Read the small print

By Shawn Lackie

Think about this for a minute. You want to sell your home and an agent advertises, “I can list your home and if it doesn’t sell in 30 days or less, I will buy it.” Too good to be true, right? Pretty much. Sure, they will buy it, for well under market value.

Remember those lovely faux hand written pieces you used to get in the mail, from “buyers” willing to buy your home, without you even having to go through the arduous process of listing it? Well, this is another variation on that theme. Except they are making a “promise.” Okay, fair enough, but just what does that promise look like? I'm glad you asked.

Every deal which seems too good to be true, always, ALWAYS has some small print, most people have a tendency to gloss over. They just want to get to the meatier part, where they get their money and ride off into the sunset, with very little stress. Except that seldom happens, and with good reason.

Go back in time, to when carnival barkers or used car salesmen would offer the “deal of the century,” or someone else, who seems to be in the news every day.

I always loved the term “snake oil salesman” because it had a real bite to it. Ha! Fast forward to today’s ultra competitive Real Estate market. Everyone is looking to get a leg up, except most agents, who do any kind of regular business, are pretty much following the same routine. Most offer photos and staging advice, plus doing open houses and advertising. Many claim to have a database full of buyers, just waiting to buy YOUR property. Again, where do I sign up for that? In every one of these cases, there is small print.

Let’s be honest here. No one is going to give you some grossly exaggerated price for your home, especially in a stalled market. Which is pretty much where we are. Six years ago, you could promise the moon and not look too bad, when the crazies were lining up to throw thousands of dollars more than asking, so they could be the winner in a bidding war. These days? Not so much.

So the agents have pretty much had to dig a little deeper into their toolkit, to come up with a different approach. Hence, the I’ll Buy It Myself pitch. More than a few agents are doing this these days. I have yet to hear from someone who tried it and the agent ended up buying the place. Feel free to correct me here.

The wording is such that, the seller pretty much has to list for what the agent is suggesting. In other words, surrendering your opinion on the worth of the home. Which takes a lot, considering, most people think their home is a castle, well worth over a million dollars, or more. That used to be a huge sticking point, between agent and client. The actual value of the home. Purely objective. So, now you can check your bias and, take what the agent has to say as the gospel truth and sell. Otherwise, if you don’t they will buy it. Best wishes.

Feel free to check out this story and more on my blog site, at https://slackie14.wixsite.com/buy-sell-and-more