Episode 11: Choosing a Listing Agent

[00:00:01] Speaker A: You are listening to the Realestatepodcast cA, brought to you by JNC Toronto Real Estate Group. Welcome back, everyone, to the Realestatepodcast ca. I'm John Paulson, along with Cheryl Micklewin and Nicole Norton. We are the JNC Toronto real Estate group. And today's episode is all about choosing a listing agent. [00:00:28] Speaker B: Very important topic. [00:00:29] Speaker A: That's us. Yeah. Before we get into it, let's get the disclaimer out of the way. Cheryl, your turn. Once again, if you don't mind, always gets a check. [00:00:39] Speaker B: The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities that we represent. [00:00:49] Speaker A: Awesome. So in this episode, our goal is to provide some information for those of our listeners that may be looking to sell a property, some good questions to ask, and what to look for in a listing agent. Cause there's a lot of agents out there, right? [00:01:02] Speaker C: There is. [00:01:03] Speaker A: There is. [00:01:03] Speaker B: We recommend you pick an agent that's tall like Cheryl. [00:01:07] Speaker A: Wow. [00:01:07] Speaker B: Cheryl, what have you done? What happened to you? [00:01:09] Speaker A: It looks like you've changed. [00:01:10] Speaker B: Are you like Jack in the beanstalk or something? [00:01:12] Speaker C: I had some really bad groin pains overnight. I woke up and this is what it is now. Or I can explain. [00:01:19] Speaker A: Sure. [00:01:20] Speaker C: I am shorter than Nicole, and generally I wear heels during this podcast. And if I wears flats, do not. Yes. So we look a little bit closer in height. Today, someone wore heels without telling me it was me. So it wasn't John. [00:01:35] Speaker A: That would be weird. [00:01:35] Speaker C: It was a random phone call. Nicole's wearing heels, so I am standing on a stool step. Okay, a stool step. [00:01:41] Speaker A: A stool step. You know what? This is a good opportunity to say that anyone that's just listening, you probably have no idea what we're talking about. So this is why you should be watching on YouTube. If you go to a Toronto group, you can check out our podcast on YouTube. YouTube. [00:01:56] Speaker C: Also, it's very interesting to watch our facial expression. [00:01:59] Speaker A: That's it. So are you gonna get off that? You're distracting me now. [00:02:01] Speaker C: Are you gonna take your heels off? [00:02:02] Speaker B: Are you gonna get off that soapbox? [00:02:05] Speaker C: I don't know. Are you gonna take your heels off? [00:02:06] Speaker B: Well, I could. It's more comfy for me, seeing as I had to walk much more. Quick, far, quick, far. [00:02:12] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks. [00:02:13] Speaker B: That's normal. [00:02:16] Speaker A: All right, let's get right to it. As always, our goal is to educate and entertain. So hopefully you'll come away from today's podcast enlightened, beguiled, captivated, charmed and delighted. Thank you. Very much to thesaurus.com dot. You can tell what I've been surfing before the podcast today. All right, so let's talk about how we have found that sometimes people can be confused with regards to the agent's role in the sale of a property, that there are two distinct sides to the transaction, the buy side and the sell side. And there's usually a buyer's agent and a seller's agent. We covered this in episode six, choosing a buyer agent. Now, agents can be either. It's good to have experience, I think, on both sides. [00:03:01] Speaker B: Yes. [00:03:02] Speaker C: Yes. [00:03:02] Speaker B: Experience on both sides reflect to your ability on the opposing side. [00:03:06] Speaker A: Yes. So it's not like you want to. [00:03:09] Speaker B: Pick a. I can look at Thesaurus's, too. No, that's not. [00:03:11] Speaker A: Well, it's not like you want to pick a listing agent that has only ever just done listings. [00:03:14] Speaker C: Yeah. You want someone who can wear both a sale hat and a buy hat. [00:03:17] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:03:18] Speaker C: So you understand it from both perspectives. [00:03:19] Speaker A: Absolutely. So you can see the way that buyers come through, look at it through a buyer's standpoint, and can strategize around that, can communicate effectively around that. [00:03:28] Speaker C: On the flip side, it also helps when you know you have a strong listing agent who's representing a buyer because you know exactly how the listing agents are thinking. So, yes, you can definitely find agents that do mostly listings or mostly buys. But I think, and I think you guys agree as well, the best option, in our opinion, to get the best guidance and advice is to find somebody who does actually do both. [00:03:49] Speaker A: That's well rounded. [00:03:51] Speaker C: I'm well rounded. [00:03:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Of course. Around Christmas time, after a lot of turkey, I'm well rounded as well. Well, I think that the confusion, and we talk about this a lot, is that some people think that only one agent is involved. Oh, the real estate agent. I want to buy a house, so I'll use the same agent, or if I want to sell my house, it'll be the same agent that represents both sides. Now that can happen. And I think we'll do a podcast on multiple representations a little bit later on. [00:04:16] Speaker C: Do you want to maybe not get into multiple representations? [00:04:18] Speaker A: No, let's not. [00:04:19] Speaker C: Because it gets confusing. [00:04:21] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. It's not commonplace. It does happen. But we're going to touch on that in a later podcast. Okay. And it's like we say, you know, when you're choosing an agent, no two properties are the same. No two clients are the same, no two transactions are the same, and not all agents are the same as well. Cheryl always says no two agents are created equal. Same can go for mortgage brokers, contractors, lawyers. Lawyers. [00:04:47] Speaker C: Yeah, everybody, I think, who is running their own business. [00:04:51] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. [00:04:52] Speaker C: Your level of expertise and the way you attack your hospitality and customer service is going to be different no matter what. [00:04:59] Speaker A: Cheryl is holding up a book called Unreasonable Hospitality that we've just finished. [00:05:03] Speaker B: And even to say, when you say that there's a connotation, not all agents are created equal. It almost sounds like some are good and some are bad, but there are many good that have different focuses, are more robust in certain areas of the transaction that communicate differently. All sorts of different. [00:05:17] Speaker C: Yep. You got to find somebody who is a good fit for you. [00:05:20] Speaker B: Factors. Yeah, yeah. [00:05:21] Speaker A: We say it all the time. Let's make sure it's a good fit. So I want to talk about if you are picking an agent to sell your home, you want to maybe get one that does a lot of listings. And Cheryl, you pull the stats. What's the proportion of listing ends that we do compared to buying ends? [00:05:36] Speaker C: We. The last few years it's been between 60 40 and 70 30. So we are a little bit listing heavy, but we do work with many buyers because the number of transactions that we do range from 30 to 50 a year. So, I mean, we're doing a lot of transactions in there. So if we're doing like 20 or twelve or whatnot, then as percentages. [00:05:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Thank you for that. [00:06:00] Speaker C: You're welcome. [00:06:00] Speaker A: Cheryl, as we know, is the numbers queen. Statsy McGee. I like to call her. Actually, I just made that. [00:06:05] Speaker B: I have never heard you call her that. [00:06:08] Speaker C: Yeah, he calls me it in secret. In his head. [00:06:10] Speaker B: In