The Dumb Little Man (who is anything but…) just listed 10 questions he asked real estate agents along with the answers he got and the answers he wanted to hear.
How are you going to advertise my home?
Why are you saying my home is worth $400K when I think its worth $325K?
Is your realty company placing pictures on your website and other listing services?
Will you be at the closing or will you send a lackey?
Show me your municipal reporting on the area?
What are your stats?
How accessible are you?
What is your commission?
How can I prepare to show my home?
Can I have the names and phone numbers of the last 3 people that listed with you?
Note that this blog post got picked up by lifehacker and there are some interesting conversations going on over there as well…
Update: Just noticed I was a little behind on this story as it was already covered by both Jonathan and Erik. 🙂
All great questions and ones I usually cover with clients when we meet. Every agent should be prepared to answer these from any prospective client and they should be able to speak from an educated standpoint. A great way to continue increasing the quality of agents in general.
How are you going to advertise my home?
I’ll stick it in the MLS and do a lot of praying.
Why are you saying my home is worth $400K when I think its worth $325K?
Oh wait, I forgot the capet needed vaccuming. Let’s list the house for 325.
Is your realty company placing pictures on your website and other listing services?
As long as they are free service, we’ll list it anywhere.
Will you be at the closing or will you send a lackey?
Depends on if I have something better to do.
Show me your municipal reporting on the area?
We have one?
What are your stats?
5’8 180 pounds.
How accessible are you?
Depends on how cute you are.
What is your commission?
I was commissioned as a private in JROTC.
How can I prepare to show my home?
Vaccum the floor, clean the windows and attend church more often as you’ll be needing the prayers to get this piece of junk sold.
Can I have the names and phone numbers of the last 3 people that listed with you?
What do you want to ask them? How come their home has been on the market for 2 years and listed with 3 other agents before I finally sold the thing in which I nearly had to give the house away?
Seriously through…. I have never listed a house, don’t intend to either even through I do have my license. I am more into the political part of real estate, but here in my area we’re so small homes seem to stay on the market longer than most people stay in town and most people do not even use the Internet (too poor) except for the school kids and thanks to John Edwards (the presidential candidate) and a few others, they have computers and the Internet and we can all go to college for free. Yes we’re so poor here John Edwards is paying for our college!
I thought this was an interesting post. I don’t agree that all his questions will get great results, but I would be worried to hear the answers that some of my “peers” would give him. I put a list of interview questions on my Active Rain Blog a few weeks back. http://www.activerain.com/geordie
I just hope the dumb little man had good enough presentations from the listing agents that half of those questions would become unnecessary. He should have been shown exactly what the internet presence was, how much internet traffic is generated, shown the statistics that less than 1% of homes sell from open houses, that it’s best to have a voice mail when you’re asleep! That professional pictures are totally the way to go, that a professional stager will be provided to the seller at listing agents cost. Closing is a celebration and of course, we’ll be there ( in spite of legal telling the agent not to go). Regarding municipal reporting, I can’t imagine having a memory that could quote all the statistics in every neighborhood regarding school scores, crime, etc. That’s what the internet’s for you certainly want facts and not opinion,anyway.
Question:
What happens if I get that interest only loan and the value of my property goes down by 20 or 30%?
Just so everyone knows… Iconoclast is coming from the same IP address as synthetik (i.e. they are the same person) and is just trolling for a reaction. Don’t feel like you have to give a response to all of his comments.
“What happens if I get that interest only loan and the value of my property goes down by 20 or 30%?”
You have an interest-only loan on a home valued 20-30% less than where you bought it. I’m really good at math.
Brian-
That’s exactly what I was thinking but I thought I’d let someone else say it! LOL.
Dustin- at least you gotta love the passion on both sides of the bubble issue! LOL . You should have slapped Synthetic with a personal foul, 10 yd. penalty! LOL