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How Long of a Listing Should Sellers Sign?
How long of a listing should sellers sign? Below is a previous post for another website written by Elizabeth. This topic is relevant, timeless and a question sellers are curious about. Enjoy. — JaCi Wallace
Sellers rarely question the length of their listing contracts. They simply accept whatever term the agent puts into the listing agreement. However, it is the seller’s responsibility and legal right to choose the length of the listing. Although, agents can help guide a seller by suggesting a listing term based on the average days on market, it is not the agent’s decision to make. It is the seller’s.
I prefer to take six-month listings, but it also depends on what the seller prefers. For me, it’s less paperwork to take a six-month listing (instead of re-listing at the 90-day mark because we went into escrow on Day 61). But to compensate for longer listing terms, I give my sellers a guarantee that I will cancel the listing at any time if they are unhappy with my performance and service. I have yet to work with a seller who asked me to cancel a listing, but the offer is always there. Because should a situation arise, for some reason, that cannot be resolved, I would rather let my seller go than hold an unhappy consumer to a contract.
Not all real estate agents will give a guarantee, however. Once you sign that listing agreement, you are legally bound to work with that agent, providing the agent continues to work for you. Some real estate brokerages will not release a seller under any circumstances. They might offer to assign a different agent at the company to work that listing, but they won’t let the seller go. I guess those companies don’t mind the bad publicity and ill feelings.
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If you would like to list your property, please call Weintraub & Wallace Realtors with RE/MAX Gold. We can be reached at 916-233-6759.
Elizabeth Weintraub
New Land Park Listings are Coming Soon in August.
New Land Park listings are coming soon in August to the market. Getting homes ready for showings is a lot of preparation. The first step the minor repairs, this can take a handyman a few days. Then the interior and exterior cleanup are completed. Let’s not forget the windows have to sparkle. The yards need to be greened up and bark, tree trimming, and fence repairs are.so important to the curb appeal. The staging and then the photography session are scheduled. Last, the keys, showing instructions, pest and roof reports, as well as the natural hazard report disclosure. A review of final pricing, the showing instructions, and the keys.
These properties are high in demand. Priced just under $600,000. Stay tuned to the blog for the street addresses when they go live on the market. The sellers are lovely people and have done a great job getting all the vendors paid and keeping the yards watered.
Our team is very excited to present these listings to the market. New Land Park listings coming soon keeps our exclusive buyer’s agents busy and the phone rings with excitement. If you would like to buy or sell a home in Land Park call Weintraub & Wallace Realtors with RE/MAX Gold, at 916-233-6759.
— JaCi Wallace
How Many Listings Should a Sacramento Realtor Carry?
The number of listings might have little bearing on a Sacramento Realtor’s ability to service.
A question that really has no bearing on reality but I get asked it often enough all the same is: Elizabeth, how many listings do you have? For starters, I suspect people want to use the answer as a quantifier. If you have one or two listings, you look like a loser in some people’s eyes. If you have 200 listings, you could look like a person who doesn’t have time to brush her teeth much less pay attention to her clients, and that assumption could be way off base, too.
What makes a difference, though, is in what position are those Sacramento listings? By that I mean are they pending, pending short lender approval (which is different than a pending sale), active contingent, pending bring back-up, active release clause, an active short sale or simply an active listing? I generally carry about 25 listings at any given time, but the active listings, the homes that take up most of my time, might only range from 3 to 5. I typically sell my active listings pretty quickly because I do things right. The short sale listings require a lot more time on the market because today’s buyers tend to pass those by.
A few years back, like 2010 or 2011, I carried on average about 75 listings in various states of status. Talk about stress. I am conscientious, though. When I worked on that amount of inventory, I was often out of bed by 4 or 5 AM and hard at work. I do what it takes, and that’s what it took to keep my sanity and my sellers happy with my performance. Now, that my inventory has fallen by about two-thirds as the number of homes for sale overall in the Sacramento Valley have slipped, things are fairly normal and quiet for me. It’s almost like being on vacation.
I realize for another Sacramento Realtor, 25 listings might seem like a horrendous number, but for me, it’s just business as usual. I can sleep in until 7 AM now. That’s a luxury. There is no question what my focus is for the day. I don’t spend much time on looking for business because business comes to me. I’m very fortunate that way. Many other real estate agents spend at least half of their time prospecting for clients, but I don’t. Some choose to work only part-time. I work full-time. My time is focused 100% on my clients and my listings.
Keeping track of 25 files and maneuvering moving targets is easy for an organized person to do. Besides, many decades ago, like in the 1970s, I was a certified escrow officer, and I used to work on a caseload of 60 to 80 files at a time. If you think handling a real estate file as an agent is time consuming, try being an escrow officer. Escrow is where I developed my organizational skills, and that ability has served me well as a top producer Sacramento Realtor. I try to treat each of my clients as though they are my ONLY client, because if I don’t, that’s exactly what would happen.
I am never too busy for a client. Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. I answer my cell.