his head. [00:06:11] Speaker A: Statsy McGee. Cheryl Micklewin. Okay, so let's get into the questions because we want to provide a little bit of value for our listeners. If you're thinking about selling a house, if you're interviewing multiple agents, and many do, these are the kind of questions that you kind of, we recommend would ask if we were not agents and selling ourselves our own property, we really want to make sure that it feels like a good fit. Another thing that I want to talk about is that the agent might be qualifying you as a seller as much as you are qualifying the agent. Does the agent actually want to take the listing? And let me talk about that. If you have such unreasonable expectations and you won't sell your house unless you get x amount and the numbers just don't back that up, it's not uncommon for an agent to say, no, thank you. Now, there are some agents that will take the listing. No matter what, just to get a sign on. [00:07:07] Speaker B: There's different strategies on this. [00:07:08] Speaker C: And also it depends on how busy that agent is, how much they need the business. And not to say that when you say no, you don't need the business, but sometimes your efforts and the money that you're going to put as output is better placed into other areas or something that you know will actually someone that actually wants to sell. Because sometimes it comes down to seller's motivation. So Seller saying, I want 2 million when your house is worth 1 million, you know, like you're going to say, I'm not going to spend the time and effort to do everything that I do as part of what I do as a listing agent to get this property ready. Just for you to say like, yeah, no. [00:07:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:43] Speaker C: Even though we told you that it will never sell for 2 million. [00:07:45] Speaker B: Time and effort and cost. I think a lot of people don't realize as listing agents, at least from our perspective and from the perspective of many people that we know and work with, it costs quite a bit of money to bring a property to market. [00:07:56] Speaker A: Yeah, it does. Yeah. And a good listing agent is going to be asking a lot of questions to qualify the seller. Just like you as a seller should be asking questions of the listing agents. And we'll cover that under one of the questions here when we talk about value. [00:08:10] Speaker B: Can't wait. [00:08:11] Speaker A: Yeah, perfect. So first one, I think that I put here anyway, and you ladies can agree or disagree. You should find out if the agent has a proper listing presentation, how put together is what they are presenting to you. If they are looking to get your business and represent your home. Now, we all say the way you do anything is the way you do everything. It's a great quote of. And it really is. Nicole brought that one to the table and we actually read something very similar in unreasonable hospitality. The way you do one thing is the way you do everything. [00:08:48] Speaker C: So you're trying to tell us if you have a really good listing presentation and is very well prepared, that you're probably going to get an agent that crosses all the steps that exact same way with that same level of preparation. [00:08:58] Speaker A: Yeah. And Cheryl, have there been agents that have done the exact opposite? [00:09:01] Speaker C: Yes, of course. [00:09:03] Speaker A: Do you want to talk about that? How we've come into listing presentations ourselves and then been given feedback of other agents. [00:09:08] Speaker C: It's actually surprising how many times this has happened because there are lots of great listing agents out there, agents in general out there who do really great jobs at listing presentations and buyer consultations and walk the client through and step by step, and then you're just really picking whichever the best option is for you. But the number of times we hear, you know, we interviewed three people and two of them came in with a couple of pieces of paper and just sort of waffled through, winged it, kind of. Right. They came in almost like overconfident, like, I know what to do, to do, blah, blah, blah. But what we do is we realize that the person we're sitting in front of us doesn't understand the real estate transaction. So we break it all down, the entire process. And then when we're covering recent comparable sales and giving them a value, we're telling them why we're giving them that value, like we have the facts and figures to back that up. So I think that from the perspective of it's our job to present that. It's our job to help the customer or the client or the general public understand what it is that they're doing with this large and probably one of the largest transactions of their life. I don't understand why we get told so many times that agents come in unprepared. In my eyes. [00:10:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:19] Speaker B: It's so weird, too, because, I mean, above and beyond the way you do everything. The way you do anything is the way you do everything. [00:10:24] Speaker C: You don't even know the quality. [00:10:25] Speaker A: I know. [00:10:25] Speaker B: I don't even know. My own quote is the fact that if they don't have a listing presentation, you don't get the information on what they're going to do. Like above and beyond. Like, yeah, they're prepared and so they'll carry that through. Well, if they didn't tell you what they're going to charge and how they're going to market your property and what. [00:10:40] Speaker C: Then you, they may have used their mouth. [00:10:42] Speaker A: Yeah. They didn't present anything to you. There's also the risk of if you bring too much and leave it behind, then they will use all of your information to leverage your information against other agents to see what they will, you know, offer. [00:10:54] Speaker C: Yeah, it's sticky. [00:10:55] Speaker A: Yeah, there is. But anyway, the end of the day, what we're saying is they should be prepared. They should have a proper listing presentation. They should demonstrate that they are professional. Right. [00:11:05] Speaker C: See if that's what the seller wants. Because maybe the seller doesn't want. [00:11:10] Speaker B: Because here's another thing I was thinking when you were talking, like, why wouldn't somebody explain it? But then it's like, well, if I'm going for brain surgery, and realtors may think that, like, there's you know, there's a lot of realtors that they're not brain surgery, right. But like what a brain surgeon say to you, like first I'm going to make an incision here and then I'm going to sometimes laparoscopically go to the corpus callosum and I'm going to, no, the brain surgeon be like, you don't know. [00:11:31] Speaker A: But you can't say that because there are some, there are some patients that would absolutely want to know everything all the time. [00:11:37] Speaker B: Like what are you going to do? What drugs are you going to give me, how many milligrams? [00:11:40] Speaker C: I think more people actually do ask and the doctor is going to walk you through. But there are going to, to your point, there are going to be sellers who don't care. They're going to be just, I'm hiring you for a reason. Do your thing. Yeah, right. Yeah, I trust you. I believe you're going to do a good job and I'll ask questions if I have them. Sure, definitely. So you're talking about make sure we're giving someone advice on what to look for in a listing agent. If you care about the level of preparation, if you care about understanding the process, then look for an agent who does this sort of full service right from the get go. They're going to give you a full service presentation for you to make an educated decision on how you'd like to move forward. [00:12:18] Speaker A: And you know what? If they don't have a full presentation, who knows? Maybe there could