In an earlier post, I discussed the problem of trust in real estate agents. More recently, Brendan Wong from Real Estate Business Online reported that in a recent survey of 1700 people, 53% indicated they did not trust what the real estate industry said about the market. 27% said they sat on the fence when trusting the same news and only 20% said they trusted agents. That is a tough audience by any stretch.
A big contributor to this distrust is the commission structure.
Each year in Australia, around 350,000 residential properties change hands – sell. About 97% of these sales are ‘facilitated’ by traditional Real Estate Agents. Based on the RP Data-Rismark Daily Home Index, the Five Australian Major City Aggregate Price sits at $592,000 (as at 6/9/13).
So, with the average commission being charged by agents, Australia wide, sitting around the 2.6% mark, a sale of $592,000 would see a commission of $15,392 being paid by the seller, and that does not include any advertising expenses. You would have to admit, that is a reasonable chunk of money that any home seller will never see again.
Mr Wong’s article goes on to mention that media, especially print, contribute to the non-trust conundrum because they need to sell advertising space, and the general public could be lead to believe that commentators associated with property advertising publications embellish the true position of the market to ensure pages are filled with properties for sale.
And, one of the Real Estate Industry’s greatest and ongoing ‘trust-killers’ continues to be practiced; the over quoting, by agents, of potential sale prices to get listings.
True, not all agents should be painted with the same brush, there are some very good operators out in property sales world, yet the stigma of distrust and pain felt by sellers when that chunk of a sale price heads off to an agent lingers, as it has done for decades.
Then why, with this atmosphere of distrust and perceived lack of value for services rendered compared to the amount of commission paid, do such a huge proportion of Australian home owners gravitate, somewhat reluctantly, toward agents when the time comes to sell?
In my latest eBook, The Eight Biggest Myths of Real Estate, I reveal why the vast majority of home owners gravitate toward agents when the decision is made to sell up and move on.
One of the myths is that many people still believe that agents have almost exclusive access to ALL the buyers who are searching for property in any given suburb, town or region. Sadly, for agents, and happily for home owners, this IS a myth. Why? Because buyers follow property, not agents.
It is a tough pill to swallow for an industry where it may be the case that only one in five people actually like them. As an agent, I understand the frustrations of home owners, and in some cases buyers, with the level of service and professionalism that is lacking in some quarters of the real estate industry.
But, whilst ever the income of agents is derived solely from the successful completion of a property sale, self-interest and perceived desperation to ‘earn a quid’, there will always be doubt in the minds of home sellers that will prevent a break out of trust that many agents crave and a large number of home sellers find hard to embrace.
So what is the solution? If you are going to use a traditional agent on commission, do your homework. And whilst important, don’t just base your decision on how many properties they have sold. As I have discussed in a previous post, there are different types of agents. Some agents with high turnover simply spend more on marketing themselves to get more listings and have teams working for them to handle your sale along with many others.
Talk to friends and family and learn from their experiences. And meet at least three face to face before making a decision. Don’t rush it.
Alternatively, engage a fixed fee agency online and sell it yourself for a fraction of the cost. Who better to trust than yourselves? There is plenty of support online these days to help you get a great result. If you think you can’t do it yourself – think again!
