"I want the easy, easy money"

"Easy money, I could get lucky"  Billy Joel



We have talked about the process before but I was asked by a member of the association the other day why agents take listings that are obviously overpriced when all the expense for selling the property falls on the agent.




This is called volume listing and there is technically nothing wrong with the process either legally or ethically. The way the listing agent is thinking is that I will get phone calls on the listing and may be able to sell the buyer another listing that is priced accordingly and in the meantime I can get feedback from other agents that states the unit is overpriced, this way you can list at an unreasonable price but work to reduce the listing price, this will assure that it is not your fault it is the market. The way this usually happens is when the listing agent receives a call; they ask what the sellers need to get out of the property. Now when they get this number they do several different things. The most common is to fabricate the comparative market analysis; you can do this by using actives instead of sold comparables. If it hasn’t sold it is not a comparable. Just because there is a 1600 sq ft direct ocean unit on the market for 539 days for $499,000 does not make this a comparable. The easiest way is to say lets try it at this price for 30 days and if we don’t get activity, we will reduce the price.



In my humble opinion it makes you feel much better as a real estate professional to present a comparative market analysis with sold properties and state the market indicates this is what we can expect the range of offers will be concentrated. There is absolutely nothing wrong with saying that we will list at your price and watch the activity.



I am not Italian so when I cook pasta I just keep throwing it against the fridge to see what sticks (volume listing); the problem is you need to work for the seller when you are the listing agent with no false expectations to either party.



Peace out



Jim Bagwell