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Are Double-Ending Listing Agents Bad News for Sacramento Sellers?
Double ending listing agents tend to cost the seller money.
Double-ending listing agents have been around since I started in the business in the early 1970s. They are still in the business today. Whether they will survive the real estate shake-up in the future, like 10 to 15 years from now, is doubtful. The reason I think they’ll eventually vanish is because they are a bad idea to start with. Time will only make them worse. I also believe sellers are becoming more sophisticated. They are wising up.
Although, at least in Sacramento, double-ending listing agents happens fewer times than one might think. It’s just not all that common.
There are unscrupulous double-ending listing agents who do everything in their power, generally at their seller’s detriment, to ensure they will get both sides of the commission. They do it so innocently that most sellers never even know what’s going on.
When I look at a listing and see the following things, it’s fairly obvious to me the listing agent is trying to double-end the transaction. For example, there are almost no photographs. No photographs means buyers will call the listing agent to get more information, and then the listing agent can represent them. Or, the listing will not allow a buyer’s agent to call the seller for showings. The listing will state: call listing agent. Then the listing agent will not answer the phone when Coldwell Banker lights up. Or the agent will only return voicemail from buyers. Or, the agent makes showings very difficult, like only between 3 and 4 PM on a Thursday.
If you think this isn’t going on in Sacramento real estate, I’ve got some swamp land in Florida to sell you.
Naive sellers might think they are getting a good deal if their double-ending listing agents also represents the buyer. Even if I ask: if you were suing your husband for divorce and demanding alimony, would you use your husband’s lawyer? If your son was on trial for murder, would you hire the prosecuting lawyer as your own? Dual agency is not a good idea.
Some double-ending listing agents offer a discount, too, when they take both sides of the commission. Are sellers getting a break or are they getting taken to the cleaners? The smart sellers reject this notion of dual agency. They figure out that hiring a top-notch listing agent who only represents their interests is the way to go, and instead of making money, they lose money by hiring a discount agent intent on double ending.
When you see a big price drop or a home that sold for a lot less than the list price, often it’s the transaction in which the agent represented both the buyer and seller.
That’s why buyers call me all the time and beg me to work with them. They expect me to throw my sellers under the bus when my intentions are the opposite. I intend to maximize my seller’s profit, not reduce it for my own personal gain. To do otherwise is dishonest. To expect me to be dishonest is insulting.
There is a reason discount agents don’t get paid the same as others. You take top listing agents whose average sales ratio might be 103%, meaning they sell their listings for 3% more than list price, and all of that hogwash about double-ending saving money goes right out the window. Double-ending listing agents tend to cost money. But it’s every seller’s right to choose lousy service and bad representation if that’s what they want. It’s a free country.
Strong Sacramento Listing Agents vs Conflict Avoiders
Jackson looks like a tough cat, but he is a meek and timid soul, like some real estate agents
The thing I’ve noticed most about moving toward the age of 64 is not so much removing the ear worm stuck in my head of will you still need me, will you still feed me when I’m 64 — which I strongly suspect was a clueless image Paul McCartney conjured when he wrote it in his teens because you’re too young to tie your shoes at that age — nope, what I’ve noticed is it’s the growing non-acceptance of crap. Well, honestly, I’ve always been a no-crap taker, but getting older has absolutely strengthened that trait, given it stronger legs, more spunk. That’s the benefit of aging for many of us.
I am definitely in the category of strong Sacramento listing agents. I am also a top producer who ranks in the top 10 agents in Sacramento.
After 40-some years in this business, when I tell somebody it’s the principle, you better believe it’s the principle. It’s not the money. It’s not the time involved nor the effort. It’s the principle. It’s the conviction. It’s also eliminating the consequences a lesser action of conflict avoidance could produce.
I realize there are a ton of people in the world who routinely avoid conflict. They will do anything to avoid conflict. My cat, Jackson, the ragdoll, is such a good example of conflict avoidance. He will starve to death rather than push another cat’s face out of his bowl when he’s eating. He just steps away and lets another cat eat all of his food.
