Sellers

• Don’t pick a friend new to the business unless they are working with a seasoned team with a long list of recent sales. There are too many pitfalls for inexperienced agents *especially* when it comes to the contracts.
• Don’t pick the busiest agent in the area. You will have assistants doing almost all of the showings and when you run into speed bumps- which 90% of deals have- you will likely become frustrated with the resulting service and lack of premeditation in the deals game theory.
• Don’t pick your favorite realtor from somewhere else. Local agents don’t like working with agents from neighboring markets who aren’t privy to the unique value propositions of the area and will likely be frustrated with the pricing. You want to be represented by a face/name that local, productive agents know and have done deals with in the past
• Don’t pick an agent because they discount their commission. Good agents will earn their commission especially when deals go sideways which they often do.
• Pick an agent who has a long list of recent sales in YOUR AREA, who isn’t too busy, and who presents a good listing presentation which is customized for you (i.e. not a template they printed off the server along with a list of MLS comps). At the very least it should have most of the above points which they can articulate in person. Pick someone you can functionally communicate with. There is a long list of agents out there with tons of recent sales who can’t string a few sentences together on a complicated topic. Real estate deals often get very complicated both by details and emotion. A level head is key as is the ability of an agent to push back on a seller’s bad idea- its one of the things that you are paying them for.

• As articulated above, pricing is nothing more than the most important element of the marketing/presentation/sales process.
• You are not setting the selling price- the market does that.
• Most homes should be priced where the seller feels downright uncomfortable.
• Why- because you will make buyers feel more comfortable. You will have more showings, buyers will get VALIDATION on pricing from all the activity, develop a stronger emotional attachment to your offering– which then stokes FEAR OF LOSS.
• Fear of loss is the most powerful weapon for a good listing agent, this is where we make money for our sellers. But good listing agents can’t do that if the presentation is off, and if the pricing is off.

There are a number of items to consider here, and we could write a book on this. The first and most important is don’t try to outsmart your own agent. I’ve seen this so many times over. Pick an agent you trust, first and foremost, and second don’t add to the complexity of the deal by applying game theory to your own agent.

Great agents prepare their clients for possible moves by buyers. YOU must get HOME INSPECTIONS. If you skimp on the +-$2k for home inspections you go into your negotiations at an information disadvantage. This is a huge mistake. Spend the money, find out what issues are likely to come up and plan accordingly. A Second reason to have inspections is super important: PROBLEMS don’t usually derail deals, but **SURPRISES DO!!!!**

If you think your agent is too negative because they are constantly premeditating likely issues and you don’t like the relentlessness of it, you either selected an agent you don’t communicate well with or, you are pulling the wool over your own eyes. Agents deal with this stuff 24/7/365 – PREPARE before your home hits the market or you’ll have to deal with IT when you don’t have time to cost-effectively fix whatever IT is. This is also known as “losing lots of sleep and paying 2x what it would have otherwise cost” if you had 1) picked the right agent, 2) did the home inspections, and 3) listened to your agent when they were preparing you for the worst.

After 150+ $2m+ deal negotiations, I have learned a few important items:

If you didn’t price the house low enough, you likely aren’t dealing with multiple offers. If you aren’t dealing with multiple offers, prepare to be frustrated by everything and everyone for a couple of weeks (hopefully not longer). If you ARE dealing with multiple offers, the only way that you get thru this with all of your expectations met is if you get an all cash no-contingency offer. Otherwise, negotiations are just that- a give and take by both parties. The best deals are those where both parties are downright uncomfortable and don’t really feel like shaking hands at the end of it. Don’t blame everything on your agent if your feel that way- like you could have done better. If the buyer never emails you for information about how the irrigation system works, its because they feel the same way and both agents likely did the best they could with a tough situation- and almost all real estate deals are tough situations.

Last, when presented with two offers, be careful selecting the one with a better price if some of the other terms of that offer are in any way abnormal–*especially if the buyer is an attorney or an attorney is present alongside the buyer and agent in the negotiations.

I will let your own agent guide you on this one aside from the following: Treat the Disclosure Process as a get out of jail free card. Get the home inspections, fix the: sketchy drainage system, leaky roof, legacy electrical issues, or whatever… or DISCLOSE them. Otherwise prepare to be sued a couple years after the close when you have a whole new set of life challenges that you are dealing with.