Realtors Gotta Hustle Too….
29 May 2008 5 Comments
in Random Ramblings of a Striking Diva Tags: hustle, real estate, sale, showings
We’re selling our house “By Owner”. We’re happy and think things are going well. Our house looks great, it’s staged well and we’re proud of the work we’ve done. We’re not selling to break even – we’ll make money. But I think as far as hustles go – we have a pretty good one – it’s legit and sound and I’m liking it.
I guess all the realtors are back from the long Memorial Day weekend and folks saw our ad in the paper or got a flyer from our sign – so now the realtors are calling and letting us know that they have buyers interested in our house.
This is great – we’re excited to get some positive referrals! We even listed on our website, newspaper listing and flyers that we’d give 2% commission to a realtor. I think that’s fair – we’re paying for our own marketing and apparently it’s working well. It’s been less than 2 weeks and we’ve had 4 calls, 2 showings, our website is getting hits daily – it’s encouraging to us and it’s a great feeling, especially in a market that is soooo horribly slow.
BUT….what is up with realtors asking for more money prior to showing? I know people have to get their hustle on – they won’t get more money if they don’t ask. But we’re making it more than clear what we’re willing to offer. The other part that just IRKS me is that these buyers found our ad on their own. The realtor didn’t go out of his way to show them a FSBO listing. Why on God’s Green Earth would they expect me to pay them more for a job they didn’t do?
One realtor used a very shady and borderline unethical use of verbage to try to get us to agree to 3%. He said things like he requires a MINIMUM of 3% and how it was unfortunate we were only giving 2%. Well….husband was not too pleased with his poorly constructed diss. He asked the realtor what he could offer us for the extra 1% because obviously the buyer was interested with or without the realtor. The realtor was stumped and said he’d have to call us back. Dang…if you’re gonna hustle – have a good hustle.
So anyway – we talked long and hard and finally decided if an agent brings us a full price offer we will give them 3%. Anything short of that will get 2%. Point blank-period. We’ll see how that goes….
Realtors…prepare to hustle.
I’m SHOWING!
23 May 2008 Leave a Comment
in Random Ramblings of a Striking Diva Tags: home buyer, home selling, real estate, showings
My house!
Ha ha ha – no baby bumps here, just showing our house to prospective buyers. Our first showing went well, the family stayed over an hour and seemed to enjoy themselves. But they are renting and have a lease through October….so I’m thinking they’re in no rush to buy and I don’t want to get all my hopes up in one buyer.
Tomorrow there’s a couple coming to see the house and well….we’ll see. I got curious and ‘myspaced’ the names and saw this is a very young couple, I know Myspace isn’t exactly the best place to make a judgement about folks…and really, I’m trying hard to be non-judgemental. Anyway – my initial reaction was “This couple can’t afford this house. They are just lookie-loo’s who have no idea. They’re young, he works at a supermarket, they have a new baby…” I talked with my husband and he said that that we should treat them like they are the buyers – and see what happens.
A few months back we were approached by a young couple wanting to buy our house and we told them to speak with our banker about what they can afford. It was very clear that they would not afford our house. Anyway – they did end up talking to our banker, got a number that they would qualify for, and a couple weeks ago they moved into their new place! I felt like it was a real step up for them, they were in a single wide trailer and the wife told me that only one window in the place WASN’T broken. So now they’re in a much nicer place. And we feel like we lead them in the right direction. And so….we’re thinking that might be our job again – to show a young couple the best way to buy.
But who knows – they might surprise me!
