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Driving past a corner, I saw the usual collection of open house signs. With arrows pointing everywhere, I did a casual glance to get an idea of where the homes might be located.
Looking closer, I was surprised to see one sign that had a different purpose. Instead of advertising an open house, in bold letters above the agent’s picture, it proclaimed, “List Your Home With Us and Get a Free Pizza.”
What?
I took a picture of the sign and looked up the agent when I got home to see how successful his cheesy “ad campaign” really was. As I suspected, no pizza parlor was depending on him as an income stream. Further, the fact that his sign advertised a pizza while the other signs on that corner were advertising actual listings was, in and of itself, a huge clue.
Truth is, these are tough times for many agents, and some will say and do almost anything to secure a listing. The adage, “List to last,” has never been more true since, in many markets, listings have been at a premium for a few years now.
Over my close to a quarter century in the business, I have encountered the following eight questionable tactics for landing the listing:
1. My signs are HUGE
I actually saw this on another agent’s listing flyer. This is one case where bigger is not better, unless your sign is on a 10-acre lot and is located so far from the road you need binoculars to read it.
In reality, the size of the sign is not a key issue, and, in fact, some cities and developments do not allow signs at all. Serious buyers, if they are looking in any given neighborhood, do not drive through the area looking for signs.
If they want to see if there are any homes for sale, they will pull out their phones and look on a real estate app. And if a seller sees a sign that is clearly bigger than the rest, that is not going to be a motivating factor in the choosing of an agent to list their home.
Let’s be honest: The size of the sign is not about the house; it’s about the agent trying to draw attention to themselves, which, in many cases, is why they boast glamor shots of the agent from about 30 years ago.
The number of riders is not important either, nor are the 12-foot-high banners, balloons and other gimmicks.
2. I have buyers looking for your house
Let’s get real: So do countless other agents out there.
While it may be true that you do have one specific person in you database looking for a home identical to the one you are visiting, over the years, the number of sales that have happened because I already had a buyer in the queue is virtually nil — unless the homeowner has reached out in direct response to a Golden Letter, in which case, they will not be interviewing other agents and the sign is usually a moot point.
As you can imagine, promising a seller you have buyers is fraught with potential problems. To begin, almost without exception, the best way to honor our fiduciary responsibility to a seller is to get them the best price and terms comes from putting their home on the open market. Yes, we may have a potential buyer, but that buyer should be required to compete with everyone else.
The key is not your ability to score both sides of the deal for you or your brokerage; it is looking out for the best interests of your client. Additionally, if you represent both sides, you are now in a dual agency relationship, which comes with increased potential liability and is actually outlawed in some states. This is a tactic that borders on dishonesty and, quite frankly, needs to stop.
One of the questions to ask in your listing presentations is, “Is there anything another agent may have promised you that we have not included in our presentation?” If they mention that another agent stated that they had a pool of buyers, use the following script:
“I’m so glad you mentioned that. One of our goals is to get you the highest possible price and terms AND protect your best interests. First of all, you need to know that this is a common tactic agents use to get you to sign a listing, and it is NOT in your best interest. While they may or may not actually have a buyer (the odds are very low they have a buyer for your exact home), you will usually get the best offers by going live on the market and letting everyone out there compete for your home, not just one buyer who is controlled by the listing agent. Additionally, if your listing agent brings you a buyer, that is dual agency and is actually outlawed in some states across the country. Your best representation happens when your agent represents you and another agent represents the buyer.”
3. I have a national network of agents
The premise behind this promise is the hope that the sellers do not understand how today’s buyers actually find prospective properties. Years ago, when buyers had to rely on agents to get a list of available homes, stating that you were networking with a national list of agents might have had some merit.
Today, however, agents no longer control buyers’ access to the listings since the National Association of Realtors (NAR) gave away the farm. This means that any potential buyer with access to Zillow, Realtor.com, Homes.com or any brokerage app has full access to every available home currently on the MLS.
With this in mind, there is absolutely no benefit to an agent bragging that they will network the listing to a national audience. In fact, as we discovered during the foreclosure crisis, when REO agents outside our MLS were marketing foreclosures in our area, buyers had direct access to properties that were not even showing up on our local MLS, meaning they had more access to homes than we did through our MLS.
4. I can sell your home off-market
This is probably true, especially if your brokerage is setting up an off-market directory where buyers represented by that brokerage have access to all of that brokerage’s listings before they go on the MLS. The question, however, is back to our fiduciary responsibility: “Is selling off-market to a limited network of agents truly in the best interest of the seller?” Data suggests otherwise.
In an earlier post, I referred to an agent from a company trying to set up an off-market network within their brokerage. She stated, “Our brokerage sends out a list of ‘market alerts’ so that we can see properties that have just been listed but have not yet come onto the market,” she said. “This gives us the opportunity to approach those sellers to see if they would entertain a preemptive offer. This is a huge advantage for us because it allows us to potentially make more deals with far less competition.”
