BEHIND THE SCENES

You need to sell your house. You want to see your property in print everywhere. Then you’ll know the real estate company and agent you have chosen really are doing something for all that money you’re going to have to pay them. "Hey, that agent of mine better bring me some prospects every day, and she darn well better hold my house open frequently. I don’t see her. What is she doing anyway?"

Selling your property is a team effort—that is, you and your resources and I and mine. Your job is to get your house ready for sale. Just forget about the fact that the purchase agreement says that your house is being sold in "as is" condition because right here and right now "as is" better be the best you can make it or it will be passed over. Fix it up; I’ll help you. The house must look both like you live there and love it and at the same time be spotlessly clean and without clutter. Once you’ve done everything and try to live like you don’t really live there, you’re on to the hardest part—having a little trust in a complex process you can’t always see. You will see ads and flyers. You’ll see your property in multiple places on the Internet. You’ll see mistakes. Ouch. Your sign will blow down; your flyer box will blow away and get replaced. Someone’s finger will slip entering data and some detail will be wrong and have to be fixed. You’ll have lookers that you may not see. Their Realtor may or may not give us feedback. Mostly you won’t see what is going on unless you have nothing to do and want to work for me. Let me bear the frustration, if you can. That’s my job.

OK. We’re prepared, off and running. The paperwork is in, Multiple Listing Service has the data; your sparkling house has been photographed and it’s on the Internet; ads are submitted to various publications; first wave of flyers distributed around, mailed out or e-mailed to Realtors and prospects. Point of contact brochures and information packets are ready and in your house. Where is everybody? Where’s my agent? What’s she up to? Well, besides preparing houses for sale, and being actively involved in the business of getting transactions closed, schlepping possible prospects around, and delegating tasks like crazy, she is busy marketing the area by educating and guiding other agents and their buyers to area properties and influencing them to serious consideration of yours.

Most buyers sign a contract with their real estate agent to represent them, find them the right property, help them with their financing, gather necessary information about the property—such as that it has good water, but is not in a flood plain, is structurally sound. She needs to gather information about the community—the schools, churches, homeowner associations, architectural control, zoning, police, garbage, fire department, assessments, utilities, animals—can they have a horse, for instance, or where do they stable one. How does this buyer’s agent get all the information for the many different areas in which she is searching? She looks for a knowledgeable agent in the area where she is scouting out property—someone she has known or known about for a long time, or worked with before. That agent must have the reputation for taking the time to direct other agents to appropriate property and to guide them to sources of information they need to sell it—an agent they know through brokers’ networks, someone who has been visible to them through the marketing of properties over the years, someone who has been active and well respected in the real estate community a long time and is known to be helpful to fellow agents. Your agent may likely be found doing this sort of thing—or you better hope she is. Believe it or not, it could just be your agent’s visibility in the world of Realtors that gets your house sold—not necessarily the visibility of the special qualities of your house. Believe me—worry about your transaction if you can always find me at my desk.

Informed sellers understand that their agent’s role is one of marketing their property to the widest possible segment of the market and not just in ways they can easily see. The listing agent’s job is to CAUSE the property to sell, and not necessarily making the sale herself which could take more time. The cooperation of other agents is vital to the selling process. Someone out there has the right buyer. Agents with buyers in tow seek out the expertise of an aggressive sellers’ representative, knowing they will be told about available property (all about it) that it is likely to be priced well, and in excellent condition. INFORMED SELLERS choose an agent who PREPARES them well and who MARKETS ACTIVELY TO THE REAL ESTATE COMMUNITY, because that’s how the selling job gets done.