Question:
“I’m going to sell my house this summer. I know how important it is to price your home right. So I plan to get 3 agents’ price opinions and then hire the agent in the middle. Is this a good idea?”
Answer:
I don’t recommend it.
2 reasons…
Reason #1: Whether it’s a high price or a low price or just the price you were hoping for, NEVER EVER choose an agent based on price. In fact, this is so critical, please repeat after me:
“I will never choose a real estate agent based on the price they suggest.”
Choosing an agent based on price is foolish because too many agents purposely inflate the price just to lure you into hiring them. Then later they start telling you to slash the price.
It’s dishonest. It’s unethical. It’s even illegal. …And it happens every day.
(Of course, agents are human and sometimes their estimates are off—high or low—with no ill intent.)
Reason #2: Because of the first reason, you have NO assurances that the middle price is accurate.
Once I spoke with a gentleman about selling his home. I gave him a realistic price based on sales of several very similar homes in the neighborhood. Not all homes are easy to price, but his was a piece of cake.
Unfortunately, another agent suggested a price 10% over market value. As bad as that was, a third agent suggested a price 15% over market value!
So the nice owner did a seemingly logical but very bad thing. They listed with the middle agent.
So their home just sat and sat. And because it sat on the market so long, the rush of buyers had long since come and gone. After several months they finally sold their home…at a LOWER price than they should have.
So, in case I wasn’t clear regarding your idea of choosing the agent with the middle price: don’t do it!
Choose the best agent and choose the price that the market data supports.
