Reduced Commission Brokerages: Is What You Don't Pay Exactly What You Don't Get?
I recently consulted a friend of mine on listing his property out of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I helped him think through the process and steps to identify a great local Realtor to get his house sold in the fastest way and for the most amount of money. I’m personally a really big proponent for making sure the Realtor you select earns your business. They should pitch you to win your business, coach you, guide you, and ultimately keep you out of your own way (or from self-destructing as both have been known to happen :)). How many of us get in our way? Especially when dealing with decisions as emotional as making or potentially not making money on a sale, uprooting yourself and your family, needing to do it in a certain time frame, etc. Happens all the time and is completely understandable during a rather stressful process.
So you can see from all that I’ve just mentioned that selecting a professional that is going to represent your best interests, possesses the capability to intimately understand your home, the nuances of your neighborhood, and your personal needs, and then has the wherewithal to showcase your home in its best possible light through all of the media forms available to us today is the RIGHT ONE. Enter the Megan K Johnson Real Estate Team and our myriad of Seller’s services where we do just that and work with you to price your home right. Shameless self-promotion aside, back to the part where my friend interviews three different Realtors. Based on his needs, two of the three rose to the top with local area expertise, high service levels, and a commitment to fiduciary level service.
What does my friend do? He chooses his Realtor solely on commissions charged. He picks the big name, flashy website, low commission employee Realtor who tells him that “it doesn’t matter to her what the property sells for,” since the commission is a flat fee and she’s an employee - which is code for “I make my money regardless of whether you sell or not.” I don’t know about you, but I know a little something about human behavior and I know that 9 times out of 10, humans work harder when there are meaningful incentives to work toward, like commission to be received at the end of a hard-earned sale. The poor thing. I wish that was the end of his troubles, but client service cascaded downhill from there. Ultimately, he was left having to request feedback all the time, pushing the agent to do more, and considered going back to the beginning on several occasions to choose one of the other Realtors he had originally interviewed over the four months he was listed.
The takeaway here, if I can impart nothing else as you evaluate your decision to hire your next Realtor in the Dallas-Fort Worth Area, is the following:
Make sure the Realtor you select earns your business. Evaluate them on their capability to pitch you to win your business, coach you, and guide you to sell your home or property
Make sure the Realtor you select is going to act as a true fiduciary to you. They need to truly represent your interests. You can get to this in how they effectively coach you and guide you
Don’t just select a Realtor because they are willing to slash their commissions or work for nearly free. As the saying goes, “You get what you pay for.” In this case, you may not get what you aren’t paying for, which means a true fiduciary relationship, the top priority for feedback and reporting on the status of your home sale, and top-notch client service that exceeds your expectations.
If a prospective Realtor ever makes it clear that there is no incentive to sell your home, monetary or otherwise, don’t choose him/her. With the Megan K Johnson Real Estate Team, our outcomes are attached to our client’s outcomes. If a client isn’t satisfied, we aren’t at rest.
Want to try a different level of client service from a best-in-class client-first Realtor team? Then contact the Megan K Johnson Real Estate Team with Realty ONE Group First Choice today at (214) 310-1495 or by email to megan@megankjohnsonre.com. Is it our pleasure to serve you?
