Does a real estate agent do ANYTHING other than WAITING on your property to SELL????

OK, I know a lot of realtors lurk around here, defending their profession. So, tell me: WHAT the heck are you meant to do as a realtor??? Because every single realtor I've ever used has done the EXACT same thing: they tell me how good they are; they tell me all about the 98% of properties they sell; they tell me that they WILL get my property sold; they get me to sign a contract.....then NOTHING. I never hear from them; getting them to call me back is like pulling teeth; & they appear to passively SIT & WAIT for my property to sell. And wait. And wait. And wait. Very frustrating.

So, tell me. What is your role?? Really. What is it? Is it just this old-boy-network of one realtor letting another realtor know of your property, & that will somehow bring buyers? Or is it possible that you can do a WHOLE lot more to earn the percentage you make?? Becuz I'm VERY unimpressed. Educate me. Help me understand. Either I don't understand, or your profession needs an overhaul.
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Hiddenbarb, I COMPLETELY understand. I've had realtors who took a WEEK to return my phone call, and even that was ridiculous. I am SICK of realtors who think they are JUSTIFIED to earn thousands of dollars for VERY little work.

Very good question... for my listings, I have a pre-staging appointment to discuss all the things the property needs before it goes on market and who will be responsible to get them done; meanwhile, I am preparing disclosures, inspections & reports for display in a home book at the property. When the sellers are done with their preparation- I then do a complete staging at my expense in all rooms- bringing in furnishings as needed.
I take a series of pictures for brochures, MLS, & other websites making sure they show the home at it's best.
I prepare a custom visual tour with as many scenes as needed to present the home, then upload all the documents and pictures to the MLS, custom website and several other locations.
We consult on pricing and terms for market conditions after reviewing the area comparables and current competition. I keep the sellers current on all new properties that come on the market or change pricing in the area.
I prepare a full color brochure and print 150+ for distribution inside the home only- I do not leave brochures outside, I want each interested person to call.
I prepare the house from top to bottom, installing an iPod with stereo speakers to play a 24/7 playlist of soft background music with a cinnamon/orange candle on the warmer full time.
I know the best day to bring the house on the market to achieve saturation in market before the weekend. I have a brokers tour the week it comes on market, I attend several area networking opportunities, I send out email flyers to my network of area agents.
I have weekend open house both days, I follow up all leads that come in and get feedback from all agents that preview or show the property to share with the sellers.
I am in constant contact with the sellers to give them statistics on how many hits we have had on website, Realtor.com and other locations the property is listed on and I never represent the buyers at the same time giving my full expertise to my sellers.
I pay my Association dues to local, state & national, E & O insurance, dues on my certifications, websites, technology gadgets, signs, lockboxes,business cards, newspaper ads, real estate online sites, etc. and I don't charge a dime unless I am successful at selling the home- how many other professions front all the time and money with no guarantee of a payday?
When an offer comes in, I negotiate on the Sellers behalf to get the best price and repair the least amount of items. I obtain competitive bids from contractors for all repairs and coordinate the completion of the repairs.
You don't pay an agent just for what we do, but what we know.

I can appreciate what you are asking about. I am a real estate agent, and I hear this from new clients all of the time. Please try to understand that your listing agent sells the homes that they list less than 10% of the time. I spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on each and every property that I list in just advertising to other agents and potential buyers for the chance to bring you a qualified offer. That money is what I spend regardless if I sell your home or not.
Now, I don't think that there is a single business that can hope to be successful if they are not calling back there clients. An agent MUST take care of the people that give them the opporunity of their business, if you don't, it is only a matter of time before they won't be in business.
I do have a question for you, how much do you think an agent makes off of listing your home? or helping you buy one? I bet you think it is much more than it really is. Most importantly, what other profession is there, to where you have to pay to work, and you only get paid when you facilitate a deal? This is rarely a 40 hour week job for those that will earn your business.
I wish you all the best in all of your current and future endeavors. My only advise....work real estate with your head and not your heart., and try to do it with a smile on your face!
Good luck!

I'm waiting to hear the answers you get. Haven't heard from my realtor in 6 weeks. That seems a little too long, considering the commission will be $16,000. I'm busy putting the house on every Craigslist in the world.

Well.. Because of the housing market at this time real estate agents are going hungry because things are not selling.
I had asked the same question. Over and over again. Why my house has not sold but the neighbors that need work had and at a higher price.
I think i`m going to sell it myself and hire a few strippers during the summer and have them wash prospective buyers cars. (of course they would be in a bathing suit) Even if i do not sell the house at least the 10% of the tips i`m going to ask for will help pay the mortgage...lol

If you're interested, a great realtor in Austin, Tx is the Carvajal Group. Their website is http://www.carvajalgroup.com .

I've been in and around the real estate field in nearly every capacity there is for 34 years. Now I was 9 when that started so understand that, but that's when I started working with my father who is a contractor, and a genius carpenter, literally. I worked harder at 9 than most grown men do.