Some Sacramento listing agents are like that. When they receive, let’s say, an unreasonable request from a buyer, their sole focus is closing the transaction, and they don’t want to push back. They want to do things the easy way. They might suggest to the seller there is no other choice but to accept the buyer’s demand. To rollover and take it. Low appraisal? Their advice is just eat it; don’t push back.
Often — and I hate to point this out except that I’m right — these sorry situations involve the timid, zero push-back, mousy brand of agents who are Sacramento listing agents who have discounted their commission. These guys can’t even stand up for their own paycheck, why does a seller think they will fight for them?
When a seller is paying me for representation as her full-service Sacramento Realtor, I do what is best for the seller, which also happens to fall in line with my nature. My nature is to fight for the principle and for the principal through successful negotiations that produce results my sellers expect. It’s a lot more work but it’s the right thing to do. No question about it.
Sellers Who Don’t Need One of the Best Sacramento Realtors
If you’re looking for the one of the best Sacramento Realtors, odds are you can find a few by doing an online search. But just because the agent helps with staging or pricing and you list the home yourself or with a friend, does not mean you’ve got the services of one of the best Sacramento Realtors. You only got part of the story and not the entire package.
A former client relayed to me this morning that she did not realize some real estate agents will work for dirt cheap, and that the job to sell a home is so incredibly easy that she doesn’t really need to hire the best Sacramento Realtor. Although, she did add that when she’s ready to sell her more expensive home in East Sacramento, she will definitely hire me. Because she wants the best.
But for right now, to sell her rental property at the Parkway in Folsom, any old discount agent will do. She doesn’t need the best, she said, after promising last month to list with me. Especially after this more experienced and full-service Sacramento Realtor has already met with her at the rental in Folsom, completed an inspection and provided her with a list of fixes and repairs to undertake. In addition to giving her a list of vendors to purchase materials from, advising on color and choice of materials, providing contractors to complete the work and finding other ways to save her money.
This is on top of responding to every email from the seller within minutes, even while on vacation in Oregon. Advising on the perfect sales price and sales strategy.
So, yes, I guess I can see that after a seller has her home all fixed up, knows how much to price it at that she might feel it is a slam dunk. Especially since she didn’t pay the full-service Realtor a dime for all of this. However, all of that upfront work is part of the fee a full-service agent earns.
This is like jumping into my car at a stoplight, grabbing my bag and running off. I’m supposed to be OK with the theft, including the lack of respect. But I’m not and, when the time comes, I will not choose to represent her to sell a home in East Sacramento.
The other portions of my full-service fee, which I work hard to earn and the seller will most likely come to understand down the road are the following:
* Positioning the home to go on the market on a day that will make it the most attractive as possible
* Personal and immediate attention to my client
* Anticipating problems in advance and preventing difficulties
* Shooting high quality professional photography designed to drive up the price
* Hosting unique open houses through extravaganza blitz marketing
* Capitalizing on my 24 years of online internet experience — unparalleled by most other Realtors
* Utilizing my 40+ years of real estate experience to negotiate the purchase offer to ensure the highest price among possible multiple buyers, which I strategically manipulate to occur.
* Once in escrow, I negotiate the list of repairs the buyer often returns with after a home inspection to keep those costs to a minimum, if at all
* Meeting contingencies of the contract with precision
* Staying on top of the buyer’s financing to make sure there are no loopholes that will hold up closing or more likely cause the transaction to blow up
That’s a bare bones bullet-point list of things I do to make sellers more money above and beyond any difference in fee they might pay a discount agent. When escrows close, sellers always say I more than earned my fee, and they are very ecstatic with the extra money they received — which a discount agent could never provide. They understand this. All of my sellers pay for full service. Happily. Especially the million-dollar home sellers.
In other words, a seller tends to lose money with a discount agent, even if she wrongly believes her home is a slam dunk to sell. There are no slam dunks in Sacramento real estate. Saving a few pennies on the commission means eating it on the big picture. But then that kind of seller doesn’t really care if she has not hired one of the best Sacramento Realtors.
Do Sacramento Agents Discount Real Estate Commissions?