be a little bit lazy. And that's just like they're so confident that they can just bring things in the past as they have done with a couple of MLS listings as comparables, and then just they wing it. They don't want to have to spend the time, the effort, the money sometimes to do the proper listing presentations that are printed out. And other times, heck, maybe they're too busy. Maybe like they did, only had a small amount of time to prepare. Or maybe you only have, and this may happen with some agents, maybe you only have like a $500,000 condo that they're maybe not even that keen. If I get it, great. If I don't get it, great as well, and they may not be as prepared. I'm just saying there's a lot of ifs there. But these are all some possibilities. [00:12:59] Speaker C: We're making assumptions through the different perspectives. Yes, but we're giving a, the largest swath that we know and understand what we've experienced. [00:13:09] Speaker A: A generalized piece of advice. [00:13:11] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say too the reason why I personally, as a listing agent or as a realster, I'm a realster girl. [00:13:18] Speaker A: Stats McGee. [00:13:19] Speaker C: Realster. [00:13:24] Speaker A: What did I call her? Statsy. [00:13:25] Speaker C: Statsy McGee. Statsy McGee. I think, yeah. Is because it gives us the opportunity to have that conversation with the seller to find out what their expectations are. Because every house is different, every seller is different. And although we have a listing presentation that walks you through the process and walks you through comparables, we have to understand what it is that you're looking for to be able to guide and advise you on pricing strategy, on what marketing should be employed, because it's not always going to be the same. [00:13:50] Speaker A: It's a damn fine listing presentation, if I might add. It's well put together. [00:13:55] Speaker C: Someone's giving himself a pat on the back right now. [00:13:58] Speaker A: Okay. So I didn't think that was going to take as long as it did. But I like how we're going a little bit more in depth to each one of these questions. So next question you may want to ask is, how experienced are you? You want to find out how qualified they might be to sell your property and how much experience they have. So, you know, everyone starts somewhere as far as being a realtor is concerned. Cheryl and I were in. We became listing agents very quickly. Within the first year, we had multiple listings. [00:14:27] Speaker C: I'd say six months. Six months. [00:14:29] Speaker A: And, you know, if somebody is inexperienced and may not have the mentorship, we were fortunate at the time to have a ton of really great, very experienced mentors that we could lean on to make sure that that listing was serviced properly, that they had experience that we could lean on to be able to get the best possible result. So you may want to ask, you know what? How long have you been in the business? Is one thing. How many listings do you do a year? How many transactions do you do? And with this, as far as I'll touch on this later, how many listings do you currently carry at one time? You know, only carrying one or two or only doing one or two a month isn't necessarily a bad thing. If it's a single agent, especially. [00:15:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:15:12] Speaker A: Cause we'll talk about agents that'll be spread too thin a little bit later on, but ask those kinds of questions, and if you've got a really unique property to sell, see if they have experience selling that unique type of property. [00:15:25] Speaker C: Can you give me an example? Farm. [00:15:26] Speaker A: A farm? Sure. Yeah, a farm. You know, something that is airports. Yeah, an airport. There you go. We're talking about commercial agents mostly for these types of transactions. But even if it is a residential or, you know, zoned residential and commercial. [00:15:40] Speaker C: I would say we do condos, historical, we do condos and we do freehold and we do a wide variety. And I think most of the agents we know and admire and work with and look at as colleagues do the same. [00:15:54] Speaker A: Yes. [00:15:54] Speaker C: However, there are some, I would say, more freehold property realtors. So people, realtors who focus on the residential freehold side of things that actually don't really know what to do when it comes to condos. [00:16:06] Speaker A: We know a few of them. [00:16:07] Speaker C: Yeah. It's weird because you think that in your mind, condos are smaller, square footage, they might be easier. But there is a couple of specific things that work in condos that don't. [00:16:16] Speaker A: Work in freehold, especially valuing, I think. [00:16:19] Speaker C: Yeah, you're right. Like it's, it's more straightforward because of square footage and floor plan. [00:16:23] Speaker A: It is. But some, some people that list mostly just freehold and get a condo, one will just say, oh, I think in the neighborhood or the area average in Toronto is a thousand per square foot. They don't realize that this building sells for a premium or it sells for a lot less. Yeah. Building specific. [00:16:35] Speaker C: Yes. So you can say the average in the building is 1000 /sqft but if there is something unique about that unit, maybe it sells for more. Or if there's something that is hindrance in that unit, it might sell for less. [00:16:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:47] Speaker C: So you've got to talk to the seller about those adjustments that need to be made and kept in mind when you are picking a strategy and a listing price. [00:16:55] Speaker A: Right, right. Another specific property type. Because I always think back to one of the first listing presentations we did back when I was cold calling a little bit, speaking to some people in Cabbage town, and ended up chatting with the gentleman. We went in to see his kind of unique property and one of the things he asked about was, do we have experience selling, you know, heritage properties, really old victorian age properties? [00:17:19] Speaker C: What did we say? [00:17:20] Speaker A: We said, I can't remember so many. [00:17:22] Speaker C: Years ago and it was very, very early on in our career. [00:17:26] Speaker A: And so what do we like? I don't think so. [00:17:28] Speaker C: I think we said no. However, we have people in. [00:17:31] Speaker A: People. [00:17:31] Speaker B: Yeah, because that's the important part. I don't throw new people under the bus. No, under the bus here is that like, even if you know, you don't have experience, are you working with people that are experienced? And if so, and, and a good prepared new realtor should do that. That speaks to their preparation. What are they going to do, just go wing it? No, they acknowledge they need help. They're working with people. [00:17:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:17:50] Speaker B: I even want to go back to our, sorry. Now I'm talking a lot. [00:17:53] Speaker A: That's okay. [00:17:53] Speaker B: Our Inception story that when I came back from my maternity leave, really? That's how we started working together. We were going to work together. We're going to work together. And then I got that listing, and I was like, oh, no, it's been two years since I've done anything. Real estate. [00:18:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:04] Speaker B: John and Cheryl. [00:18:05] Speaker A: Yeah, let's do this listing. [00:18:07] Speaker B: Yeah, let's do it. [00:18:07] Speaker C: We went in for the presentation together, and you were basically shadowing us to find out because you knew that if you went on your own, you might be like, uh, I don't remember. [00:18:15] Speaker A: I don't. [00:18:15] Speaker B: I didn't even remember you. [00:18:16] Speaker C: Bren's a province, and the