Agents

I have called a few times on a couple of houses inquiring about selling price and such

I have often gotten...OMG there is a first offer. You better go see it...kinda tactics...

1. How do you handle this kind of information?

2. Do you believe them?

3. Do agents lie?

Re: Agents

I'm not sure if they lie outright, but they definitely STRETCH the truth! I noticed during the selling of our house last month, let's say we got one bid from an open house, and there was another person who *seemed* like they might come back to bid-- the realtor would call the bidder and let them know that there was "another serious player" (the party who didn't even bid yet!!!) to create this false sense of urgency. Stuff like that.

And when we reduced the price of our house, she purposely didn't print up new flyers for the following open house-- she went through every existing one with red ink and slashed the old price, filling in the new-- so it was really obvious we had just lowered the price and people would think they were getting a "deal".

Re: Agents

I found that alot of this type of "sales pitch" crap is avoided if you have a buyer broker. I know it seems like I am really pumping my guy up, but we went through HE!! and back before we signed him. They tactics that a lot of RE agents use to get and maintain your attention did not obviously work on him, and we got a much clearer picture of the house and the deal right away.


ETA: Yes, agents lie. I was told a house was available even though it wasn't and then the listing agent tried to *show* me other houses avaiable that were $50- $75K out of our looking range. It was like a bait and switch

Message edited 6/13/2005 7:47:11 PM.