hello, this is my first time to sell a house and it’s been on the market for 1 month. a townhome in our complex was sold in 2 weeks (same size &
condition as ours).
anyway, we got an awesome RE agent, he was referred to us by our friends and he was very successful with his transactions with them (like getting
their homes sold for more than asking price, good strategy). take note though our home is located in an area which is not his specialty. but we
hired him anyway because we know he is very hardworking and has good strategy.
but our home has been on the market for a month now and i am wondering, is it ethical to get another real estate agent to work together with the
one we already hired? so in essence there will be 2 of them working together to sell our house.
if it is ethical, how do we go about it? i hope you can give me some insight. thanks.
Not sure of the laws in your state, but I’m sure if you did this and the place sold, you would be under contract to pay BOTH agents their commission, regardless of who actually sold the house.
I depends what type of listing contract you have with him. Most listing contracts are ERS. Exclusive Right to Sell. This means just him. I’m sure if you wanted you could hire another agent but you suffer legal ramifications from breaching an exclusive agreement with the first listing agent. If you really want another agent you can ask to have the contract destroyed(fire the agent) and re hire and enter a new contract with another agent.
Why do you want to get another agent anyway. Do you need to be out of the house by a certain date? Does your agent know this? 30 days on the market is not long at all. Depending on how hot your market is right now( ours is very hot and still the average time on market is 33 days for condos/townhome) 30 days should still be under what the average time is. It sounds like you might have unreal expectations of how quickly you want your home sold. Just because other units have gone faster in your complex doesn’t mean automatically that yours willl sell even faster.
If you need it gone, call you agent and tell him, I’m sure he can sell it very quickly but probably not make you all the money you wanted.
Exclusive Agency is different form Exclusive Right to Sell in that, if the agent (only 1) doesn’t bring a buyer, you don’t have to pay them a commission. You have the right to bring your own buyer, such as an investor. This allows the benefit of you dealing with just one agent, but you’d also be able to find a buyer yourself. Of course, most agents prefer an Exclusive Right to Sell, but EA is an option at least in Texas.
To have agents competing, you have the option of an Open Listing. The agent who brings the buyer gets the commission. You won’t necessarily get the highest caliber agent to agree to this.
Check out definitions of types of agreements here. http://homebuying.about.com/od/sellingahouse/qt/ListingAgrmnts.htm
I am not sure if another realtor will be able to list the house on the MLS since it probably already is.
MLS is only used by agents who are REALTORS®, meaning they are members of their local board and NAR. You’d have to see which one you want to list it in MLS with.
The listing agreement has a section on whether you want the home listed in MLS. You can choose whether or not you want the home in MLS anytime you sell a house, but of course, it’s recommended that you use it as tool.
As a realtor, I question why somebody would want to agents. Is the first one not doing the job? If so, then fire them and be careful about the next agent you hire. What exactly do you want the second one to do that the first isn’t?
A second agent doesn’t get you more exposure in the MLS. If it’s more advertising you want, or more open houses, a second agent isn’t going to accomplish that either. Another agent might, but not a second.
One thing you might not know is that less than 10% of all homes sell during an open house. An open house is nothing more than a tool for real estate agents to find prospective buyers. Many of them will ask buyers to fill out a small form so they can call them at a later date and try and find them homes.
Only thing an agent really does is place is on the MLS (over 80% of all homes will sell thru MLS as its what realtors use to find homes), as well as some will advertise in a local newspaper or work for a large company that has its own local magazine for publication. You want a nice for sale sign in the yard, a lockbox for entry at any time (keep your house clean and organized) and you want your agent to accompany all potential buyers with there agent when looking at the house since you do not want things to be stolen. Having a virtual tour will give you a priorty listing on Realtor.com I know as pushes you ahead of the others so have them do that.
If you want open houses, I suggest you advertise them yourself and make it more home feeling sobuyers do not feel as pressured. Alot of realtors I know when they have a nice house to sell, they have an open house for realtors to help spread the word on the listing since you need them to help sell the home.
Those “broker opens”, where the listing realtor host an open house for other realtors, work less often than public open houses. I go to the broker open houses because they usually offer free lunch.
Yeah and some do nice lunches. My realtor has good success with them. My last 4 rehabs she listed. All had broker openings and what we do is offer an addition 2% commission to the brokers for the 1st week it is on the market. When you have a 500-850K home that adds up to 10-20K extra at times. They just need to get a solid contract signed within 7days starting the next business day after the open house and it is advertised to the brokers.
Well out of my last 4 rehabs in a sluggish SoFl market, I had 3 good contracts signed within 6days and all sold. The other home is still on market for 2months now but hoping soon.
I do not mind paying extra 2% if I can get the home sold within 7days and I am motivating the brokers to push my home to there clients and other brokers in the office. Generally they spread the word and tell brokers here is the lead on the home, they are paying extra 2% this week, sell it and maybe you give me 1% of the commission… I know 2 guys did that.
1st - Realtors do not have exclusive use of MLS - justice dept took care of that. Any broker in good standing has access to MLS.
Most MLS rules do not allow 2 listings of the same property. What you are talking about is called “sub agency” where you have an open listing. Most brokers/agents will not do them/
Porbably what is better for you is to do an MLS entry only service - you pay a flat entry fee and agree to pay a broker who represents a buyer the usual 2 to 3 percent. If you sell it your self then youre only out the 300 to 500 to get it listed. We also do ala cart services for doing open houses, showings, paperwork, etc… Most entry only brokerages like mine will not bring a buyer to the table on an entry only listing - more so to prevent a conflict of interest.
I do that in Massachusetts for investors or indivudual home owners. If you find that is too much work for you you have the option to convert to a full service listing and I usually do that for a flat fee on my side and the 2.5 percent to the broker representing a buyer. If I bring a buyer its still my flat fee and you get the 2.5 percent in your pocket. On a 400k house this can save you about 12 to 15 thousand dollars in fees.
I’m not sure where you got this info. NAR won the suit to be able to restrict MLS access to members. A broker complained that they were forced to join NAR to get MLS access, which they thought was against the Sherman Antitrust Act, but the suit was dismissed in 2005 because it didn’t meet tests for antrust. For now if your agent doesn’t pay, they don’t play. Only a REALTOR® can put a home in MLS.
http://www.parealtor.org/content/TheMLSMembershipRule.asp
http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/articles/mceowen/McEowOthCourtsJune06b.html
http://www.wra.org/online_pubs/press_releases/WRAMLSwins.htm
The issue that is still in courts is NAR was trying to restrict non-members from posting MLS feeds on their websites, which some considered anti-competitive. Hearings are still taking place this month. http://www.ohiorealtors.org/news/articles/2762006044091733.html
Im not a realtor and I am on MLS along with a few thousand, I DO though have to pay a higher fees to access. In areas where the board actually owns the MLS system that may be true.