answer is. [00:18:20] Speaker B: Not on a floodplain here. So we're good. [00:18:25] Speaker C: So hold on. I want to just go back. These are questions people want to ask. So number one, what's the first question? [00:18:31] Speaker A: Do you have a listening presentation or. It's not necessarily a question, but just to look out for. [00:18:35] Speaker C: Okay. [00:18:36] Speaker A: All right. [00:18:36] Speaker C: And then the second question is, how experienced are you? [00:18:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:39] Speaker C: And you've jumped in very quickly to, if you were interviewing somebody who maybe isn't as experienced, do you have any comments here on what to do? If you say you're interviewing three agents and they're all equally experienced, what are you looking for? [00:18:52] Speaker A: The feels in many cases. Is it a good fit? We'll talk about area expert because 1 may not do as much business in that area, but we're jumping ahead here. [00:19:03] Speaker C: Okay. [00:19:04] Speaker A: And, you know, how qualified are they and how many listings do they typically do per month? Because, and we'll talk about being spread too thin. So, but just, I think experience, like, there's a gentleman at a brokerage in the east end, that door knocks a lot, and we know he's at you. No, no, no. [00:19:22] Speaker B: Brokerage is he with? [00:19:24] Speaker A: I'm not gonna say. And he was brand new and, but just very assertive. Let's call him fearless as well. And he's just knocking on doors and getting listings. And initially, he had no idea how to even do a listing. But if you're at a good brokerage and if you're at a full service brokerage as well, the broker of record, the ownership group, things like that, should be walking them through the process and pairing them up with a very good mentor so that, you know, the brokerages name is on that and it's in their best interest and they're making money from that. Exactly. To have that agent do a good job, get a good result. So even if it's someone that's not necessary. Like if someone says, no, it's my first listing. I doubt they would say that. They would say, you know, no, but we have great mentorship. Other people on my team that have sold these types of properties and they. [00:20:10] Speaker C: May actually loop somebody in. Like, I've seen a lot of 50 50, like where I'm a more experienced agent has shared a listing with a not as experienced agent. Just to make sure all the time you'll see tuning in, that's kind of the same story is what we did. [00:20:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:20:25] Speaker C: Only then we fell in love. [00:20:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. As opposed to a cold list and the rest that lasted for years. [00:20:30] Speaker A: That's right. Yeah. [00:20:31] Speaker C: It's still on the market. Can I talk about when you just said the feels and the fits? [00:20:36] Speaker A: Sure. [00:20:37] Speaker C: We had a conversation with another couple of realtor couple colleagues of ours just a couple of days ago, and they had asked to sit down with us to chat about the way that we work as a couple and if they can garner any information to apply to their relationship. And she said, you know, if we're going into a listing presentation, you and John and my partner and I, and say we're in front of somebody and they're like, well, we're going to go with John and Cheryl. I would say you are going to be in great hands. Like, you couldn't go wrong with either choice because we basically are going to give you a very similar level of service. [00:21:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:09] Speaker C: You just have to decide which one you want to spend the next month and a half with. Right. [00:21:14] Speaker A: They could be equally qualified, exactly the same experience, same results. And then it's just like, you don't want to flip a coin. It's like, who do I connect with? Who do I, who do I know that it's going to hopefully be a good experience with? Because you do spend a lot, a long time communicating with each other, sometimes with each other. So that's a good point. Very good point. Let's move on to probably the most frequently asked question. How much or, you know, what are your services and at what cost? [00:21:44] Speaker B: Okay. [00:21:45] Speaker C: Okay. [00:21:46] Speaker B: Tricky one. [00:21:47] Speaker A: So some people, you know, what, what is the fee for the service? Full service. You know, what kind of brokerage are you with? Let's, let's talk about this. We say that we are a full service brokerage and we are a full service team at a full service brokerage. [00:22:02] Speaker B: That's what we say. [00:22:03] Speaker A: That is. Well, that's because that is what we do. Right. So, you know, there are some people that will want to go to what we used to call and we no longer call it. But we used to call it. [00:22:13] Speaker B: We did not call it. [00:22:13] Speaker A: No, we do, but we used to. [00:22:15] Speaker B: And word on the street. [00:22:16] Speaker A: Word on the street. We used to call it. Yeah, I did. A discount brokerage. It's no longer called and we don't call it a discount brokerage because that implies that there's a standard fee or a standard commission. There is nothing, there is not a standard commission to sell a property in Toronto. There is what I would call a typical amount. And you can look at the vast majority of listings and what they're offering for the buyer's agent if they come to the table and what the listing brokerages is getting in compensation. But we'll call it, instead of a discount brokerage, let's call it a limited services or low cost brokerage. Limited service, lower cost, you get what you pay for brokerage. And so there are people that will do it for a lesser amount, but they won't provide as many services usually. Go ahead. [00:23:08] Speaker C: Normally don't have the same level of expertise because they're not necessarily in the business every day and they're not surrounding themselves with those same mentors because those brokerages don't attract the high level agents who have been in the business for a long time. [00:23:22] Speaker B: The thing with those brokerages, if they are attracting agents based on a lower cost model, the type of agent they're attracting is someone that's going to be interested in saving money, not making money. And that's what they're going to pass along. [00:23:35] Speaker C: Yeah. You want to work with somebody, a brokerage as well as a realtor, they both have to have the same mindset. It's not about saving you money, it's about netting you more and maximize the sale. And you always use the. [00:23:44] Speaker A: So you're talking about the agent saving money and not having to pay out of pocket. [00:23:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Someone who's primary concern, the way you do anything is the way you do everything. So you're as an agent, your primary concern is like I need to save money on all my fees and everything I get. What are you going to pass along? What's your main focus in any of this? Saving money, not making money. [00:24:00] Speaker A: And that's the same for the sellers. If the sellers are just so worried about saving money on what they're, what they're paying, there is the next. Yeah. What are you gonna write here? Trip over nickels tripping over dollars. Cheryl, to get to nickels. [00:24:12] Speaker B: Inflation, it was pennies. [00:24:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:14] Speaker C: Tripping over dollars to get to. Yeah, there's no pennies. We got rid of those. [00:24:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Nickels tripping over dollars to get to Nichols. Like you're not seeing the big picture that, yes, you may be paying a little bit more, but your agent, if they are well experienced, full service, doing