9 Ways to Annoy Your Real Estate Agent: Seller Edition

Depending on who your real estate agent is and how much you like or dislike them, this is either a How-To or a What-Not-To-Do….

1. 1. Refuse showings. The truth is showings that get refused rarely get rescheduled. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that a serious Buyer will reschedule – they often don’t. Selling your home is inconvenient, there’s no avoiding that.
   2. Be hard to reach. There’s nothing worse than getting an offer on a property we’ve listed and we can’t find the Seller. Offers are time-dependent, and it’s not unusual to get an offer that’s only valid for a few hours. If your home is on the market, be reachable by text or phone and let your agent know if you’re going to be away.
   3. Live like a slob while your home is for sale. We’ve gone to a lot of effort to get to the point of listing your home for sale. If you’re working with the BREL team, we’ve had your home professionally cleaned, staged and we’ve looked after the yard work. Don’t let all that effort go to waste during showings! Nobody wants to see your unmade bed or your panties on the floor or smell the dirty litter box or food waste in the green bin. I know, it’s a pain to make it seem as though you don’t live in your home while you are, in fact, living there, but that effort will pay off. And the longer your home is on the market? The more important every detail becomes. Sorry.
   4. Don’t tell us the whole story. I know that asbestos/mold/fire experience you lived through was traumatizing, but failing to disclose material facts will land you and us in court. Be honest with us, and we’ll do everything we can to protect you. [Related: Disclose, Disclose, Disclose]
   5. Talk too much on social media. In this day and age, it’s standard procedure for many Buyer agents to search the Sellers’ names on social media. Don’t be that Seller who is: “Desperate for this house to sell! I get my new house in 2 weeks!” or “Anxious to get out of this crappy neighbourhood”. Stay quiet. Stay classy.
   6. Want the Lexus experience but only want to pay for a Hyundai Accent. There are all sorts of real estate commission models that come with different levels of experience, services, inclusions, and results, and it’s important that you compare and contrast before choosing an agent. One of my biggest pet peeves is when a potential Seller wants the full BREL experience with cleaning/staging/ambush marketing but wants us to match the 1% commission that the person who knocked on their door offered. They’re not different sides of the same coin – they are entirely different coins.
   7. Insist on using your own photos. Unless you’re a real estate photography pro, your personal photos will rarely capture the room in an optimal way for real estate. Real estate photography is a specialty, just like portraits or nature photography, and we are bound by MLS photo limitations too. Note: we do love it when you send us off-season yard (e.g.,. summer photos in the winter or vice versa) or sunset/sunrise photos.
   8. Call us for feedback immediately after every showing. I get it: every Seller has the same deep-rooted fear that their house isn’t going to sell, and you’re dying to find out what people think of it. So are we! Good agents will reach out to the Buyer agents for feedback, but it’s not unusual for them to ignore us. They might be trying to protect their clients by not revealing their cards, or they just might simply not have the time to give feedback on the ten properties they showed that day. More importantly, agents don’t normally walk out of a showing and call us right away; they’ll usually wait until all of their showings for the day are done. It’s to our mutual benefit – yours and ours – to provide timely feedback. Pro tip: be clear with your agent about how often you want to hear from them, and if they aren’t living up to your expectations, tell them.
   9. Believe you’ll get back all the $$ you put into your renovation. We often get push-back from Sellers who expect a Buyer to pay a $30,000 premium for the $30,000 hardwood floors they put into their 700 sqft condo (true story). Your renovations may or not be valuable to the average Buyer, and that value may or may not be equal to what you paid for the renovations. It isn’t your agent who decides how much your renos are worth, it’s the Buyers….though if you’re working with a top agent, they likely have an idea about the premium a Buyer will pay.