Real Estate can be an incredibly rewarding and fun career. It’s one of the few industries where you can truly help someone make one of the most important buying decisions of their life. We here at BlueMatch have had the pleasure to work with some amazing agents throughout the Colorado market. You can ask any good agent and their sentiment will usually always be the same when it comes to how important it is to work with another good agent in closing a deal. One of the lessons we learned early on at BlueMatch is that your reputation within the Real Estate community is essential in ensuring the best results for your client.
In this article, we will explain why we think this is important and how you can do a little due diligence on your end to make sure you choose an agent or a brokerage with a strong reputation and make sure you’re getting a good bargain with real estate fees for selling. One of BlueMatch’s top priorities is to always treat other agents with the utmost respect and fairness at all times. We have seen the importance of this first hand and how it can benefit all parties.
One of the first things we always make sure we do when representing a seller is discuss with them the importance of treating the buyer agent fairly. Especially when it comes to compensation. Representing buyers is very different than representing sellers. There is a reason BlueMatch strives to sell homes commission free on the seller side. When someone wants to sell a home (especially in the Denver market) the process is usually very predictable and seamless with little volatility. The buy side, however, can be incredibly exhausting, very little predictability, long, cumbersome, and extremely volatile. Paying a fair buyer commission accomplishes 2 things. First, it shows that you understand how the buy side works and you are willing to compensate agents accordingly. Secondly, it can drive more foot traffic to your home often leading to escalation offer 2X-5X the amount you are paying in buyer commissions. The latter reason alone is usually enough to justify a 2.5% to 2.8% buyer commission.
Although Real Estate Agents have a fiduciary obligation to their clients, they can be influential in the sale. If an agent has spent 6 months to a year working hard to find you dream home and see a flat rate commission of say $2,500 on a 500K house, they may be inclined to not push that home as hard as another home paying a fair commission. The agent may also tell the buyer that they would be responsible for the commission gap causing the buyer to lose interest in the home altogether. This means if you were convinced by a company to pay a flat rate commission that is drastically below the market norm, that company could have cost you the best offer for your home. In addition, this could affect your real estate fees for selling. This also leads to more days on market which almost always leads to a price reduction followed by low ball offers.
Fair commissions are not the only thing that can make some agents/companies more or less desirable to work with. Other factors like how well they communicate, how well they understand basic RE processes and procedures, and something as simple as are they good people can be the difference of getting 1 offer vs 8. These things are incredibly important to research before hiring a company or agent to represent you. A company or agent with a bad reputation amongst other agents can cost you better offers on your home on the sell side and you could lose homes on the buy side.
Here are some basic tips you can do to research the company or person:
Google the name of the company or agent.
What types of news articles are published about them? What does the comment section look like? Are they stirring the pot in the Real Estate community in an adverse way?
Google the name of the founder or managing broker of the company.
Does the person have a blog or an AMA? What was the general sentiment? What types of news articles are published about them? What does the comment section look like? Are they stirring the pot in the Real Estate community in an adverse way?
Ask around town.
Something as simple as asking a few agents if they have heard of company X or founder/broker X can go a long way. What is their reaction or sentiment? Is this reaction the same when you ask multiple agents about company X or founder/broker X?
A good reputation in any industry is always important.
Our rule of thumb is to always play nice with others, treat everyone with respect, and understand the long term ramifications to both our clients and the industry. The Golden Rule of Real Estate is simple. Treat other agents the way you would want them to treat you.
If you’re ready to sell your home with a low amount of real estate fees for selling, contact us today – serving the states of Colorado, Minnesota, New York, and Washington.
