When it comes to selling your property, the rule is: NEVER pay any agent under any circumstances until your home is sold for the price you want. In theory, it’s easy enough to remember, but implementing the idea can be hard, especially if you have a particularly persuasive sales agent on your hands!
Follow this rule and you’ll be protecting yourself from paying too much to an agent. Don’t forget that the reason you hire an agent is to sell your property so don’t make the mistake of falling for one of their lines designed to coerce and even bully you into paying up-front fees. A slippery agent may even succeed in convincing you that up-front fees are a good thing, when we all know they are not! You shouldn’t even consider an agent that asks for money before they have sold your property.
One of the most common reasons an agent will try to get you paying costs up-front is that they know it’s going to be a whole lot harder to get paid once they’ve broken promise after promise to you.
Signing anything that commits you to paying money even if your property doesn’t sell, is also a big no-no. Because if you agree to pay fees and your agent doesn’t sell your property they may place a ‘caveat’ on your home. You should seek independent advice before signing anything you have concerns about, preferably from a lawyer. Never from a Real Estate Institute, which some people confuse as an official body that “polices” agents. When in actuality, they exist to represent real estate agents.
Not enough people follow their intuition anymore and in the case of choosing an agent to sell your property, if you don’t feel comfortable with them that’s a sure sign they’re not the right one. If you can’t find an agent you like, just keep looking, they’re out there. Or you could sell your home yourself, place an ad on Gumtree and wait! Because let’s be honest that’s all some agents do (not our team at Clark though).
Discounts
The best thing about sticking to the Golden Rule is that you won’t pay anything until you’ve sold your home and you’re happy with the price. A seller once said “Why should I worry too much about what I pay the agent? If I get what I want, the agent is welcome to a fair fee. If I don’t get what I want, I don’t pay anything.” But some Vendors like to receive a discount on what considered the normal rate. And who can blame them, we all like a good bargain. But a discount under normal conditions is actually a sign of an unethical agent.
Consider this, you sell your home and then whilst celebrating the sale you discover the agent that your neighbour referred you to offered a cheaper fee to them, you’d feel swindled right? Well good
agents don’t swindle anyone. If you’re a loyal customer of any business or company then you would rightly be outraged that they were offering better deals to new customers. Banks are notorious for this, as are car sale companies.
Net Price
Once you’ve sold your property the amount you’re left with after you pay your agent is your ‘Net Price’. This amount should be your focus as it’s the most important price. A common mistake amongst sellers is choosing an agent based on what they charge.
We’ve said this before, but a good agent is worth their weight in gold. A bad one isn’t worth the fees they charge and they know it. So instead of focusing on the amount that your agent will get we suggest you focus on your ‘Net Price’ and never forget your Golden Rule!
