If you want to sell your house through a sales agent, then of course you want your house to be sold by the very best sales agent. Someone in whom you really trust and who keeps you well informed. Of course, a nice click is not unimportant either.
Good preparation is half the battle, as we know better than anyone. As a sales agent, we get a lot of different questions. In this article, we will highlight the most frequently asked sales agent questions for you!
What exactly does a sales agent do for me?
The sales broker is the mediator between the selling party (on the supply side) and the inquiring parties (interested buyers and the actual buyer). The selling broker is always biased and represents purely the interests of the seller(s).
He will always (have to) do everything he can to sell the house as much as possible to the sellers wishes. In most cases, this means for the highest possible selling price. But in all cases this means for a pleasant and well-organized sales process, with clear communication, transparency, sufficient commitment, good marketing and good advice to the sellers.
Why should I hire a sales agent?
First of all: by a “sales agent” we mean a full service sales agent. Someone who actually takes all the work off your hands. Reason to clarify that is because nowadays you can also sell your house through “do-it-yourself brokers”. You then do a lot of the work yourself including the viewings.
The (full service) sales agent is especially important for a smart sales strategy (eg determining the optimum asking price), ensuring that viewers are professionally correctly informed about the property (and thus meet the disclosure requirements) and especially everything in a proper legal manner is done and recorded (file creation) to prevent problems.
Very often legal bumps come up at or especially after a sale. A good sales agent is always armed with a watertight legal file which can repel any accusation and/or claim from the buying party.
A final important trait of a good sales agent is that by using smart tools, they can simply sell the home much better than a non-professional. Because it’s usually the sales result that counts, investing in a sales agent will actually save you (a lot) of money at the end of the day.
What are the costs of a sales agent?
The costs of sales agents can vary quite a bit. Also, you can never really find clear information about what a sales agent costs. That’s why we’ve listed this very clearly for you. In our article ‘the costs of a sales agent‘ you will find more information on what costs might be incurred.
Do sales agents use certain sales strategies?
Sales agents certainly use clever ways to sell a house in the best possible way. We’ve laid everything out neatly for you in this article as to what the best selling strategy is for selling your home.
What is our house worth?
As a homeowner, you may regularly be curious about what your own home is worth. But how do you find out? If you want to know purely for your own interest, then it might be a bit of a waste to draw up a whole valuation report for that. Many people go searching on the Internet and often come across a free online valuation.
Here you fill in some information about your home and leave your email address and phone number. You will then be sent a model-generated value by mail. Note well: these kinds of valuations don’t really make sense. You can never have a good reliable value determined by a computer.
When I determine the value of a house as a registered real estate agent, I look at the following aspects: living space (I always measure the house), the plot size, the quality and level of luxury in the finish, the efficiency, views, environmental factors (located on a busy road, under flight paths, next to a transmitter mast), location (in a residential area, in the center, etc.), location (in the center of Amsterdam or in a farming village), maintenance situation (spick and span or with rotten windows), etc.), location (Amsterdam-centre or a farming village), maintenance situation (spick and span or with rotten window frames) and so on.
A model-based valuation of your property can never take all these aspects into account. That’s why I recommend: if you really want to know what your home is worth, do an appraisal by a licensed real estate agent or if it’s really important have an appraisal done by a registered residential appraiser.
What do you recommend still picking up for the sale?
Almost always when you are going to sell your home, then for the best selling result a home still needs to be made “fit” for sale. Think small chores to solve, some interior painting, bringing junk out of the house, tidying and cleaning. We have created a nice clear overview with ‘Tips sales ready‘ which you can read. But before you start this, take note!
We very often find that people want to address things in preparation for the sale that are not smart to do at all. For example, it really doesn’t make sense to go replace broken floorboards in a handyman’s house or to completely empty a storage attic.
Before you start spending unnecessary time and money getting your home ready for sale, it is always wise to have your sales agent come by first. During his/her visit, an experienced sales agent can tell you exactly what you should and should not do to prepare for the sale.
When to use a sales agent or not?
The advice is to always use a sales agent if you are going to sell a home free on the market.
But what if you want to sell your home via gunning to a colleague, neighbor or friend? In that case, it may be wise to also use a sales broker to provide a “partial service. The sales broker can then ensure that everything is legally correct. He will then focus on the seller’s duty of disclosure and the buyer’s duty of investigation and make sure that everything is legally correct in a sales file.
That may sound like higher math what we’re saying here but we’ll explain it to you simply using an example.
Suppose you sell your house with all good intentions to a friend. You agreed on a fair price that you both know is also in line with the market. There is no sales agent involved and you have the deed of sale drawn up by a notary.
On the day of the key exchange, you will visit the house together for a while. And that’s where things go wrong first.
The buyer argues that there are all movable items missing from the home that we would leave behind. The bookshelves are though, the lamps, the beautiful curtains and the mirrored walls. You say that these are not part of the purchase and were communicated about verbally, the buyer disagrees with you. The buyer decides to leave it at that, but in any case the festive atmosphere of that day is far from being the case.
A week later you get an email from the buyer. All kinds of things are wrong with the house. He argues that there are all sorts of hidden defects in the house that at the time of the purchase nothing was known or told about. There is considerable mold behind the paneling, the floor joists are rotten, woodworm has been discovered in the attic, asbestos behind the central heating boiler, the hood makes a strange noise and so on. Substantial shit on the wall, then.
You thought you had done a good friend a great favor by being able to give him your house, but the sale becomes a nightmare and ends up with expensive lawyers.
Of course, you are very unlucky in this example and we assume that this does not happen so quickly. In any case, know that you can also ask a sales agent to provide a partial service and only guide you through the sale to the known. You then pay a reduced rate (maybe 1/3rd of what you would normally pay and you are much better covered for emergencies with this.
An additional advantage is that the sales agent can immediately test whether the purchase price you have in mind is in line with the market by having the agent make a valuation.
Why choose VK Makelaars as your sales agent?
We are a full service sales broker. There are many of those. But what makes us truly unique is that we do custom work.
Many brokerage firms work like a sales factory with an office staff that does 70% of all the work and an army of brokers in the field. This often has a good established name and a marketing machine running around it to constantly leverage and sell as much stock of homes as possible.
If your sale signs are everywhere, that also has a sucking effect. A fine strategy, but not for us. We only employ real estate agents and with us you always deal with 2 permanent agents of which 1 is the main contact.
Our brokers start each sales file from scratch themselves and we always take into account the specific needs of the client. An awful lot of time goes into each sales file.
When we look back at the end of a sales file at how much detail work, questions answered, advice given, small actions, large actions and especially customization strategy there has been, we have to conclude then we see that it really has been a very labor intensive file. And those are still the normal sales files. A broker from a sales factory can never give the time and personal attention that we do. All of this always results in much better sales results. And by sales result, we mean sales revenue, but also customer satisfaction and the fact that our sales files are legally rock solid (we have NEVER had a legal dispute).