My mother was a college art major and had an interior design business too, and went into real estate sales when I was a teen. I was very involved in both businesses.

I am an inquisitive sort with a natural intelligence and a gift for understanding cause and effect so I picked up a lot in my parents fields. I also worked in those fields and finally decided to sell real estate 15 years ago.

I understand the real estate business pretty much inside out. I've done construction, renovation, restoration of old homes, flipped homes myself and helped others, developed investment strategies, developed property including subdivisions, have been a realtor for 15 years and dove deep into creative finance and complicated deals that most realtors run away from screaming because I like working through those.

I actually helped a guy get started in investing who is a "guru" now, who knows how to work a situation if there is a way to work it, but sells people a load of garbage, because that's what people love to buy, because most people are idiots lol. By the way, I am hones to a blunt fault sometimes and I hate the BS that always goes on in business because lies almost always work better than the truth. It's true, most people tend to like a good colorful lie, better than a boring fact and base their assessment of quality on ego centric criteria in stead of even attempting to be objective, like your assumption that if a realtor doesn't call you that they are not doing what is needed to most effectively sell your home, as if calling you helped do that.

Calling really doesn't help sell you home unless there is something you need to do, but they should call you for reasons having nothing to do with selling your home. People go through a lot of stress in selling a home or buying, and in being human a realtor should keep them up on things because this can keep their stress down, even though dealing with a bunch of stuff from people with large egos who think they know everything about anything, and more than you do about your own specialties, and insist sometimes in things which are a complete waste of time and might even be counter productive to their own goals, is stressful for us. And there are these popular TV programs now which are supposed to be real situation, but are total fabrications with written script, actors and everything that show that you need to do certain things which are completely wrong, but people think they are getting educated by watching them lol, and end up insisting in lots of open houses, because every home sells during an open house! And ... what do you mean closing costs! My "projected profit" is so and so, how could there be costs? ... because getting complicated on TV doesn't entertain and would lose viewers is why, and getting people to watch is THE only goal. But a realtor should call you anyway, because they should be human enough to want to ease your stress.

Don't be mistaken, I really don't like most Realtors. I don't like how most of them do business and I don't like the way they shovel BS and have a pretentious air about themselves. I don't like many I see here giving idiotic advice (some are good, but some are only out to impress with BS that sounds good if you don't know, but if listened to and acted on will be apt to cause problems). The thing is, they are exactly as the public makes them because they do what works to get the confidence of people who don't know any better. For instance, open houses don't help sell a home, or the % is insignificant and ineffective. People who are looking for a home will find it if it's what they are looking for if it's listed in an MLS, and advertised effectively. Open houses are great for realtors because they are a contact gold mine, but they are more trouble than they are worth for sellers who have to leave their home on a weekend and clean it all up for the open house. It's not like putting candy bars by the checkout in a store, people don't go around buying homes on impulse. You also provide a prime opportunity for casing of the home by thieves, theft by drug addicts and others, when people are in the bathroom how do you know if they are riffling through your drugs in the cabinet or other things? Open houses are a stupid idea, except for the realtor who gets a lot of leads from them. We should be looking out for you, not selling you a load so we can get a great source of contacts, that's not fair to you.

There are a lot of other frillies realtors use to impress and get business, which don't help you a bit and are actually counter productive. They have these virtual home tours which show the whole house in 360 rotations around every room. The problem is that they don't really look good or show the home as it would be seen in person, and then the potential buyer might just reject the home from that tour without ever looking at it. There are radio gadgets you put in the house and a potential buyer can listen to them outside in their car, but while those look cool, they are also counter productive.

The best way for your home to sell is to have a good realtor with them when they look at it. They will know what the buyer is seeking, and know how to provide them with a perspective on how the house would meet their needs, what could be done for little cost to modify, and how it compares to other homes they might want, and considerations that they may overlook. Then if the home is a good fit for the buyer a realtor has a path to ownership all laid out because they understand financing and the whole process and how the buyer would fit in and what they have to do. You don't want a potential buyer to be put off by uncertainty about the path to ownership, because that happens all the time when there could have been a sale that would be great for both parties and for the good of both you don't want to miss something like that. But people seem to think that more flash and flare and high tech is good so it sells to the potential home seller, because they don't understand how things really go down most effectively, actually neither do many realtors because there are a lot of new naive gravy trainers out there who chased a boom market, but the gravy train just ran dry or really shallow.