Concerned, I continued, “Do the sellers understand that by not going on the open market and getting maximum exposure to all the potential buyers out there, their odds of getting better offers is significantly decreased?” Her response? “Maybe, but I’m more interested in the opportunity.”
This mindset, in my opinion, reveals a culture more concerned with agent opportunity than it is with its fiduciary responsibility to its clients to obtain the highest and best offers possible. I wish this were an isolated case, but my experience tells me otherwise.
There will always be situations where a seller wants to sell off-market: severely distressed homes, privacy or health issues and so on. In most of these cases, they end up selling at a wholesale price, not retail.
It is important to understand that these situations are the exception, not the norm. For those brokerages and agents who are trying to make this a part of the majority’s experience to enhance the company’s bottom line at the consumer’s expense, my personal belief is that it is an unethical approach to the business and a blatant breach of their fiduciary responsibility.
5. I am No. 1!
Stop, already. No one cares. A few years ago, our team sold the highest number of homes in our county for that year. Not one single person we talked to seemed to think that was a significant milestone. As you are reading this, you don’t care either.
A couple of years and a pandemic later, it is not even on anyone’s radar. What sellers do want, however, is an agent who will stop talking about themselves and their platitudes and focus on the seller’s needs and motivations instead.
The problem with many agents is that they want to confront the seller with logic and state how they alone are best prepared, have sold the most homes in the area and are therefore the logical choice to sell their home. That approach, unfortunately, does not work.
6. I can get you the best price
This statement has as much validity as the practice of consulting a Ouija Board to get lottery numbers. At best, an agent making this statement is misleading the seller, and at worst, they are blatantly lying. Labeled “Buying the Listing,” this practice has been around since the invention of the roof.
Experienced agents can head this off before it becomes an issue with the following script:
“We know that some agents might be tempted to give you an artificially high price to get you to sign with them — it’s called ‘buying a listing,’ and we believe it is a deceptive practice. Integrity is one of our core values, and we will not do anything to undermine our relationship by over-inflating a list price to get your hopes up or to get you to sign with us.
“We have run a comprehensive market analysis. We believe a fair market price for your home, should you choose to go on the market today, falls between $_____ and $_____. Because we know most sellers are not ready to hit the market immediately, we will come back the day before you are ready to go on the market and provide an updated market analysis to make sure you launch your home onto the market at the best possible price at that time.
“The truth is, buyers are the ones who actually determine prices, not sellers or their agents. When ready to go to the market, we will strategize together to set a price that provides the best opportunity for you to get the highest price and best terms. Is that OK with you?”
7. I will buy your home
While true on one level, the devil is in the details. Listing agents can state they have a program that will buy homes that do not sell for a couple of very important reasons.
First, the price they will guarantee is below market value. There are many companies out there that will buy a home below market price; the key is how much lower that “guaranteed price” actually is. In reality, if the home had been put on the market initially at that “guaranteed price,” it would most likely receive multiple offers.
If a seller mentions that another agent made this promise, ask them if they received a guaranteed price in writing and if they are actually OK with that price. In most cases, by partnering with companies that buy at wholesale, you can make the same offer.
Second, sellers need to realize that the initial “guaranteed price” is a best-case scenario; once the wholesale company’s representative walks the property, they will often start discounting the price due to “condition issues.”
While this promise initially sounds great, upon close examination, it benefits the listing agent and the discount buyer they are working with, not the seller.
8. My marketing plan is the best!
In a 2020 article I wrote for Inman, I stated,
“Somewhere along the line, our society has transitioned from being service-based to commodity-based. With service no longer anticipated in most areas of our lives, we focus on securing commodities in its place.
“If we can reduce anything we want to a basic commodity, then regardless of what it is (an appliance, a phone or even a car), the natural progression focuses on getting it at the lowest possible price.
“In a commodity-based world, sellers now search for real estate agents who will sell their house for the lowest possible commission. I frequently hear during listing presentations, ‘You guys are all the same. You provide the same things as everyone else I’ve talked to — why should I choose you?’
“As a result, if a seller is already viewing you as a commodity, then any list of features you provide in a logical format that touts how great you are will more than likely fall on deaf ears, since every other agent walking through the front door essentially has the same list.”
Since most agents offer very similar programs, bragging about your marketing plan is fruitless. Instead, you should be focusing on building rapport with the potential seller: Most sellers want to work with someone they feel they can trust and who genuinely has their best interests at heart.
Desperate times breed desperate measures, and, as I have discovered over the years, there are agents out there who will fudge the edges of reality to get a listing. When you uncover one of the issues mentioned above, you can respond simply and with integrity by pointing out the flaw in the purported benefit.
Never attack or demean the other agent(s), but simply present the truth and then ask, “As you can see, I have your best interests at heart — is there anything else that would prevent you from listing your home with us today?”
