Listing With a New Agent is a Business Decision, Not Personal

Every first of the month Ronnie, our administrative assistant, arrives at the office and begins the daunting task of addressing letters to several hundred homeowners whose listing expired at the end of the previous month. One of the good people who came off the market on November 30th called me and we met just this evening to see how I could help them sell. The details of why homes do not sell are not unfamiliar to me; price is certainly a big reason, but there are often other fatal mistakes the prior agent made that punctuate the home’s failure to sell. In this case, the home’s MLS data indicated as the size of the yard as “0 acres.” In other words, anyone who put the yard size in their search criteria would not find the house. Not good. 

In discussing the options facing the home owners and what could be done to get the house sold, I was impressed with one of the seller’s concerns about the feelings of their prior agent. They didn’t get the job done, and they didn’t have my record in sales, but all the same she felt bad about letting them go after they tried so hard and were so nice. 

I have to say, I wish more people cared about my feelings the way she cared for theirs. This is a woman with a good heart. I told her that this is business, not personal, but she was still kind of bummed about her old agent. 

I wish there were more people like her. We spoke about it more, and the thing she acknowledged in our discussion was that it doesn’t take a cold and calculating person to make a smart business decision. You can still be a good person and do what is right in a business sense without being mercenary. Being good to people is important. That does not mean, however, that you subordinate your financial health and well being to appearing nice. If the right thing for her is to get a new, better broker, she owes it to herself to do so. 

Selling a home is serious business. And it is not a vehicle for relationships. It is something some people do but once in their lives, and they owe it to themselves to have the best representation, even if their prior agents were cordial and nice. Huge money is involved, and there are no do-overs once a closing is over. I would say that all people should have a good agent, but good people especially deserve a good agent. I know of no other Westchester agent that sells more homes that previously expired with other brokers than myself. It is what we do, what we excel at, and how we grow the company in these rough times. When we do get started with this particular family, we’ll get them the results they very richly deserve.