- Hey guys, Kristin LaVanway here.
So last weekend, I went on a date.
Oh yeah.
For 45 minutes, I got to hear how this guy
knows Europe like the back of his hand,
how he only drinks French and Italian wines,
yeah,
how much his ex wife sucks,
ugh,
and how his daughter only calls him
when she needs money or has been in a car accident.
Not a good date.
So finally, this mind-numbing conversation
wound its way around to
"Hey Kristin, what do you do for a living?"
"Well I'm a realtor."
"Oh yeah, most of the women around here
"have real estate licenses."
Oh my god.
"If I was gonna sell my house,
"I would just list it myself and save the money.
"I have a friend who listed his house on Craiglist.
"It was easy."
Really?
Hey listen guys, if this is your approach on a first date,
do not count on a second date, okay?
And if you're looking to sell your house
by listing it on Craigslist,
well here's a few things you might want to keep in mind.
Let's start off with talking about the money,
all the money that you're gonna be saving
by not paying a real estate commission.
If both parties are unrepresented,
you could save even more, right?
It's a little like the blind leading the blind
in that situation since really neither of you guys
is an expert in real estate.
But you know, you're saving money.
Oh and it can be a little awkward
in that you're dealing directly with this buyer
in a very emotional transaction
that tends to bring out the worst in people,
but hey you're saving money.
Or not because a lot of times if you use a realtor,
they're gonna get a higher price for you.
Let's talk about showings
'cause hey, everybody come and see my house anytime
'cause you're the one who's doing the showings, right?
And the lookey-loos and the drive-bys
and the nosey neighbors and the unqualified buyers,
they're gonna all be knocking at your door at dinner time
or during that birthday bash or maybe your pool party
and forget about going on vacation,
you're gonna be busy showing your house.
And let's talk about negotiating here for a second
because maybe you watch a lot of Shark Tank
and you feel that you are a total negotiating expert,
but it's a little bit weird
when you're doing it directly with the other party.
I go to great lengths to keep my client
away from the other side
because it always causes problems.
The few times when my clients have avoided that advice,
I always end up getting a phone call from the other agent
saying "Hey, what the heck, man?"
One time there was almost a brawl in the front of the house
and another time the only reason I was able to keep
the deal together was by swearing that my client
would never show his face again at all period.
It doesn't work out so well, okay,
that's all I'm saying.
Emotions run high in these situations.
People tend to get tense
and you got no one in between.
All right, let's get down to the nitty gritty here.
Shall we?
What about liability?
Because real estate is one of the most litigious fields
in our society.
Your chances of getting sued run pretty high
when you're dealing in real estate.
There's just a lot of pitfalls, okay,
and that's why agents carry errors and omissions insurance
and we know what we're doing.
We have to take continuing education
just to keep up to speed on how we can avoid
landing in front of a judge
and we protect our clients in that way.
We have a lot of tools in our toolbox
to resolve conflicts before they turn into litigation.
Typically, the average Joe doesn't know that much
about disclosure or breach of contract
or what to do when one side
just doesn't agree with the other side.
It can get nasty.
But hey, you're saving money.
Let's talk a minute about the criminal element here
and this is not a scare tactic, okay,
this is the real deal.
Before a real estate agent walks a buyer through your house,
that buyer has been prequalified by a lender.
So the lender has all of their info,
their driver's license, their address, their phone number,
their Social Security number for Pete's sake
and real estate agents,
we have to go through a background check.
They take our fingerprints before they give us
a real estate license.
Craigslist is scammer central.
That's where you go when you want to scam somebody.
Even if you skip Craigslist
and go for more legitimate advertising resources,
like let's say Facebook,
you still don't have any way of really knowing
who's walking through your house.
You're lucky you just get robbed.
Worst case scenario though,
you could be physically assaulted
and I'm not trying to scare you, this is a real deal.
But hey, you're saving money, right?
So hey, I hope that gives you something to think about
if you're seriously thinking about listing your house
on Craigslist.
If you'd like to hear a little bit more
about the advantages of using a licensed professional
to sell your home
or if you just want a little more dating advice,
well you know where to find me,
Kristin@HereInPhoenix.com that's where.
Go out there and make it a spectacular day.