What Do Agents Say About Their Clients?

By Joel Persinger
YourRealEstateDude.com

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to hear the opinions and laments of several real estate professionals who took a few moments to share their concerns for and about their current clients. I thought you might be interested to hear what real estate agents say to each other when their clients aren’t around, so I have included their statements here for your review.

I was leaving church on Sunday when one of my skeet shooting buddies, who also happens to be a Realtor, started telling me about one of his clients. “I told her she is going to have to lower the price if she wants the house sold”, he said. “She doesn’t want to listen to me, but the house has been sitting for months. I have to push her constantly to make any price change and by the time she makes a change, it’s too late. All she’s been doing is staying one step behind the market. She never lowers the price enough to catch up with the decline in pricing”, he lamented.

Just about the time we had finished our conversation, I found that I had run myself out of time and needed to get started on my trip to Imperial Valley. My wife and I have a property in that area and I needed to check on it. Somewhere along the way I turn on the radio and found myself listening to a program focused on financial news and opinion. The fellow who was hosting the show spent thirty minutes ranting about the real estate market. He quoted figures from just about every expert and association known to man illustrating the agonizingly slow speed at which the current market is moving. Then he announced, “The only reason houses are not selling is because sellers refuse to reduce their prices. I don’t care how much you paid for your house. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care how much money you spent improving your house. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care how much your house was worth a year ago. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is how much a buyer will pay, period.” His words were harsh, but his conclusion was accurate.

While I was in Imperial Valley, I thought I might stop by and visit an old friend of mine who owns and runs a real estate brokerage in that neck of the woods. Our conversation drifted across many subjects, but as you might expect we eventually got around to real estate. When I ask him if he was still having clients referred to him by out of town brokers, he replied, “If it’s a seller, don’t even have them call me. I don’t want ‘em. They won’t price their houses so I can sell them. All they do is burn up my money advertising their homes and drive me nuts nagging me constantly because their houses won’t sell the way they’re priced”.

I have shared this with you because story after story is written about the frustration felt by home owners who cannot sell, but nowhere is mentioned the frustration of agents who work in utter futility to sell homes for sellers who will not listen to advice. As your real estate dude, here’s my advice. If your house isn’t selling, reduce the price until it does. If you don’t, you may well end up selling it for even less a year from now.