How do you know when it's time to
change agents?
Ilyce Glink, Tribune Media Services
Q: My mother has had her house listed for the past
three months. Unfortunately, she had one offer that fell apart
and nothing since then. She's worried that her real estate
agent has lost interest in the house. The agent recently
signed on to represent a big new housing development. At the
same time, she's suddenly pushing Mom to lower her price.
Does that mean she has lost interest? When do you know if you
should hire another agent?
A: After three months without an offer, any good agent
might suggest lowering the price in order to sell. Whether or
not you need to do this will depend on how fast your local
market is moving.
Simply suggesting that your mother lower her price isn't
grounds to fire the agent. The real question is what else has
she been doing to market the property? Has she held open
houses for the public and for brokers? Has she advertised the
home?
If she hasn't done anything for three months except ask your
mother to lower the price, then a conversation is in order.
Your mother should do her agent the courtesy of asking what
plans she has for marketing the property and ask her to
provide sales data for homes similar to hers in the area over
the past three months.
If the conversation doesn't go well, the next thing to do is
look at the listing agreement. When does the agreement
terminate? What kind of notice does your mother have to give
the agent if she decides to switch agents? If she signed a
90-day listing agreement, it should have expired by now and
she'd be free to interview other agents.
Any agent can go stale on a house. When that happens, it's
usually because he or she thinks the house is overpriced for
its own physical condition or the changing local market
conditions, or another project is drawing the agent's
interest. (It can also happen if something has changed in the
agent's personal life making it hard for him or her to
concentrate on work.)
If she decides to change agents, your mother should start the
interviewing process from scratch. That means finding three
agents, asking each of them to prepare a comparative marketing
analysis (CMA), interviewing them about what they sell and
what kinds of clients they have, and asking what marketing
plans they have for the property.
When all that's done, your mother should decide which agent is
right for her. And don't be surprised if she decides to lower
her price and stay with her current agent.
Tuesday June 1
6:39 PM ET |
