Open Listings and the real estate agents who love them

Many sellers who attempt to sell their homes “for sale by owner (fsbo)” or through real estate agents without signing an exclusive listing, choose to work with real estate agents from more than one real estate company. These agents bring in buyers to view their homes but typically don’t do any advertising for the home. If the buyer from a real estate agent ends up buying the home, the owner pays a reduced fee of 2.5% - 3% or some other negotiated fee to that agent.

This is typically referred to as an Open Listing. Open Listings allow home sellers to use the services of many different real estate agents without being tied to any particular agent. By listing their homes as an Open Listing, sellers are not trapped in a contract for months with a real estate agent who is not doing enough to sell their home.

Quickly: What is the goal of every single listing agent who enters your home?

• To help you sell your home.
• To help you get the price you want.
• To get an exclusive listing.

Answer: To get an exclusive listing.

Having an exclusive listing benefits real estate agents in many ways. Agents with listings will:

• Use your listing on their portfolio to get other listings by showing that they are experts and to impress other sellers.
• Use the advertising for your home to get buyers for other homes they are selling or other homes on the market.
• Of course, every agent wants the commission from selling your home.

Why an agent wants to see your Open Listing home

In the industry, real estate agents are taught that For Sale By Owner sellers and sellers with Open Listings are a “gold mine” for exclusive listings. There are entire seminars, books and other training materials designed specifically to train real estate agents to go after this “gold mine” and convert for sale by owner sellers to exclusive listings with an agent.

When agents become aware that you have an Open Listing, many of them will want to make appointments to see your home. They will tell you that they need to see your home so that they can recommend it to their buyers. This makes sense so most home owners agree but it is not the reason why they want to see your home. Most if not all agents who show up to view your Open Listing are there with their own agenda.

The training on how to convert for sale by owners to exclusive listings uses psychology and other subtle and not so subtle ways to pressure home owners to sign an agreement.

Top Ten Ways to Avoid Signing an Exclusive Agreement with a Real Estate Agent

Here are the top 10 tips and tricks to help you counter the tricks used by real estate agents to get you to do something you don’t want to do…sign an exclusive listing agreement.

If your goal is to sign an exclusive listing with a real estate agent, see our other Top Ten lists including: Top Ten Things to Ask Your Real Estate Agent and Top Ten Things Your Real Estate Agent Don’t Want You to Know.

1. Have a third party with you when you meet with a real estate agent

If you are the sole owner of the home, have someone else with you when you show your home to real estate agents. Many people sign the exclusive agreement simply because they feel pressured and/or outnumbered by the real estate agent(s) present. Having someone there for support can help you to say no.

2. Split up

If more than one person owns the home (such as a wife and husband), only one person should be home when you show your home to real estate agents. Since all owners would need to sign an exclusive agreement, agents are less likely to succeed with their pressure tactics if everyone who needs to sign the document is not present.

3. Don’t sit at your kitchen table

Agents are trained to walk to your kitchen table or any other table when they enter your home or shortly after you give them a tour. The reason for doing this is many people are more relaxed when sitting at their dinner table.

Agents are trained to sit with you at your table, make you feel relaxed, make you believe that they care about your goals, that they could be your friends and at the end of thirty minutes or more, get you to sign their exclusive listing. Ways to fight this include not sitting at a table, sitting in your living room (not together on the sofa) or not sitting at all. Keep as much space between you and the agent as possible to throw them off their game.

4. Schedule multiple appointments close together

After viewing your home, agents like to have a few minutes to go over their marketing plan, what they can do for you etc. A marketing plan is only used when there is an exclusive listing. If you don’t want to sign with an exclusive broker, you don’t need to see their marketing plan.

If agents are scheduled close to each other, it doesn’t give them enough time to go through their listing presentation. When another agent arrives, take a minute or so to wrap things up then move on to the next agent.

