Markets across the nation are showing signs of slower times, and real estate agents, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, are getting quite creative at what they’re doing to earn their business.  Agents are doing anything from running errands, to cleaning bathrooms, to petsitting. 

If you’re selling your home, it might be nice to feel like you’re getting a salesperson, maid, butler, handyman/woman, babysitter, and personal chauffer — all for the bargain price of a few percent of the price of your home (if it sells).  Afterall, an agent who is willing to do all of this is certainly doing a lot to differentiate themselves from everyone else.  It’s certainly  different than the other agents else who are just discounting commisisons.  

While weighing the option of whether to go with an agent who focuses on marketing your home, versus an agent who offers unrelated services that make your life a little more convenient, be sure to weigh this into the equation.  If an agent needs to sell a couple homes a month to make a decent living, and the average time on the market is 3 or 4 months, your agent is not only your personal assistant, but is also playing personal assistant to 6 or 8 other listings as well. 

Here’s the 6-million dollar question: If your agent is vacuuming, chauferring, petssitting, and doing handywork for 6 to 8 different clients at a time, how much time do they have to spend on the marketing of your home?

Contributed by Joel McDonald — Owner of Automated Homefinder — a Westminster Colorado real estate website.

Tags: discount broker, discount real estate agents

This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2007 at 8:38 am and is filed under For sellers, In the news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.