Can you lose money when you are selling your home by picking the wrong listing agent in this hot market and in this seller’s market is the listing agent that you’re taking advantage of your equity and have your house when he or she sells it? 

It’s obvious in this hot market if you list your home on the market and put in the multiple listing service, it’s gonna sell no matter what no marketing is needed. There’s so much demand, there’s such a shortage of supply of homes that your house is going to sell. But that’s exactly why you want to pick an agent he’s going to do, he or she is going to do marketing for you. And the number one reason you want a listing agent that’s right for you is that you want to make sure that even in this hot market, even though your house will sell in one or two days, you want an agent that’s going to do a lot of market exposure for you take the right pictures, and do videos for you. Because the more exposure you have, the more buyers you have, and the more right buyers you have. So in this market, photography is very important. As you may know, 90% of all the buyers start their search online, they don’t go driving around that like they used to in the 90s. In the early 2000s. They go online, they go on social media, they look at your pictures, and if the professional pictures are not appealing to them, they will move on to the next house. So the videos are very critical. We are talking about the virtual videos and actual videos of the features and benefits of your house. So those two are very critical. And hopefully, your agent will spend money on those items because they will get you more money. 

Let’s go-to tip number two to maximize your listing agents’ worth to you. The other way your listing agent can maximize the dollar value of the equity that you get is to get you the most money for your house. And one way to do that, yes, even in this hot market, even in this seller’s market is to do an open house. Now you just have to do one open house, maybe one weekend, maybe Saturday and Sunday, one to four, and create a buzz, create exposure, and bring as many buyer groups as possible to that house in the open house so that not only do you get one offer. In fact, getting one offer is pretty normal today. But by bringing 2030, 100 groups of people to that open house in one day, a typical in a normal market, we usually get five to 15 parties coming at an open house. But in today’s market, if it’s priced right and marketed right, you can get up to 100 groups and you can get 20 offers, let alone five offers. By creating an open house day advertising that day, meaning all these buyers, you will get 5,10,15 offers. And guess what you will get a lot more price than you would have gotten from just the one offer. Because you just created all your listing agents just created a bidding war. And when you do that, with great terms and conditions, you get the highest price possible for your home. Don’t leave any money on the table in this market. If you’re a seller. 

So the other thing a lot of listing agents want to do in this hot market because of a shortage of inventory is they want to have their buyer’s offer accepted and they may bring you an offer. As you know a lot of the agents do pre-marketing and you’ve heard of the Coming Soon listings. So when they do the Coming Soon, they may have a buyer and because they list a property and only he or she knows the houses for sale, they may show it to the buyer and bring you an offer which is great. But in this market, you don’t want to let your listing agent do that because you don’t want one offer and take that offer because in this market if he or she brings you an offer what if you show it to a lot of other buyers and they bring other offers and they are higher or have better terms and conditions on your house may you may want to avoid taking the first offer that you get especially if it’s from your listing agent and wait till you get two or three or four other offers. Look at the terms and conditions and the price and see how we can maximize your dollar for you to use whether you’re going to buy another house or you’re going to retire and use it to maximize your retirement or the sale of your home.

So the next tip when you hire a listing agent, or if you already have a listing agent is to make sure that he or she is going to negotiate for the benefit of you first before they benefit for the benefit of the buyer. What I mean by negotiating, obviously, is the first thing is the price. And in this market, it’s always higher than your listing price if it’s priced right and marketed right. But during an escrow there are a lot of issues that come up, there may be homeowners association issues come up, there may be repair issues come up, there may be appraisal issues that come up, there may be lines on the property or delays from the loan that the buyer is getting, a lot of things can come up to every time those things come up. That’s why you need a good listing agent. So when the problems do come up, they want to resolve them right away for your benefit and do it in a timely manner. So you need a strong listing agent who has great negotiating skills when you hire a great listing agent. 

The last tip I’m going to give you is that when you sell a house and you are closing escrow just about ready to close escrow, your listing agent should make sure that all the disclosures are filled out correctly by you the seller that you have to give to the buyer state law requires that you give disclosures to the buyer which includes transfer disclosure, statement, seller property questionnaire, the natural hazards report, the earthquake policy, there are 15 to 20 disclosures that you as a seller have to make so not only do you have to give it to the buyers, but you want to make sure that you have the correct information and most accurate information because you may not know this, but a lot of issues come up after the close of Escrow maybe 2,3,4,5 months before or I mean after the close of escrow. So you want to make sure that your listing agent is familiar with all the disclosures they provide to the buyers in a timely manner. And they are filled out correctly with their guidance so you can fill them out correctly because, at the end of the day, you as a seller are responsible for the disclosures, not the listing agent.