A REALTOR’S TRUE VALUE lies in the SERVICES we provide:
Our true mandate now is to guide and protect our Clients. To make sure they don’t get sued; To make sure their possessions are protected; To keep their family members safe; To make sure they don’t pay too much or sell for too little; To make sure the Purchase Agreement protects whichever side we are representing; To make sure they are aware of their best financing options; To educate them about the neighbourhoods, the amenities, the not so obvious problems with homes or areas, etc. We know where to find exactly what they need and want and we take all the financial and personal risk for them. We have real value. We earn our Fees.
We are our Client’s Insurance Policy!! And our initial task when meeting them is to make them aware of the VALUE of our services.
Protection from Litigation – The Realtor assumes all the risk associated with this binding legal transaction and the potential for litigation. We carry an Insurance policy protecting against Errors or Omissions for this very reason. In effect, we are the Client’s Insurance policy against an unwanted and unnecessary legal action involving the purchase or sale of a home. Historically, according to NAR, 82% of all law suites involving residential real estate are between private Buyers and Sellers. Our primary function is to ensure that this never happens.
Bonded – The Brokerage is bonded. Thus providing the security to the public of knowing they are being represented by reputable individuals who have gone through a screening process before being licensed by the Government of Ontario to sell Real Estate. Each new Agent now has to provide a Criminal Record Check with their application to the Registrar before being licensed. This is a far cry from selling privately and acting directly with complete strangers who have appeared off the street.
Potential Buyers are Screened – Before touring a home, we will have invested our time with our prospective Buyer discovering who they are , what they can afford and what they want and need - thus greatly reducing the risk associated with having unknown strangers wandering through a home.
Buyers are Pre-Qualified – Before inspecting your home, Buyers will have gone through a financial pre-approval process, either with their Bank or a Mortgage Consultant, to satisfy the Sales Representative that they are actually qualified to buy any home.
POSSIBLY MOST IMPORTANT – Personal Security and Family Safety -
Anyone inspecting a home through the services of a Listing Brokerage will be accompanied by a Realtor, whether registered with the Listing Brokerage or with another Brokerage, thereby removing all immediate risk to the family and placing that risk squarely with the accompanying Realtor. After all, for the most part, the Sellers have absolutely no idea who these supposed Buyers really are. With that in mind, when does a private Seller allow these strangers access to view their home. Under most circumstances, the only reasonably safe time is when the male occupant is home which usually greatly reduces the opportunity to sell.
Real Estate Marketing – Individual Agents have databases of clients and prospects, anyone of whom may be the Buyer for any new listing. Many agents are now linked to huge bases of prospects not just through Real Estate specific websites to market homes but are using Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Youtube, etc. to effectively take their marketing to a new level. For this reason many new properly priced MLS listings are sold immediately.
We market properties to specific markets, depending on the property, on an on-going basis. We have on hand or access to a library of marketing materials and the experience to know when and where to apply them. Each listed property is marketed to and through the 1000’s of Agents who belong not just to TREB but to several additional Boards in the surrounding areas.
We also have expertise in preparing the home for sale. And most importantly, we have the knowledge and available data to properly PRICE the home. Realtor.ca does not provide SOLD prices. Thus, the most critical component of listing and selling a home, the required data, still resides exclusively with the Realtors.
Negotiating Experience – In general, the private Seller has no negotiating experience. For certain, he has no experience where he is emotionally involved in a process involving his family’s future and their largest single financial asset.
The reality is that most Private Sellers net less through a private sale than through the traditional sales process and take all the unnecessary risks in the process. The key component here is that both the Buyer and the Seller have entered the Private Sale process for one reason only – to save money. Unfortunately, they are both trying to save on the same expense – our Service Fees. CLEARLY THEY CAN’T BOTH ACHIEVE THAT GOAL.
In this process there is no one keeping them at “arms length”, a key ingredient in this negotiating process. Emotions are likely to run high on both sides. It becomes difficult to stick to relevant factors and, to make matters worse, they are missing the required economic data to support the negotiating process on either side.
The Realtor has a real stake in getting the Seller the absolute best price in the shortest possible time and the expertise to carry this out. Each Agent also has a support system with his Peers and the Brokerage on which he/she can rely in difficult situations. The Seller is completely on his own and, generally, flying blind.
Financial Risk – All marketing expenses are the Agents with no guarantee of being reimbursed should the property not sell. All of our Time and Energy are invested up front with no guarantees. The Seller has no financial outlay unless he willingly accepts an offer on his property. Getting the home SOLD is clearly of paramount importance to any Agent.
To effectively market a home during normal times when a listing can be expected to sit on the market for a few weeks, it can be a substantial outlay. You have MLS fees annually and membership fees which must be factored in, actual marketing costs – flyers, newsletters, feature sheets, Newspaper advertising, etc. – computer and cell phone charges, car payments, gas and maintenance and most important the cost of your time. Amazingly so do the discounters. Do the math. They never survive.
With the new rules, the private seller gets to pay the Agent a fee for placing his “MERE POSTING” on MLS. The Seller now gets to take all the risk and spends his own money attempting to sell his home. In the unlikely event that he does manage to get it sold, he has exposed his family and his home to unnecessary risk. Worse yet, he will be on “pins and needles” hoping that his sale will close. Does he dare buy another home in the mean time? Does he have a choice?
And more than likely, after exposing his family to unnecessary risk and spending his own money attempting to market his home plus paying the “mere posting” fee to the Realtor to get it on MLS in the first place, he either accepts an offer through a Realtor or Lists his home properly – in either case he ends paying the Realtor’s Fees on top of his own expenses. Wow. Both exasperating and expensive!
AND THE REALTOR WILLINGLY ASSUMES ALL THESE RISKS!!