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We decided to sell our Florida condo ($450-500K) and are coming back to this forum for advice. I have done a monumental task of tabulating the recent (6 months) sales in the town -- more than 160 transactions, with the information on the selling prices, the names and firms of the listing and buyer's agents, days on the market, and selling-to-listing price ratios. The idea was to identify the listing brokers who have:
a) the most sales
b) the fastest sales and
c) the highest ratios.
Still, two basic questions remain:
1. I've been debating whether the top performers are actually better vs. the agents who had just one or two listings that sold fast and close to the listing price. The former are well-oiled machines while the latter might have more time to deal with us.
2. My instinct is to get the lowest commission, of course, but would offering a higher commission (say, 6% vs 5%) be effective in driving the buyer's brokers to our listing? Or it doesn't really matter and would be a waste of money? Right now it seems there is a slight tilt toward the buyers.
I would also look at who has sold and is familiar with your building or the buildings right around you and similar to yours.
I think I would almost always have someone who knows the building/area/HOA vs someone who just sells lots of property.
That might mean someone that has lived in the building and sells 5 a year vs someone that sells 25 a year.
Some people also thing about that list to sales price ration, but that doesn't tell everything. Maybe one agent reaches for the sky and overprices every listing and that might mean lower sales/price ratio, but very well could get you more than the person who underprices every listing and sells for 103% of asking price. Interesting to consider, but not tell all. Maybe that just determines on how good of a negotiator they are with you when they take your listing.
One thing is I want to work with one person the whole transaction that knows my transaction. I don't want a giant team where you deal with 10 different people and the rainmaker has no clue as to who you are. That's just me, both systems could and do work.
You might ask your trusted agent to do some of the work you are thinking of doing. It would be a good deal of work to do it by agent, but list to sales price rations are pretty quick. DOM pretty quick. The biggest trick to me, is I would not want to do all that work for you and then have you pick a different agent. I want a fair shot at getting your listing if I did all that work.
I'm pretty sure the lowest commission is not the way to go. I have been meaning to run some of your numbers in my market for agents that discount. I expect their DOM takes longer and their properties sell for less. I see it antidotally, but want to run actual numbers so I can take that on my listing appointments. Some agents will not show your property if it is not for full commission, but you have no way of even knowing that. Also with the movement of agents requiring buyers to sign commission agreements, it may be a deal killer for you. Lets say buyer agrees to work with a buyer agent at X%, but you're offering cooperative compensation of X%-1%. Agent turns to their buyer client and says...well I work for X% and that seller is only offering X-1%, so you will have to make up the difference in cash. Do you still want to see the property? What do you think they say? Having the most agents and buyers see your property turns into the highest sales prices.
Fast sales are also not always the fault or the result of the agent. Sometimes and often it is your pricing. Price high and you stay on the market longer. Make it difficult to show, longer time on market. Offer lower commissions, probably longer on market, dated or needs work or not well maintained-probably longer on market.
One thing I would do is ask them to bring the MLS sheet from their last 3 sales. Look to see how they detail it out. Do they actually put in driving directions, or do they just get lazy and put in SEE GPS. Do they put the sizes of the bedrooms? Do you like their listing descriptions. Do they load all kind of info in the MLS for buyers to see? How are the pictures? You might also ask them to send you a list of all the sales in your building and who the buyer's agents were.
Also realize 90% chance the listing agent does not sell your place. In fact they may never show it once. Ask them how many transactions they double end...rep buyer and seller. Ask them if they think that is good for the clients?
Good luck. Best wishes. Hope you make lots of money and sell quickly with a great agent.
Take your top 3-6 of each and interview them. Someone will stand out. I've worked with top producers that are great and awful (and you may get one of their team agents instead the person who's name is on the sale, which is fine if they are good). I've also some really good agents that don't do many transactions and some are great, some are awful, and many are in between.
The list-to-sales price ratio is a worthless statistic and should not be used. Pricing strategy depends on market conditions.
True story... as the market was shifting in 2022, I was pricing high and coming down as needed because the market was shifting and wonky. Multiple offers weren't happening as much so you couldn't count on that to drive up the price to market. So I priced high with price reductions built in. I competed for one listing and recommended we start at $500,000 thinking worst case we sell at $450,000. They interviewed other agents and I was the highest suggestion by far. The other agents were around $375,000 which was all sorts of wrong. Those agents were going for a fast sale.
The house sold for $450,000 which was my worst-case sales price which was still $75,000 more than the other agents suggested, BUT it was 90% of list price and my days on the market was 87. My list-to-sales ratio on that house wasn't great, but I still got the seller way more money than the other agents would have had they hired them.
Don't use that statistic for anything.
So rather than look at those statistics, look at them in conjunction with the agent's marketing. Are the homes prepared for sale? Do they look staged? Are the photos good? Do they have bowling alley photos/distorted images? Do the photos show a flow through the property so that you can figure out the floor plan by just looking through the photos? Do they put up floor plans, 3D tours, video tours, etc? Are they making the property look good?
You don't want statistics per se; you want professional marketing. The statistics come as a result of professional marketing.
1-Each agent is different. Some top producers are bad agents or too busy to really spend much time on you. Some solo agents are the same. Some top producers are great, some solo agents are great. You'll have to interview them to find out. I'd generally avoid agents that don't do a decent amount of transactions, but if the agent is doing a huge amount of transactions they probably are also getting credit for their teams closings. I'd want a knowledgeable agent. Ask them to walk you through the legal docs and a contract of sale. Maybe ask them a few common issues that pop up and the best way to prevent or deal with them when they do. Then you'll find out how well they know the business.
2-Do you want cheap or good? Sometimes you don't get both. If you want cheap, then ask before they come and try to get the best cheap you can. If you want good, interview agents and pick who you want and see what they can offer you for commission. There is a huge gap between bad and new agents and good, experienced agents.
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