The absolute best thing a realtor can do for you is advertise to other realtors, because the multiple listing service is by far the best tool there is to sell a home. You get wide exposure to all of the other realtors in an area who have contact with most of the buyers out there who are actually qualified to buy a home, and they will get paid by your listing broker if they sell your home. Nothing else even comes close, and the absolute worst thing your realtor can do is to not use this as a sales tools. To many times a realtor will hope to sell your home themselves and get all the commission, so they will not display it well for other realtors. That is 100 times worse than not calling you or listening to your demands to do advertising you think would work better in all of your infinite real estate sales experience. But most sellers never know what their realtor is doing there, and can be happy as a pig in mud with the open houses, lots of patronizing calls and cool gimmicks while their realtor is hurting their chances of a sale by being greedy and selfish. But hey, a seller with happy bs blown up their skirt thinks they have a great realtor, so that's what most realtors rely on. Did I say I don't really like most realtors? Guess why that is.

What really gives the best advantage in selling a home is to put it in the MLS. Listings in MLS net an average of 9% more than not, which puts more money on average in the sellers pockets. For your realtor to do everything they can on the listing to make it look good to other realtors is very important. Aside from the original listing in the MLS that is the most effective thing they can do. MLS also gets you world wide on the internet through realtor.com. Next is advertisements in a well read specialized publication like an MLS magazine distributed and free throughout areas frequented by potential buyers. Around here that is where people go to look for homes because there are so many listed and it's in color and just nice to look at if you want to purchase a home or other real estate. Newspaper adds are semi effective, but it seems diminishing every day along with their circulation. I think I actually get more calls on signs than through the paper these days, and my adds are great because I know what people want and I know how to hit those buttons. My adds may not look as flashy as some think would work better (which wouldn't, people tend to lose perspective on their own adds and tend to want to put in to much detail and flash which tends to kill interest), but my adds are very effective. Newspapers however, are losing to internet and other methods of exposure.

I hope I have given you some useful information, well I know I have because I've been all through this business, dealt with realtors from both sides, and I'm one of the more intelligent people you will ever meet (sorry if that seems like arrogance, it's just a fact though you might not reconcile that with my spelling faults and it's to early to send this through spell check) I am also one of the most brutally honest, and honestly introspective people you will ever meet, or never meet : ) ... and I hope the info is of use to you. You have more information now into real estate sales and realtors than probably anyone you

Did you have you realtor list your property on MLS, a multiple listing service? If so, then other realtors and anyone looking for a home can access the information by computer. Your agent can include pictures outside and inside in the listing, too. Ask the agent to take some and put them online. He/she should be able to tell you how many "hits" your listing has had at any given time.The agent should be advertising in local papers or real estate magazines for you. Also, the agent should be able to access information on sales "activity" in the nearby community or area of your home and should provide you with updates of recent activity and prices for which properties sold. This information he/she can print and send to you via postal mail from time to time. The agent should also call and check in with you once in a while. Also, ask for an Open House or two and let the agent know that you want a phone call after the Open House with info about viewers. Ask for these things! It's all part of what earning a commission is about.

hi, the ones that boost themselves and talk crap tell them to get lost, my husbands a real estate agent he approaches his potential vendors by coming straight to the point about their home, he is honest in what he does and there no reason to talk crap to waste his time and the clients time not all real estate agents make the big bucks it takes a long time to get there. as my husband says selling your home is an emotional asset and by helping the clients who go through this with respect can come a mutual friendship. just keep going through them u will find one who is decent but there's not many of them going around thank god my husband is one of the good ones.

ok.

first thing, just getting your property on the MLS so it can be seen by other Realtors is 90% of what you hire a Realtor to do.

VERY rarely does the listing agent sell that listing. Some states don't even allow them to work "both sides" of the transaction.

where did you find this Realtor? did you call for references? did a friend refer them to you or did you just grab a business card from a stack somewhere and call them?

there ARE a lot of lazy Realtors. I'm a Realtor and I myself want to go over and beat the s**t out some other Realtors sometimes.

next time you call your Realtor for something give them 6 hours to call you back. if they don't call you back, call their BROKER.

that will get their attention.

Not all of them are that bad. You have just had the misfortune to be connected with some of the non-performers. Next time spend more effort selecting your agent. Don't listen to the agent describe his virtues, find some former clients and talk with them.

I hate the realtors out there that give us good realtors a bad name. But I guess it is like any other profession.... there are good and bad. I agree with everything you are saying. It sounds like you need to contact the broker/owner of the company that is listing your home. Make sure it is priced under market value so it will sell. If it is priced the same as other comparables or overpriced you won't get any showings. Sometimes Real Estate Agents are only as motivated as their sellers are. If you are motivated to sell so is the agent. If you aren't motivated to sell well than neither is the agent.

I have a checklist to see how motivated you are to sell and also a checklist to see how well your home is priced. I give this to all of my sellers.

Yup Craigslist.com is a fantastic way to sell, buy or rent. Also keep in mind that while your house is sitting, there are plenty of "Renovations in exchange for rent" type ad's. Could be a to your advantage to research a new roof, siding, etc.

I would imagine that brokers and realtors are up to their neck in properties right now. Perhaps it's a timing issue. But good luck !

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