Just because a real estate commission is negotiable doesn’t mean I am willing to cut a deal for a stranger. Heck, I don’t even make deals for friends because I don’t have any friends selling real estate in Sacramento. But even if I did, they would still pay me for my services. Real estate commissions must be negotiable in order to comply with the Sherman Act, but it doesn’t mean a real estate agent needs to offer a discounted commission. Yes, you can negotiate with this Sacramento real estate agent, and I’ll cut right to the chase here, my answer is no.
Not only do I charge the same percentage that I have charged since I started in this business way back in the days of bellbottoms and Beatles, but I am doing a bazillion times the work since then. I have two rules that I work by that are completely inflexible:
No discounts and
No assholes.
See, I can’t always choose the agents on the other side with whom I work nor their clients, and some of those people might be assholes, but I can choose my own clients, which is why I don’t work with the assholes. If you’re an asshole, you can go work with some other agent.
I have to save my asshole interrogating energy to work with the other side.
Would you want an agent who eagerly said Sure, I’ll give you a big fat discount? Because that kind of agent might do the same thing when you get an offer. Put pressure on you to accept a lowball offer. When I receive a purchase offer, the first thing I often think is: how is the other side putting the screws to the seller? Is the offer on the level and clean? I’m not eager to jump into escrow unless the seller is excited and the offer warrants it. Because I don’t really care about me. I care solely about what the seller wants.
Sometimes clients ask me if I will reduce my commission when they are faced with a price reduction. Although I can vaguely see how they might come up with that idea — for example, they are reducing the price so I should come down — they are not looking at the fact that by the mere percentage calculation, I am already hit by a reduced compensation. Lower sales price X percentage rate = lower fee. I share the loss with them already. I know they don’t mean to say that they want to penalize me nor do they want me to work less. They want me to work even harder. And I do. That’s my job. To sell their home.
But don’t ask an agent to give you top-notch performance and then work for less because it doesn’t work that way. Most of us earn our commission, one closing at at time. If 1% separates you from the best in the business, you’ll probably lose a lot more than THAT down the road because it means you think we are all the same. We are not all the same. All agents are not created equal.
Turning a Rejected Offer into an Accepted Purchase Offer
The thing with being unequivocally direct with people is they might think you have *Asperger Syndrome when you don’t. I suspect many successful Sacramento real estate agents display a bit of those symptoms, so it might not be as unusual as one may suspect. Symptoms such as extreme focus on the job at hand, set rituals and methods of doing things, on top of leaving people to sort out the fact that you just hit them between the eyes with the direct truth, can leave others somewhat puzzled. Not everybody appreciates candor.
Sometimes, I use candor in a playful manner, just to joke around with people, but fortunately I’ve got enough social skills to figure out it’s not always appreciated. Is it funny if you make a joke and the other person doesn’t get it? Does a tree fall in the forest? But I generally don’t blurt out NO, for example, to another real estate agent without offering a solution or alternative.
I’m of the mindset that NO doesn’t always mean NO, except in certain circumstances and we all know what those are: such as NO I will not listen to Neil Diamond sing Cherry, Cherry one more time! When a seller tells me NO, the seller does not want to accept an offer, what the seller is saying is YES, the seller would like to sell the home but the purchase offer that is set before her is unacceptable and needs to be altered. It needs to be presented in a different manner.
Yet, so often buyer’s agents will take that NO answer and wander off defeated. What some of them fail to appreciate is they are working with a buyer who wants to buy that home. And guess what? I am working with a seller who wants to sell that home. You would think, wouldn’t you, that between two real estate agents we could figure out how to bring together both parties and put that purchase offer into escrow? Isn’t that what a real estate agent is supposed to do?
Despite what some real estate books might say, we are not mere messengers here to carry out the wishes of our clients. Sellers who prefer to hire an agent who will work in that manner might want to enlist the services of a discount agent, an agent who will plop the listing into MLS and let the seller do the rest. When a seller lists a home with me, I presume the seller wants to close escrow on terms agreeable to the seller. It’s my job, as a full-service Sacramento real estate agent, to make it happen.
*Note: If you want to watch an interesting new crime show on FX about a police detective in El Paso who happens to perform at a high level with Asperger Syndrome, check out The Bridge.
