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Cooling property markets have culminated in sellers panicking and agents accepting “grateful sales”, according to one Mornington Peninsula agent.
Difficult market conditions, resulting in values across Australia’s combined capital cities falling 5.5 per cent from their recent peak, have, in some cases, forced agents to work harder to get their sales over the line.
On the other hand, it’s also led to a rise in agents accepting the first buyer who comes along, flagged Sheree Hay of Home AU Real Estate.
“Grateful sales happen when real estate sales agents list and sell properties for much less than the property should sell,” she explained.
“We are starting to see a lot of them happen where agents just want the commission, and they are happy to sell for the first offer that comes along.”
She’s put out a warning to vendors: “Pick the wrong agent that has a ‘grateful sales’ mentality, and you are already going to lose a lot of money.
“They are literally advising the sellers to take it [the first offer] because they are scared that negotiating or waiting may see the agent lose the sale and the listing altogether.”
From her perspective, “that is a terrible approach, and property owners are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars by doing this”.
Pointing out how she recently watched as a property she sold last year sold for $300,000 less, she exclaimed that “the buyer literally stole it”.
Ms Hay established that good agents work hard for their buyers, placing the interests of the home owner above their own.
She added that “they know when and how to push harder for more money for the seller, [and] they draw on years of experience and the ability to read people to get a sense of how to manage things”.
Building on this, she reaffirmed that good agents “certainly do not allow good properties to sell for less than what they can really achieve in a challenging market”.
Ms Hay acknowledged the trying conditions agents are asked to operate in, which have resulted in a mass exodus of agents departing the industry; however, she noted that experienced agents had mitigated difficult circumstances such as the 2008 global financial crisis and, as such, know how to work through such conditions.
Turning her attention back to home owners, she urged that picking the right agent is crucial to receiving the best possible sales result.
Advising them to not just “judge the potential agent on their talking skills”, she also flagged the importance of an agent’s sales history.
“When looking at costs, place less emphasis on real estate sales fee percentages. All of that means nothing if the agent sells the property for tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars less than what it should have achieved.
“You don’t want a grateful sale; you want a successful sale and one that delivers an outcome that you, the agent, and the market agrees is a good outcome,” Ms Hay concluded.
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