Real Estate Agents

Listing real estate agents face many challenges that can be overcome by being resourceful and malleable, which will result in success for the sellers. Real estate agents would love to have every home be updated, professionally decorated and inspected by a licensed home inspector prior to listing the property. In a similar wish, real estate agents would love to have sellers agree to price their properties at the top of the current market, not over a realistic sales price. Sometimes we are fortunate to have a listing that is close to the perfect wish list, but frequently this is not the case. It is in the majority of scenarios that real estate agents must work around less than perfect circumstances.

Let me share a story of a frustrated seller that had her property listed with three different real estate agents over four years. She only had a handful of showings per year and ZERO offers. She called me after receiving a flyer advertisement showing one of my recently sold properties with the seller’s testimonial describing their experience of working with me throughout the sale of their home. 

It struck her that perhaps going with the large franchise brokerages was not of any benefit and skeptically invited me to see her home and possibly list it. As a professional Real Estate Agent, I started preparing for my listing presentation by reviewing the available photographs and remarks from the past listings. I was really surprised with the few amount of pictures used in the previous listings.

Upon entering the house for the first time, what struck me right away was the amount of furnishings, knick-knacks, artwork and pictures…everywhere! This explained the prior agent’s choice to omit images. This was a large 4 bedroom, 3½ bathroom pool home with a huge den, a living room, dining room, full kitchen and large family room. This home had a big open floor plan but it was so cluttered that I had to turn sideways to get through it. Although the furnishings, upholstery and window treatments were very well done, there was just too much of it.

It’s problem solving time! I had to delicately persuade her to remove items from her home. She vehemently resisted. She felt like the things she had accumulated over the years were just perfect. After a long heated debate, she finally agreed that there may be a few too many pieces of furniture in the house, but she would not throw anything away and she would not pay for a storage unit. Now what?

She had a big empty two car garage that wasn’t being used. With her permission, and without her spending any money, I used my husband and kids to carefully move furnishings into the garage. We thinned out the inventory of things until the house looked huge. That evening, I put the house on the MLS with a bunch of pictures and in two days she had multiple offers and a bidding situation. Ultimately, the home sold for $10,000 over the asking price. Problem solved!