How NOT to sell your house – Mistake four: Using an inexperienced, ineffective or unethical estate agent
LOVE them or loathe them, estate agents are a necessary part of the process of buying and selling a house.
There are good estate agents and bad, and most around the same to employ, but finding the right one can be a lottery, and getting the wrong one is all too easy, which can lead to heartache and frustration for both sellers and buyers.
Several years ago, a report for leading consumer magazine, Which, published a report detailing of sellers trials and tribulations when dealing with estate agents.  Some agents were found to be using needlessly over complex terms, and contracts that werenít quite straightforward, along with clauses in contracts which could be deemed to be unfair legally. There were also claims of sellers being misled with fictional claims of higher offers.
Agents building up the hopes of sellers by encouraging unrealistic expectations and pushing them to overprice has been another commonly reported problem.  All sellers must understand that they wonít automatically get their desired prices just because an agent says they will. Some potential buyers are canny and wise and more than likely have done their research first, which means they almost certainly checked out similar properties in the same area.
It may seem illogical or even counter productive for an agent to encourage too high a price.  A seller might well wonder why they do this?  After all, it might make the sale harder.
This practice, known as buying a listing, is unethical and not uncommon.  Estate agents employing this tactic probably knows well that a property has little chance of selling at this price, but will still advertise it and leave on the lists for a time.  When a seller becomes concerned about the lack of interest and offers, the agent will then announce there are problems with the market and suggest the seller lowers the price.
This means the property now has both a lower asking price and has also been on the market for longer than it need have been, which in turn cause potential buyers to be wary and wonder itís been on the market for so longer.  Inevitably, they will suspect the property having a problem and move on to look elsewhere.
Some more of the inexperienced estate agents might also encourage sellers to ask for a higher price as a way of trying to make their mark and a land a big deal.  They might well genuinely believe the house will sell for the first price, but will probably also have their own motivation.
In summary, the bottom line for all sellers is to be wary of agents fanning the flames of unrealistic expectations about likely price.  On the other side of the coin, some sellers are advised not to expect too much and press their estate agents to put their homes on the list for more than their experience tells them it could be worth.