MLS system.

I want to point out some things that you, the homeowner/seller, will not see on your listing that indicates to me, another agent, that you’re real estate agent is not providing you with full-service. I will highlight the following areas:

1. Open Houses
2. Comments
3. Directions
4. Commission Structure

To begin, on your listing in the “agent side” of the MLS system, there is a section entitled “Consumer Open House Date” or “Broker Open House Date”. This section allows agents to see when open houses will be offered to view your home. I chose to cover this area because it is a tell-tale sign that you are receiving quality service or poor service. Obviously, if you’re selling your home and your agent only does one open house in six months, you know about this. You also see how they conduct themselves, if they show up late or leave early, etc. What I want to talk about is this section on your listing specifically.

I constantly come across listings that have expired open house dates. I also come across some whoppers. I recently noticed a listing that was set to expire recently. When I pulled the listing up, I noticed that it had an initial starting date of 6/5/07 with a Broker Open House Date of 6/8/07 and a Consumer Open House Date of 6/10/07. When I reviewed this listing, it was November, 2007. This means that the agent had not updated the listing since he/she uploaded it to the MLS service. That’s terrible service and is very unprofessional in my opinion. And I’m not mentioning the fact that the seller did not receive anymore open houses for 6 months.

In the Comment section of your listing, the agent has the ability to type in some remarks about the property. This usually contains a statement about making offers and provides agents with some general information about the property. In this section recently, I found a listing that was uploaded to MLS in August of this year. In the comment section it said, “Pictures to be uploaded soon.” Well it is now December and there are no pictures in the listing. Additionally, this would mean that the listing has not been updated since it was originally uploaded in August…five months ago. This is not an isolated incident either.

For the Directions, agents have the opportunity to provide other real estate agents with directions to the property. Now as a real estate agent, I like to make things as easy for an agent to find my listing as possible. With the internet, of course using maps online is easy, but I don’t want to give anyone more work then they already have. I like my listings to flow and I want other agents to have as much information about the location as possible. I want to make it easy for them to get to my client’s house! That’s why, in addition to providing in-depth directions in this section, my listings are accompanied by a fax attachment with a map for other agents to use to find my houses!

Unfortunately, many agents will put the following in the Directions Section, “www.mapquest.com”. They are basically too lazy to put in actual directions to the property. Others will type in awful directions like, “Main to Smith Ave”. This tells me absolutely nothing. This is not inviting and again, in my opinion, isn’t providing you, the homeowner/seller with a comprehensive and full-service representation.

Finally, the “Commission Structure” is located at the bottom of the “agent side” listing of MLS. Again to reiterate, the “agent side” is viewable only by real estate agents who pay to be on the MLS system. Without going into too much detail which will only confuse most of us, I will point out the basics. If your agent takes your listing and puts in this section “1.5%” paid to a cooperating agent, this is generally an indication that the agent does not have your best interest at hand. Remember, we as agents, in most cases, put a sign on your lawn. That sign in and of itself generates business for the respective listing agent. Another words, I’m generally going to make money off of your listing whether I sell your home specifically or not.

How?

Simple. When I put a sign on your lawn, generally I get calls from people (buyers). Whether they buy your house or not, I may end up working with them to buy another house. Perhaps your neighbors! Anyhow, when they buy a house, I make money. So getting back to my point, if an agent offers to provide you with real estate brokerage “services”, if they’ll do it for 1.5%, then there’s a very good chance that you will not receive full-service. Mainly because of the costs associated with marketing a home. The cost of time and advertising add up quick and 1.5% of a home will not cover these costs sufficiently in order for the agent/broker to make any money.

Additionally, there is always a chance that when your agent took the listing, he/she wrote a 5% total commission but split the commission like this: 3.5% for themselves and 1.5% to a cooperating broker/agent. Unfortunately, this practice is not uncommon. This is a gross display of underhanded real estate agency practice. I stress to people I speak with to always, always, always, double check your listing, especially where ever the agent writes. Ask to specifically see the forms filled out and ask about the commission split.

If any of this does not make sense, feel free to leave a comment. In closing, while there are many things that agents can and don’t do to sell their listings, I believe that updating the listings frequently is important. The real estate market here on Long Island is flooded with agents. There stands a very good chance that another agent will help sell my listings. In that case, I like to have my listings looking tight and clean. There really is no room for laziness in this business.

(c) copyright 2007, www.tommcgiveron.com

By Thomas McGiveron
Contact me at 631.587.4321, ext. 51


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