Is Your Real Estate Agent Hurting or Helping You Sell Your Home?

Is your real estate agent hurting or helping you?

One of the most wonderful things about working as a REALTOR is the amazing tool that we have called the multiple listing service. This database of listed homes is designed to give REALTORS complete and accurate property information.

It is no exaggeration that every day that I run across listings in Triangle Multiple Listing which are incomplete and out right wrong. Room sizes are a piece of information that is often left off a listing.  Some agents simply think this information is not important.  I disagree.  Let’s suppose a buyer has a California king sized bed and a listing simply has 00 x00 as room dimensions for the master bedroom.  Will the bed fit?  Who knows but the risk run is that buyer’s agents will pass the listing by because taking the time to email or phone for information that should have been entered to begin with is a waste of time and rewards a listing agent for bad, negligent and careless behavior.

A second example of missing or incomplete information is tax data. Listing agents will use old tax rate; Durham’s tax rate last year was $1.29 per $100 of value; this year it’s $1.36. So let’s look at a home that’s has a tax value of $100,000. Last year taxes would have run $1290, this year $1360.  A good buyer’s agent would pick this mistake or error up; but a great listing agent would have ensured the information was correct.  Believe it or not, in these days of tight lending standards this $70 difference could disqualify a buyer from buying a home.  Can you imagine finding this out a week before settlement?  Talk about a recipe for disaster.

The sad fact in all of this is that most owners won’t know if their agent is leaving important information out of multiple listing and is indeed hurting their chances of a sale. My suggestion is that home sellers hire agents who will be detail oriented and those owners ask to review the information that their agent is entering into the multiple listing system on their behalf and if the information is missing or wrong; demand correction or fire the agent.