everything, no stone unturned and do a fantastic job for you, they're going to net you more. They're going to sell for more than the agent that is at the limited services. [00:24:41] Speaker B: Or in this market, maybe the only agent that can sell your property at all, period. In a booming agent, they'll sell for more. Or in a booming market, they will sell for more. In a slow market, they will sell versus sit on the market for 90 plus days and terminate. [00:24:54] Speaker A: And the services that, for example, you may get from that full service realtor team, John and Cheryl and Nicole, may equal that dollar amount. If it's a larger property, Cheryl and I and Nicole include a lot more with regards to our marketing. The fact that we stage, we declutter, we help. [00:25:12] Speaker B: John's like fixing the stairs. [00:25:14] Speaker A: Your handyman services, painting. In many cases like this is thousands of thousands of dollars. That's all included. [00:25:21] Speaker C: Yeah. So you're not doing it yourself. [00:25:22] Speaker A: You're not doing it. [00:25:23] Speaker B: Can you put a price on your sanity? [00:25:24] Speaker A: That's right. [00:25:25] Speaker C: And your time also. We've spoken about this just a moment ago where we're saying which kind of agent is, are those brokerages attracting? There's a very good chance that a full service agent is going to have better negotiation skills and better expertise to be able to also not only just present your property better, but be able to work it a little bit better in that market versus the person who maybe doesn't have the same amount of experience because they're busy worrying about saving themselves money. Right. So there's. [00:25:54] Speaker A: Or working their other full time job. [00:25:57] Speaker C: I mean, can't assume. [00:25:59] Speaker A: Yeah, but working that other full time job, and there's. [00:26:02] Speaker C: We know that there's what, 80,000 realtors and we just got stats for the first quarter in the GTA, and only 15,000 of those 80,000 did any kind of transaction. [00:26:15] Speaker A: I want to go over to the stats page that I pulled right here. We all have it. Because this is a very good segue to talk when you're interviewing agents. How many properties does the average Toronto agent sell in 2023? 60% of realtors at the Toronto Regional Real Estate board sold zero homes. 60% of the agents that are registered with TreB sold zero homes. And the breakdown for agents and teams who sold at least one of those, 40% who sold 156 of that. 56% of that 40% sold one or two homes. 25% sold three to five homes, 12% sold six to ten homes. 4.9% sold eleven to 20. And just to give you some context, we do about 50 deals a year to see where we stand. [00:27:11] Speaker C: Between 30 and 50. [00:27:12] Speaker A: 30 and 50? Yeah. And then, of course, there's a few others that are there. But now let's look at the stats for the realtors who listed a home in 2023. The previous stats I just gave. The previous stats I just gave are for people that have sold so been a buyer agent and or a listing agent and sold a property. So do you want to read this? One of these ladies with the realtors, one of yous? [00:27:35] Speaker B: I do, and already my mind is working here. So 69% of Trebs realtors didn't successfully list a home. Here's the breakdown for agents and teams who listed and sold at least one home. [00:27:46] Speaker A: So that's wild. Only 31% of agents did a listing last year. [00:27:50] Speaker B: So almost 70% of the agents that listed a property listed sold one to two. [00:27:58] Speaker A: Wild, isn't it? So that means that you're looking at about, you know, 80% of all agents sold either zero or one or two homes listed and sold. So it's important that you get someone that has the experience, because there's a lot of people that just didn't list or sell a home last year. Anyway. Gives you some context as to, usually the top one or 2% of the agents are selling 70 or 80% of the homes in the GTA. [00:28:26] Speaker C: And this would be a good time to talk about for the last three or four years that we have been in those percentages. [00:28:33] Speaker A: Yeah. So ask your agents. [00:28:36] Speaker C: Yeah. And, I mean, they may not know because some people don't care about the stats and the numbers. Like, I don't think we cared too much until somebody brought it to our attention. Like, one of our managers in one of the offices we worked in was like, you guys are doing really well. And we're like, I don't know, we just are doing our job, and we're just continuing to move forward and do a great job for our clients. [00:28:54] Speaker A: And then statsy McGee over here started. [00:28:55] Speaker B: Tracking things, got our nickname. [00:29:00] Speaker A: Okay, let's go back over really quickly to what we offered then as a full service team and what other full service teams? There's a reason why we like to offer all of these as far as our fee for our service and a lot of the services that we provide. It's because we look at every one of those listings as our portfolio. [00:29:18] Speaker C: Yes. [00:29:19] Speaker A: We want to be able to handle the quality of the painting, the staging, the decluttering, the presentation, and also take a of the stress off of people's shoulders because more importantly, we want the house to sell for as quick as possible. But it's an extension of us and. [00:29:34] Speaker C: Also to the point of, you know, we don't have to handle it because there are definitely going to be sellers who can do some of those things and have done some of the things on their own and do it to a very high level. What it is, is we don't want to leave it to a seller to just figure it out because we know what sells and we don't want to leave anything to chance. [00:29:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:53] Speaker C: You know, it's a whole, like, don't leave any stone unturned. And, you know, again, back to the. We're not looking to save money. We're looking to net them more money. So even if it's going to cost us a little extra money or a little extra time prepping a home for sale, if it's going to make them more money, then that is our job. [00:30:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:10] Speaker C: Yes. Not to save them those few thousand dollars on commission. And it's not to save us money, it's to net them the most amount of money they can. [00:30:18] Speaker A: And sometimes it takes money to make money. Right. It absolutely does. I also just want to say that, yeah, there's a lot of sellers that may be able to competently do painting, small repairs, and some have great style, but we've seen just as many that try to handle it themselves. And we've seen sloppy paint jobs, even. [00:30:34] Speaker C: The lazy realtors like, okay, here's your list, seller. Get at it. [00:30:37] Speaker A: Yes. I don't know if it's lazy. That's just how they run their business. [00:30:40] Speaker C: Right. [00:30:41] Speaker A: And we've seen, we just have a. [00:30:42] Speaker C: Different mindset where we think that us having our hands on everything and at least guiding and advising that process is going to also help them in their sale. [00:30:51] Speaker A: And we talked about it being a good fit. There are some control freak sellers that want to take every bit of that, but we've found that more often than not, we're drawn towards clients and they're drawn towards us that love this concierge level service. Less stress, turnkey, stress free. Actually, the client of ours that coined that term for us, she had used something like three or four different agents, some for every single buy and sell over the course of her home owning and selling. And she's told us that a lot of the agents would just give her a list of things to do. Here's what you need to get done before it goes on the market. Whereas we handled every