A Practical Guide to Protect Yourself from Real Estate Greed and Bank Extra Profit by Taking a Value-Driven Approach to Selling Your Home
My friend Tina and I were chatting recently after a Toastmasters meeting. I helped Tina buy a home which she obtained at a great price, because the seller and his agent had made a few fundamental mistakes in the preparation and marketing.
I made the comment to Tina that I am on a constant quest to improve my approach so that my clients net the absolute most when they sell their homes. She replied, “Michelle, I wouldn’t have minded paying a little extra for my house. What made you the best agent I’ve ever had is that you genuinely care for your clients.”
“What made you the best agent I’ve ever had is that you genuinely care for your clients.”
While I do agree that a good agent will truly care for her clients, I would add that great real estate agents will have two qualities: a caring heart AND a documented, proven approach to obtain consistently superior results for their clients. It has always been my desire to have both.
And that is why I was thrilled when I discovered a group of real estate agents that thought the same way I did and was invited to join their ‘mastermind’. The agents hail from all over the U.S., Canada, and even Australia. We freely share with each other what works, what doesn’t – for example, the best audience qualities for our FB ads on the marketing side, and which steps yield the most on the home prep side.
After years of such research and collaboration, we decided to jointly publish a book entitled The Value-Driven Approach to Sell Real Estate, How to Sell Your House the Warren Buffet Way.
And no – the Warren Buffet way is not ‘buy and hold’. Buffet’s #1 rule is “Avoid Fundamental Mistakes”. That’s our rule in selling homes, also. The fundamental mistakes that we have seen home sellers make repeatedly over the years are outlined in the book.
What is the most common mistake made by home sellers (& their agents)?
While almost all real estate agents are taught to fixate on the price-driven approach to selling real estate, instead, my team and I choose to focus on ways to help homeowners extract extra (sometimes hidden) profit from the sale of their homes. Other agents, their sole objective is to sell the house as quickly as possible. And to put it bluntly, in most instances, a quick sale in a hot market does not require a lot of extra effort – on the part of the homeowner or their agent.
One has to wonder how much potential profit is being left on the table by trusting homeowners who have been sold a bill of goods by their price (and commission) driven agent?
Stop and think about this for a moment. Hypothetically speaking, an average single-side commission on a home sale is three percent. Three percent of $10,000 comes out to a clean $300. Further, factor in the percentage of that $300 that the “traditional sales agent” shares with his or her broker / team (30-50%) and you are left with $150-200. Said differently, the “traditional sales agent” in this example stands to gain just $150-200 in income by standing up to fight for an extra $10,000 on your home sale.
That’s it – $150 vs. $10,000!
What motivation does this “traditional sales agent” have to invest his or her own money into strategically increasing the property’s perceived value?
What motivation does this “traditional sales agent” have to invest his or her own money into strategically increasing the property’s perceived value?
After all, at best, it’s a break-even proposition. Why bother, right?
WRONG! Sadly, though, this is why most agents simply choose to just roll over rather than standing up to fight. Let’s be honest, there is only one person in that equation that stands to lose – You, The Homeowner!
The stakes at hand equate to: a dinner fancy for two at a four-star restaurant ($150) for them vs. a newer car, a larger down payment, a sizable college fund or retirement contribution – for you. I don’t have to tell you that the numbers are even more drastically weighted at say, $20,000 or even $30,000.
Real Estate Greed is Real
Who can really afford to roll those dice?
It is clear that the current model has leaks. Even the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the “governing body” of real estate, recently commissioned a report highlighting the fact that the industry is largely broken. This is the very reason why I was motivated to develop a different approach and to help write this book. Showing clients how to protect themselves is something that I am fiercely passionate about. When it comes to you, your family and your financial future, I refuse to cut corners.