Sellers Who Do Not Trust the Real Estate Agent

Most clients will say that they completely trust and value a professional opinion until the day comes when they disagree with their real estate agent. The agent can see it coming, too, but by then it’s generally too late because the client will have already said something emotionally telling like, well, if you don’t agree with my opinion of value, then you should ask my daughter. The daughter who is not a Sacramento real estate agent and who has no experience in real estate.

The agent can haul out the heavy artillery, the trending charts showing the past year or so of real estate activity in that particular neighborhood, including days on market, sales price to list price ratios, absorption rates, median sales prices, inventory levels, but it won’t matter. It won’t matter because the client will spot a home that is nothing like the client’s home but that home will have sold for much, much more than the true market value of the client’s home. That particularly expensive home might have sold for more because it has a spectacular view, which the client’s home does not. That home might have sold for more because it is 1/3 bigger than the client’s home. That home might have sold for more because it has upgrades and features that the client’s home might not possess.

None of this will make any difference to the client.

This could be a case in which the client might utilize the per-square foot cost of that more impressive home and apply the same value to the client’s home, therefore proclaiming a higher sales price that will not appraise under any circumstances. The Sacramento real estate agent can point out that any reputable appraiser will use 3 to 6 comparable sales to justify the sales price, and explain that an isolated sale is not enough to substantiate a higher price. Because the comps are the comps are the comps; however, the agent may as well be speaking to a Muppet.

The agent can invest hours preparing a comparative market analysis, utilizing several independent sources, but it won’t make any difference to the client because the client wants the price that the client wants. To educate the client or try to justify a different opinion means only one thing. It means that the client will choose a different agent who agrees with the client. Probably an agent the seller’s daughter knows.

And this is why clients will say that agents only tell them what they want to hear. Because these are the very people who set themselves up for failure from the start. They sabotage themselves.

By the time the home closes escrow at a much lower price, the client will remember the agents. He will recall the argumentative agent who refused to agree with his point of view, and he will recall the agent who sold his home for so little that she forced him to “give it away” — and he won’t have anything good to say about either agent. They’ll pretty much all be scum is his book. And that’s too bad.