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Should I hire an agent that does broker open houses?

Written by Posted On Tuesday, 22 August 2017 10:40

There are many considerations about hiring a real estate agent.  You are wondering "should I hire an agent that does broker open houses"?  Some of the main criteria in hiring a real estate agent to sell your Michigan home should be:

  1. 1.)  Experience of the agent........  Years on the job does help you sell your home because the agent will be able to solve problems and anticipate issues on the sale of your home if they are experienced.  Experience matters!
  2. 2.)  Full time agent........ Real estate is not a 40 hour a week job.  You need to hire an agent that works more than 9 to 5.  Buyers don't quit looking after 5.  Many of them only look at night and or on the weekends.  If your agent is not working and not able to respond to questions or an offer at those times then you may have an issue.  You may lose that buyer.  Buyers are all about instant gratification.  If you do not answer questions or respond to an offer they buyer may move on to the next home.  If the agent cannot reply to phone messages because they are working at another job and they can't answer their cell phone....then that is a problem.  Having a full time agent helps sell your home.
  3. 3.) Marketing of your home.......We are in the internet age.  Yes, I remember the days of the listings in a book and you flipped pages to find your home.  Or you looked at the want ads.  Or you went to an open house.  The internet has changed all of that.  You need to hire a real estate agent that knows how to market on the internet and uses the full potential of the internet.  96% of home buyers use the internet to find their home.  So, do you want to miss out on the sale of your home because your agent does not have a clue about marketing on the internet?
  4. So let's go into the question of how important are broker open houses?  THEY ARE A WASTE OF TIME.  Today's buyer recieves updates from the MLS system, their agent, or some app on their phone.  They are getting the latest and newest homes for sale emailed to them or they are getting an alert about them.  Buyers can see everything about the home, and even past history of the home from the internet.  There are drone videos, there are virtual tours of some homes.  There is not much you cannot see from the internet.  You can at least get the basics of the home to figure out whether you want to see it.
  5. Brokers, agents can do the same thing.  What a lot of sellers do not realize is that agents do not have a stream of buyers just for their home.  Your home may be listed at $350,000 in West Bloomfield Michigan.  An agent may have a $200 to $300,000 buyer in West Bloomfield and a $350,000 buyer that wants to live in Clarkston only.  So that agent does not have a buyer for your home.  Believe it or not most agents will not have a buyer for home.  In Metro Detroit there are over 12,000 licensed realtors.  Less than 5% of those real estate agents may have a buyer for your home.  So how does this tie into broker open houses? 
  6. A broker open house is for agents to come preview your home.  So if an agent has no buyer for your home why would they go to the broker open house?  If the agent is busy they do not have time to go see houses.  Their clients are keeping them busy seeing the homes that fit their buying criteria.  So who do you have coming to broker open houses?  Agents that have free time or agents looking for a free lunch that you are offering.  With the internet it doesn't make sense to hold a broker open house or go to one.  It is a big waste of time.  No sense at all.  In the old days it made sense because it showed agents what the house was like.  Now you can see it on line.
  7. Honestly when somebody holds a broker open house, and agents from my office and other offices go I am happy.  That means those agents are not really working.  They have nothing better to do.  Instead of spending time marketing their clients homes or marketing themselves they are out looking at a home because they have extra time.  They could do the same thing on the computer.  So a broker open house does not make sense.  It does not matter if it is a Lakefront home for sale in Oakland County or any home in Metro Detroit do not base your decision to hire a realtor because they hold a broker open house.  I'll bet there is a good chance they place want ads in print publications too.  The same old papers nobody subscribes to.  Base your decision on who is a good marketer, who has experience, and who is full time.               
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Russ Ravary

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