Property Selling 101: More RENs means WIDER reach?

Property Selling 101: More RENs means WIDER reach?

Conversation between a senior manager and me during lunch about selling his property

Real Estate Negotiator is also known as REN.

Senior Management: These days, it’s not easy to sell a property.

Me: I have to agree. These days, buyers have choices and thus their decision is usually slower as they wanted to view a few more before buying.

Senior Management: I have appointed many agents (REN) to sell my property and they kept on asking me to lower my selling price.

Me: You appointed many agents so that you have wider reach?

Senior Management: Yea. One agent cannot cover the whole market.

Me: Actually, all these years, when I need to sell or buy or rent out my unit, I have just one agent. Let me share why.

One REN definitely can cover the whole market

REN does not work alone because it’s impossible to work alone to find buyers. They will have to advertise. Maybe it could be through online media (if only use newspapers, I wish them luck). From all these exposure, they will then get potential enquiries from buyers and other RENs too. Thus, if the REN is someone who knows his role well, one REN can cover a huge part of the market even if not the whole market. So, finding a REN who knows that he / she will be the one who gets to sell your home will motivate this REN to invest his / her time, effort and money too.

MANY RENs? They will have to be faster than others then

Imagine you appointed 6 RENs, all with the keys to your property. They will know they have competitors. Reason is because you did not sign any exclusivity with them. Does this make it better for you or worse? Well, if I am one of the RENs, as soon as I get any potential buyer, I will ask them what’s their highest price and I will just go to the seller and tell him, ‘this is the best price.’ If I delay this by trying to get the potential buyer to agree to the buyer’s price, someone can take the deal first.

I will get them to be sign the form and be ready with the deposit. I will then call the seller and say, “I have a very serious buyer but his maximum is XXX. He is even ready to pay the earnest deposit.” In other words, as one of out 6 RENs, I only know that I must be faster than all other RENs. If I don’t do it, others would as well anyway.

With this kind of scenario, do we ever wonder why some RENs will push down the price just so that the deal is closed asap?

REN has more than one property to sell (usually…)

I am not sure how many properties which a typical REN would have. I would imagine it’s a lot. Plus the fact that they also co-broke on some properties, so it will be even more listings. However I know this. They will have their preferred listings. The hotter or more popular properties would be something they would want to push first. The undervalued properties, they also want to push first. The properties which they have exclusivity, this is definitely a preferred one since they know it’s definitely theirs.

Every REN has a set of keys or you kept opening doors?

Sometimes I do wonder if it’s clever to give a set of keys to many RENs. What if something happens to the property and now you have to find out who’s the person who did it? Alternatively, as an owner you can also open the door to the RENs every time they come with buyers. Both are not clever options yeah unless of course you have CCTVs installed and you know who comes or you have a lot of time and does not mind travelling to and fro to open the doors.

My decision is simple but it’s just my decision. All the best in deciding for yours.

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