aspect of that. [00:31:26] Speaker C: Full service list she wrote on our review. Actually, she gave us two reviews, one on Facebook and one on Google, to say that I will never use somebody else again. [00:31:34] Speaker A: Love it. [00:31:35] Speaker C: I love it, too. [00:31:35] Speaker A: Thank you. If you're listening, you know who you are. You bet. Okay, so enough on that side of things. The next question is, what should I do to get my home ready? Will the agent give advice on some budget friendly but impactful improvements? And sometimes, if you have the time and the capital, it might be worthwhile for you to do a bathroom refresh. It might be useful to do an exterior paint job. It might be useful to redo some floorings or make it so that you have matching floorings. And we did a top five updates to help improve the. And increase the value of your home. Go back and listen to that one because those are some budget friendly, I think, impactful improvements that you could. [00:32:16] Speaker C: But it's. It's a case by case basis. There's going to be some homes that it might not make sense and there's going to be others where it makes all the sense to do it because. And that, again, has something to do with what else is working in that neighborhood. Is, are the listing agent that you're interviewing, are they aware of what kind of ebbs and flows in that area? [00:32:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And is the agent going to help facilitate any of this? [00:32:40] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:32:41] Speaker A: Right. And an agent could say, no, that's your responsibility. Like, I won't do electrical, I won't do plumbing. [00:32:46] Speaker B: Oh, that's crazy. [00:32:48] Speaker A: Well, you know, changing. [00:32:49] Speaker B: Changing lights. [00:32:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Changing light fixtures and things like that. But as far as updating plumbing, electrical. [00:32:54] Speaker B: I've seen John get electrocuted just doing the light. [00:32:56] Speaker C: That's why he's. [00:32:57] Speaker A: I'm still here. Yeah. This is why I act so weird. [00:33:01] Speaker B: It's very scary for us when this happens. [00:33:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:03] Speaker C: But you're right that we. There are costs that can be incurred. That is 100% the sellers and should be 100% the sellers purview. Yeah. [00:33:12] Speaker A: In their purview and responsibility. [00:33:14] Speaker C: I had a brain fart. [00:33:15] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:33:17] Speaker C: However, we will still give them the advice and sometimes even facilitate. [00:33:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And part of, I think, our service offerings is the fact that I do facilitate a lot. We recommend contractors. We work hand in hand with them. We can project manage. We have project managed some almost full renovations prior to selling. [00:33:36] Speaker C: Can I just talk about that one for a second? Because it does go line in line on what you should do. Like, is your agent going to give you advice? We sat down with one of our sellers a couple years ago, and the question we were asked was, do I sell as is or do I completely renovate? And what does the price difference look, look like? And we said, I'm going to use round numbers here. But we said, you know, as is. Absolutely. There will be people who will look for this type of home. And $1 million, let's say, was about what we said it would sell for. [00:34:03] Speaker B: It was in a great area. [00:34:04] Speaker C: Yes. And the budget for the renovations, because a lot of things were needed in the home, was $250,000. And we said, if you use that, there's a greater chance of you getting 1.5 million. [00:34:15] Speaker A: Yes. [00:34:15] Speaker C: And that's exactly what happened. [00:34:17] Speaker A: If you want to. We did a case study on that. If you go to our YouTube page at JNctoronto group, look up case study, you'll see the property we were talking about. [00:34:25] Speaker C: Yeah. So it made sense for that person to spend the time and effort and money because it was going to net that much more. But sometimes people don't have the time. [00:34:35] Speaker B: I was just gonna say highlight on time that whole process took and capital months. Yes. [00:34:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:34:40] Speaker A: Who's got an extra $250,000 in cash laying around? Right. Yeah. So. But it's a case by case basis, and not all renovations are going to net you more money. [00:34:51] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:34:51] Speaker B: Right. [00:34:51] Speaker A: That's a misconception. Thanks, HGTV. But it is a misconception. There are some that will, and like I said before, there should be some budget friendly and cost effective, very impactful updates that you can do. Okay, next question that is going to be discussed at your listing presentation, or at least should. And this is what you should want. [00:35:12] Speaker C: To know, is that should or we recommend. [00:35:15] Speaker A: No, this is a 100% must happen. [00:35:18] Speaker C: Okay. [00:35:19] Speaker A: If you are interviewing an agent, they should give you an opinion on market value for your property. [00:35:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm gonna stand behind that 100%. [00:35:25] Speaker A: You need to know what they think is and why and exactly why you want to make sure that they have supporting evidence of their opinion of value. And it can be arranged. A lot of agents will do that. [00:35:40] Speaker C: Because we don't control the market. [00:35:41] Speaker A: No, we don't. We absolutely don't. [00:35:43] Speaker C: Can I do what I always say? [00:35:44] Speaker A: Yes. [00:35:45] Speaker C: What we say when we go into a listing presentation and we are giving a range of value, and we do give a range of value and we do show lots of information to support that value, is that 80% of the market is facts and figures. And we can do that math all day long by looking at the comparable properties for sale. So 80% facts and figures, but 20% is emotion. And we can't control or predict emotion. So we give that range because we don't control that part and we don't control the market. [00:36:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:12] Speaker C: So we know that it could be on this side. It could be on this side. And we're gonna do everything in our power to make sure that we leave no stone unturned, to make sure that we are aiming for the highest. [00:36:22] Speaker B: The good side. [00:36:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:36:23] Speaker A: No stone unturned equals also the services that we offer, because every one of those services is a bit of a stone. And we turn those stones. And statsy McGee over here doesn't break down the emotional aspect, but she sure does break down the facts and figures. And so that's a larger percentage of what market value is. So. And as we've mentioned that there's lots of agents that may not bring that supporting evidence. What we do is a full CMA or comparative market analysis so that you can see what other properties have sold recently in your area, property type that would support what would be a perceived market value for your home. [00:37:00] Speaker C: Sir, I don't only use comparables. That's only one way. There's two or three ways that I walk our potential clients through to get. [00:37:07] Speaker B: Especially, what if there are not many comparables, right. Then, yeah, yeah. [00:37:12] Speaker C: I look at it from many angles. Lots of angles, you know, are all of those angles lining up to the same number? Because that's what you want, right? You want to see clear evidence that this range that we're giving you is based in fact. [00:37:25] Speaker A: Totally. Yeah. And, you