So, here's the question. Would you list your house with a real estate agent who is also a friend?
We don't have many close friends here in Austin/Round Rock. Actually, it's probably more fair to say we don't have any - just a bunch of friends, a few of which would fall into the "pretty good" category, as in we socialize with them once or twice a year. I really have only one friend here who I would call in case of emergency - she's the one down on all the kids' school forms. But we actually knew them from MSU, so they're kind of grandfathered in. There are a handful of people we'll keep in touch with if/when we move. Most of those are from Cass's work.
Anyway, one of our friends (non-Cass's-work) is a newly licensed agent. She's been working for maybe a little over a year. She lives in Cedar Park, which is way over on the other side of Austin from us (kind of like on the other side of the world - lol!). Cass has mentioned that if we were to put the house on the market, we should consider listing it with Real Estate Agent Friend. I'm not so comfortable with it. I'm not uncomfortable with her at all, just with having a friend work for/with us.
The main reason is that she doesn't know our area. There are several agents who live in our neighborhood, and they claim they "specialize" in selling our subdivision. In fact, there's one husband/wife team, and the wife does the house staging and the husband does the showing and selling. They have been sending me letters and info for years, to woo me in case we should put our house on the market.
The other reason is - do you watch Real Housewives of Orange County? (stop laughing) There was an episode in the most recent season where Vicki hired Jeana to sell her empty nester home. She bought it to downsize, then reconsidered and decided to stay in her ginormous house. Anyway, they've been friends a long time, and the business dealings between them nearly killed the friendship. All their ridiculousness made for good TV. :)
So, I guess it's obvious which way I'd answer that question. I'm not for mixing friendship and business. Cass may be leaning the other way, but I haven't really expressed my opinion to him yet. :)
In other news, Cass is visiting Blake and family this weekend. In true Cass fashion, he thought his flight yesterday left at 11:50am, when it actually was for 10:50am. So he missed the first one, got on a later one, and completely screwed up his schedule for getting there before dinner time. I assume he did arrive, because I got an email (about something else) from him late last night.
2 comments:
If the market is hot, then it MAY be OK to use a friend. Otherwise, if there are any foreseeable issues, then absolutely not. The business end can be nasty at times, and you can't separate the friendship from the business relationship. You've got to be able to issue orders and ultimatums to & through your agent. Plus, you may find it necessary to fire an agent if you don't feel that they are doing enough to advertise & promote your property.
With the national real estate market so depressed, I would definitely go with the folks who specialize in your neighborhood.
First, I completely agree with Mar. Also, I think the MOST important thing to remember about real estate is that 20% of the agents do 80% of the business. For us, that means that we want one of the 80% (that do only 20% and therefore have plenty of time) when we are buying and want to take our time to find the perfect house. BUT, when we are selling, I want one of the 20%, because she is going to get us a buyer ASAP.
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