When I was a Real Estate Agent, it was common practice to call For Sale By Owners (FSBOs) to try to get a listing. After several weeks of no action, they were often ready to list.
Now, I am getting calls from RE Agents wanting to know if I want to sell my home. I don’t get it, calling FSBOs was tough enough without calling folks who showed no interest in selling.
Why am I writing this now? Well an agent just rang my bell to see if I wanted to sell.
Is it the economy? What is different.
BTW, even if I was thinking of selling, the last thing I would do is list with an agent who had no better use for their time than ringing doorbells and asking if they wanted to sell.
There has been a shortage of homes for sale, so if you can convince someone to sell who has been on the fence, maybe you have the inside track on getting their listing.
The real estate market is run away mad. I agree that i would never list with an agent who cold called me to sell my home. I hate it now, but it isn’t nearly as bad as the real estate vultures who almost stalked me to sell my home after my husband died.
It’s people calling looking for sales leads. If you say yes, or maybe you get your contact info sold to a real estate agent who will pay for these warm leads.
For months now I’ve been getting 2-3 adverts in my mail every week from local RE Agents. In all my years of home ownership I’ve never seen so many ads desperate for business.
The real estate market is cyclical, it has low lows and high highs. When the market dips, marginal agents look for other things to do and leave the business. When the market climbs into the stratosphere new agents are attracted to what looks like lots of easy money.
New agents spend lots of money attending seminars and learning about “sure-fire systems” sold to them by average agents who are better at pedaling their “successful RE selling strategies” than they are at selling real estate. Those paid-for sure-fire systems often include the junk that clogs up your mailbox.
A large percentage of these new agents become marginal agents. And when the market dips they leave the business for a steady paycheck and the cycle starts all over again.
The irony in all this is that the top 20% of agents in the vast majority of RE markets sell 75% or more of the RE. And all it takes to be in that top 10 20 percent is a lot of hard work and making Buyers and Sellers so happy that they refer you to family and friends. And the stuff the top agents send out goes to their sphere of enthusiastic clients and customers in the form of gift certificates, drawings, holiday gifts and various “remember me when you think of Real Estate” stuff. Not “list with me blah, blah, blah” junk mail.