5. Schedule each appointment for a short period of time

If you are unable to schedule multiple appointments close together, limit each appointment to a relatively short period of time. In order to make this work, you can tell the agent beforehand that you have other things to do around the same time they would like to see you and as a result, you can only meet with them for 15 minutes or so.

It is likely the agent will want to reschedule for another time. Another way to make this work is to go ahead and schedule the agent for the time they want. When they show up, tell them that something just came up and you have to cut your appointment short.

Take the time to show them around then cut them off when they get ready to start their presentation. Remember, the only reason for doing a presentation is to try to get you to sign an exclusive agreement with the agent.

6. Show your home to competing agents at the same time

Agents are reluctant to do their presentations in the presence of other agents from other companies and so may be uncomfortable viewing your home with their competion. Many agents who show up to view your home on an Open Listing will tell you that the reason they need to see your home is so they’ll know enough about it to recommend it to their buyers.

Not true. If their goal is simply to get some idea of your home, they shouldn’t have a problem viewing it with agents from another company. The only reason they would need to see your home privately is so they can do their presentation in order to convert you to an exclusive listing.

7. Beware the agent who wants to be the last appointment of the day

Believe it or not, many home owners who do not want to sign an exclusive listing with an agent do so simply because they are tired. This is common enough that it is a part of the training to convert for sale by owner home sellers to exclusive listings.

Many agents attempting to convert you will ask to be the last agent of the day, or the last agent after your open house etc. At this point, sellers are often tired of saying no to agents all day or showing their home to many people during the day. Agents know that tired sellers are more likely to give in to pressure and basically give up. Many sellers sign at this point just so they won’t have to say no another time.

8. Don’t touch that listing contract

A common negotiation tactic used often by real estate agents is pushing the exclusive listing contract in your face which places enormous pressure on most people.

Here’s the setup. They sit at your table, (see number 3) go through their marketing plan and at the end of the plan they turn to the signature page of their contract. At this point, they move the contract directly in front of you and place a pen right next to it.

The agent then does nothing until you do something. If you sit there for 20 minutes without doing or saying anything, the agent will do the same. At this point, as incredible as it seems, many sellers who don’t want to list with an exclusive broker, will simply pick up the pen and sign the agreement.

9. Don’t fall for the agent’s distraction

When pitching to multiple owners at the same time, a common tactic is to distract one of the sellers when they get to the signing of the exclusive agreement.

This is the setup. The agent gets to the last page of their presentation and is ready to get your signatures. They then put the contract in front of the person they judge to be the least resistant to signing and give them a pen.

They know that this person will likely then look to the other for strength and support so they distract the other person. At the point they give the pen to the first person, they ask the other person about the weather, about where they are moving to, about their favorite sports team etc.

By the time the distracted person responds, the first person has already signed. The contract is then placed in front of the distracted person who usually then follows suit.

10. Don’t fall for the “tie downs”

An old sales tactic commonly used on listing presentations is the “tie down.” This is where the real estate agent tries to get you saying “yes” from the beginning in order to make it easier for you to say yes at the end when the exclusive listing contract is presented.

Example

The agent might state: “One of the best tools available for selling your home quickly is a brokers open house where we bring in agents from all the local real estate companies to view your home. They then rush back to their offices and call their buyers to come and view your home. This can be very useful in selling your home quickly.”

The agent will then ask. “Do you agree that it would be beneficial to have a broker’s open house?” At this point, most sellers say…yes. The real estate agent will then ask a number of other questions setup to guarantee “yes” answers. By the end of their presentation, the owner has said yes so many times that they simply say yes to the request to sign the exclusive listing.

In the end

If you are a for sale by owner home seller or are selling your home with the use of an Open Listing, the tips above can help you resist the tricks commonly used by real estate agents and possibly help you avoid making a mistake. In the end, remember that your home is your home and no one has the right to get you to do something you don’t want to do. Many people will likely try nevertheless but these tools and others in our top ten lists can help you stand your ground and exercise your rights.

Best wishes.

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