Currently I am working with a young couple purchasing their first home. Through an internet search from this site they identified a listing that was in the desired geographical area. When I went to the local MLS in New Smyrna I discovered that the house was not listed for sale in the MLS. This would be the proper geographic listing service for an Edgewater address. This is the logical place for people looking to buy here, and the logical place to look here for homes.
Not all agents belong to all the MLS Boards that service their market because it is costly. In Volusia County we have 3 Boards, the New Smyrna Board of Realtors, the Daytona Beach Area Board of Realtors and the West Volusia Board of Realtors.
Not finding the house in the NSB Board I went to the next logical board in Daytona where I found no listing and then I looked in the West Volusia Board for the listing as well. As it turned out, this was where the listing was found. From a seller’s stand point, the odds of real estate agents showing his or her home who are located 20+ miles away are far less than a local agent who is familiar with the area and who is working with local buyers for the area. Buy hey, this is a discount company, they’re saving money, right?…
Once I found the listing, the directions were to go to their Tampa Bay Company website and go online for showing instructions. This turned out not to be as easy as it sounds. The website links did not work. I was unable to schedule the showing online. All I got were error messages. Maybe discount prices means they can’t pay IT folks to keep their site working? hmmm
Not to be deterred, I went to the “contact us” section and started making Sunday morning phone calls. The agent’s phone, the office phone and any other phone number that I could find as I clicked through the site….went to the same recording which by the way, did not have an option to leave a message. This was starting to get bizarre! You had to go back to the online website to schedule an appointment or get more information and none of those pages were working!
On my 6th phone number that I dialed, because believe me I was dialing any and every number I could find, I mis-dialed by a digit and was about to hang up when a human being answered the phone. I explained how their site wasn’t working (better for them to get the notice from me than the seller!) and she very nicely gave me the combination for the lock box.
We wrote a full price contract, with the seller to pay all the closing costs as they had advertised in their MLS narrative. We’re all thinking this should be a done deal. But, once again…there was a surprise in store.
When the listing agent called me he told me that with our contract as written, the seller would have to come to the table with $10000 to sell his house. I asked the natural question, as to how this could happen? You see, when working with a seller, it is the agent’s job to explain the costs to sell and help them estimate the seller’s net proceeds.
The agent said that the seller “didn’t realize” his bottom line when he dropped the price. You see, it was the seller’s fault!
We are currently at the drawing board looking to how we can make this work for both the buyer and the seller.
With real representation you see, the seller’s best interest would be paramont to the listing company. Now I haven’t seen his listing agreement and what the listing company promised for their fee but I can tell you this, delivery of services from what I have experienced, have been tremendously discounted off of what is the norm.
Now here is the kicker: 1) In looking at the costs to close that this discount company is charging, all the junk fees plus commission add up to about a 6% commission. So I’m wondering how these folks are saving money?
Some of the fees that this discount company has collected were paid up front by the seller, instead of when they performed their services and the deal was closing.
In conclusion: The seller is not really saving any money. The seller is not getting adequate marketing coverage for his property. The seller is spending money up front with the listing company with no assurance of performance and the seller is making monthly payments on a house that isn’t likely being shown thus extending the marketing time and the seller’s out of pocket expenses.
Oh, and I just love this…it’s the seller’s fault that it is priced where it is.
So the moral of this story is you get what you pay for….but sometimes, in a case like this you get even less!
Wishing You Sunshine,
Janet
Selling Volusia County and Flagler County Real Estate and Business to…the world!