know, we won't get too far into that. We could probably do a podcast just on how to do a comparative market analysis. We could call it Statsy McGee and the statistician. [00:37:35] Speaker C: You guys would just go to sleep and I would talk. John and Nicole would enter into other areas, and Cheryl would be like, and then, by the way, this is what we do. Pull my glasses off. [00:37:45] Speaker A: Yeah, stats and McGee and the stupendous spreadsheet. [00:37:51] Speaker C: No, I'm super amused by this. [00:37:53] Speaker A: That's fine. A lot of agents might come in and give you a value that is just optimistic at best and just unrealistic on the high side. We call it buying the listing. [00:38:06] Speaker C: Sometimes it, it's also because they've asked what that seller is expecting, and then they're just regurgitating what they know the seller wants. [00:38:13] Speaker A: Yeah. And so here's a good line that a lot of good agents will say. It's like, do you want me to tell you what you want to hear or what you need to hear and. [00:38:21] Speaker C: What the truth is? [00:38:21] Speaker A: And what the truth is. Yeah. Because a seller is always going to want to hear from an agent that comes in there. So your house is confidently, this should be selling for $2 million, when realistically, the neighbors, which is a superior home, sold for one seven last week. That does not support. [00:38:35] Speaker C: So sorry, I cut you off when you were saying buying the listing. [00:38:38] Speaker A: Buying, yeah, we call it buying the listing. So when a listing agent goes in and there's multiple agents that are being interviewed by the seller, if agent a says 1.5 million, agent b says 1.5 million, agent c says 1.5 million, agent D says 1.95. [00:38:52] Speaker B: Oh, that's, that guy's gonna get us so much more money. How is it possible? [00:38:57] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. And you know what? All that kind of set the seller up for is disappointment, potentially stigmatization of the property, not selling at all if a market is shifting one way or. [00:39:08] Speaker C: The other, like wasting everyone's time. [00:39:10] Speaker A: Yeah. And money. So be careful if you've got, if you're interviewing four agents and three of the four, say one five, and another one comes in huge, you want to ask why? And they should have supporting documentation because. [00:39:21] Speaker C: Maybe the first three agents have no idea what they're talking about and that could happen as well. [00:39:24] Speaker A: But it's unlikely. [00:39:25] Speaker C: As long, as long as there's a supporting information. [00:39:27] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:39:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:29] Speaker A: So I'm gonna skip the next one. We're gonna go back to that. Because I think the next question is, what would your strategy be with regards to selling the home? [00:39:37] Speaker C: Do you think that's a question that a seller should ask, or don't you think a listing agent should cover that? [00:39:43] Speaker A: They should offer it. But what if they don't and they only give, like, their opinion of value and they're like, sign up the listing, not how they get there. Like, they're not gonna tell you, well, we should have an offer date. We should. The whole holding offer strategy and explaining. [00:39:54] Speaker C: The strategies at all. [00:39:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Actually, I think that that's very important and why. So show supporting evidence that, you know, the properties that have sold in the area, the majority of them, and the ones that have done well have used an offer date strategy, what we call holding offers or not. If it's a buyer's market and there's, you know, more properties than there are buyers out there, then usually you won't use the holding offer strategy. And we have a YouTube video about that. You may use the offers anytime. So you should ask. The agent should cover what strategy they're planning on using, period. That may not be a question, but if they don't cover it, ask. [00:40:28] Speaker C: I can I? Go ahead. [00:40:30] Speaker B: I was going to say this is now getting high level. The average consumer isn't going to know to ask. In fact, I guess if you've listened to this podcast, you now know to ask. But the average consumer, even sometimes when they've been through it, are still, they don't get it. This is not, yeah, we don't know how to do the brain surgery even if someone tells us how to do it. [00:40:47] Speaker A: But if you're listening, folks, you don't necessarily need to ask this, but pay attention if the agent will let you know what strategy they recommend using. [00:40:54] Speaker C: So hey, here is the market analysis. Here is the range of value. And then maybe what the question should be is how are we going to get there? [00:41:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:02] Speaker C: And because that will cover more than just strategy. It covers what you will do for the property to be able to get to that number. Yeah, and the strategy, too. Like, you talk a lot about the holding offer strategy, but even the offers anytime strategy, which is where you list at a price that you're willing to basically accept anytime. Yes, or basically. Or you're maybe listing a little high to make room for negotiation or listing a little low to possibly bring in more eyes on the prize. Even those three things that I just talked about in the offers anytime strategy are conversations you want to have with your seller because you don't want to run the risk of stigmatizing a property. You don't want to run the risk of being on the market long than you need to, especially if there's a need to sell situation. So everything that goes into pricing a home should be done with strategy in mind. [00:41:46] Speaker A: Got it? Got it. [00:41:48] Speaker C: Okay. [00:41:48] Speaker A: All right. We're moving along because we've got just a few more questions to go over and we don't want to make this too long. So are you an area expert now? Do you have to be an area expert to sell a home effectively? [00:42:00] Speaker B: No. [00:42:00] Speaker A: No. Is it beneficial? In many cases it can be. [00:42:05] Speaker B: Could be, yeah. [00:42:06] Speaker A: So the reason I'm saying this is that we see out of town agents listing properties and not necessarily know the area strategies. [00:42:13] Speaker B: There's like, area strategy and then there's like, I'm not even part of Treb. [00:42:17] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like, how are they? We've seen people come into Toronto in Leslieville and list a property and they may be a different board members and they won't even list it on the Toronto real estate board. It's mind boggling. So in other words, the property is only showing up on their local board because that's where they've listed it. And I want to say that we have listed properties out of our typical area. We have done it and what we do is we lean on local agent colleagues or we refer it out in many cases. Here are some benefits of an area expert. They're going to know the comps inside and out. In many cases, they will have been in the properties for our door knock farm. Nicole. We try to get into each and every one of those properties so that we can actually see what they look like and we can speak to the fact that this one was super crooked. [00:43:03] Speaker B: What they smell like. [00:43:04] Speaker A: Yeah, because it's like, why did this one sell for such less amounts than others? Because you can't see those on the photos. If you've been into the property, you can speak as a listing agent to any potential buyers. Agents. If they're like, well, this one down the street sold for this much less. So we're only offering this much. It's like, yeah, well, they had a huge sewer backup and somebody