Are There Valid Reasons to Dump a Real Estate Agent?

I am rarely in the shoes of a first agent who listed a home that did not sell in Sacramento. Unless, of course, the seller was unreasonable on pricing or refused home staging. I’ve seen a handful of those sorry situations in which the seller dumps the agent, reduces the price, stages the home and then bingo, it sells with agent #2, with agent #1 left standing there wondering what am I, chopped liver? Why did nobody listen to me? But bottom line is nobody can really make another person do what that person doesn’t want to do without brute force, and few agents want to clobber a seller over the head, making him stare down the barrel of a gun with a foot up his neck.

More often than not I’m on the other side of this scenario. After a seller fired his agent — or took the path of least resistance and let the listing expire before hiring the next agent — namely in order to hire this top producing Sacramento real estate agent. That’s the position I love to be in because now I’ll get paid for another agent’s hard work, plus I am most likely working for a far more reasonable and seasoned seller.

I made an interesting point to a seller a few months ago when he was thinking about hiring another agent because he had not yet received an offer. Sellers can be impatient, I understand. I told the seller that he could certainly hire another agent but he’d be throwing away his money. He did not strike me as the kind of guy who wants to lose money, but that’s exactly what he would be doing by hiring somebody else. Another agent would simply capitalize on all of my efforts, duplicate my strategy and pocket my fee. He should reward the agent who has earned the commission and let her sell his home. Put that way, he agreed, and I sold that home for him.

Having said that, sometimes there are valid reasons to fire an agent. No iffs, ands, or butts about it, in this crazy profession, most agents are not on the ball. Read more on About.com today in an article I wrote about Top 10 Reasons Sellers Fire a Real Estate Agent.