was murdered in the house, smoking. It was smoked in and it was crooked. And these are all things that you can't see, but a local area expert is going to know those kinds of things. They also know the trends for staging marketing strategies, as we did mention. I want to talk about one that's in our, like, just around the corner from the shed here. There is a huge lot that a builder went in. It was a bungalow, they topped it up. It was a corner lot. [00:43:50] Speaker C: We were excited. [00:43:51] Speaker A: Yeah, we wanted to go and see it because we saw as it was coming up, and then as it was coming up, they changed the exterior with some more. I. I would say suburban Toronto, Mississauga, east stone. Rather than doing something that they had great brick before that, we typically would have. We know that they sell better here in Leslieville. And then when we went in, once it was finally on the market, we saw that the entire first floor, normally in Lesleyville, you get beautiful hardwoods, wide planks. [00:44:18] Speaker C: That's what sells best. [00:44:19] Speaker A: That's what sells best. They did it all in marble and. [00:44:23] Speaker C: Not even white marble. It was a weird gray with golden. Like it was. [00:44:27] Speaker A: It was like streaks in it. Like I'm talking the floor on the entire first floor. [00:44:32] Speaker B: Like living in a museum. [00:44:34] Speaker C: It was like a museum. That's exactly. And maybe that I feel like. And there's nothing against the marble floors, but maybe a little Vaughn. [00:44:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And nothing against Vaughan either. That. That's what sells potentially there. [00:44:46] Speaker C: Yeah. It's not a hot. [00:44:47] Speaker A: And it was. It was an out of area realtor and out of area, obviously, builders. So that realtor was giving maybe the owner working with the builder who bought the house, maybe bad advice as to what would sell in the area. [00:44:59] Speaker C: Maybe they didn't get advice. Maybe that was just what the builder wanted to do. But the point being that that house should have sold for considerably more than it did. And they tried the original list. Price wasn't bad if it spoke more to the crowd that is in this area. [00:45:13] Speaker A: Yeah. So that was just one example. All right. Another thing I think you should ask is to see examples of their market. [00:45:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:19] Speaker A: Very important. [00:45:20] Speaker B: Very important marketing. [00:45:22] Speaker A: It doesn't 100% sell a house, but it's a part of it. And I. We think it's a very important part of it. And when you talk about marketing, there's print marketing, there's online. Biggest one is hands down photos. And we did, you know, don't use your phone. No, exactly. Don't we? [00:45:37] Speaker B: Crooked dark phone. [00:45:38] Speaker A: We did a little mini mock commercial about professional photos that I will link in the comments. You know, if they can't show that they have professional photos, previous listings, it would be a red flag, in my opinion. Like, how are they going to market your property if they can't even show how they've marketed other ones? And if you see crooked iPhone three photos, I would say run away. That's what I would say. [00:46:04] Speaker C: Yeah, you're right. No, 100%. And just like you said, 100% on the opinion of market value, that is definitely something. If you're looking to net the most money for your home, iPhone photos are not going to do it. [00:46:16] Speaker A: And it costs a couple hundred bucks to get professional photos done. Seriously, with the value of properties now and what agents charge, even if they're at a low cost brokerage, man, just do it. Just do it. If they. So ask your agent what kind of marketing they can demonstrate. Nicole, you brought up an interesting point when we talked about this last week when we were going over this. So you put your buyer's agent. [00:46:36] Speaker B: I was just going to say running a little bit shorter. [00:46:38] Speaker A: No, just do it really quick. [00:46:38] Speaker B: But I see work with a lot of buyers. I see someone with iPhone photos and right away I know that it's not an experienced agent. It's not the most likely agent. Right away we're going to negotiate a lot harder on that property because that person is screaming to the world that they are not a top shelf agent. [00:46:55] Speaker A: Agree. [00:46:55] Speaker B: I can probably get an advantage on the price for my client. [00:46:58] Speaker A: Yeah, good job. [00:46:59] Speaker B: I'll take five if I can get them to answer the phone. [00:47:02] Speaker C: There we are. Call their mom. [00:47:04] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. [00:47:05] Speaker B: Or maybe I'll have to call their mom. [00:47:07] Speaker A: Here's the other thing. There's a lot of listing agents that don't even put their phone number on the listing. [00:47:11] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [00:47:12] Speaker A: Secret agents. They won't answer. They don't have voicemail. If you even try and kill something. [00:47:18] Speaker C: That may or may not make a difference in what you're going to ask a listing, during a listing, do you have voicemail and you put your number on the listing? There are some agents that don't because they're too busy to the brokerage and. [00:47:30] Speaker A: You know they will get that information. [00:47:32] Speaker C: But we think it's important to have your number to be easily reachable. So when someone wants to call you to ask questions about your property, they'll. [00:47:38] Speaker A: Answer the phone so that they can, you can start negotiating. Right. [00:47:40] Speaker C: It's very frustrating and we only know this from the buyer side. It's very frustrating when it doesn't happen and you're trying to work on your buyer's behalf to get a property they love. And there has been times that all of us experience that the buyer has been like, we'll move on. [00:47:53] Speaker A: Yeah, of course. [00:47:54] Speaker B: Yes. Or they like to properties and somebody else got back to us faster. Well, we have all the information we need on property b. Let's move on that. [00:48:01] Speaker A: A question that you may want to ask, but that we actually ask the potential seller in our, especially once they become our seller, is how will we be communicating? Because communication is key. We've talked to so many sellers that have maybe not been with us of their experiences that there's just no communication between the listing agent and the seller. Like to be kept in the loop. Like how often will you be communicating? What will you be communicating? [00:48:27] Speaker C: And don't ask how often. Say, this is what I like. [00:48:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I like to be, you know. [00:48:32] Speaker C: Yeah. Don't bug me every day or bug me every day. [00:48:34] Speaker A: Bug me every day. [00:48:35] Speaker C: Yeah, we ask a lot of questions. We have a questionnaire at the end to ask to cover these things that we understand who our seller is and if we can address something right away. But not everyone's going to have that kind of a questionnaire at the end. [00:48:48] Speaker A: So there's that. And I like this one. This is kind of the last one you may want to ask is like, great, if I do sign up with you, who will I be getting? Because if it's a large team and there's a lot of huge teams, and you've seen them advertised on every single bus shelter in the GTA, they have commercials with celebrities, and they may have a team of 2030, 40 people. And so you may get the face of the team for the interview presentation, but you may not get that person. You may get a junior agent. [00:49:19] Speaker C: You might never get them again. [00:49:21] Speaker A: You may never see them again. [00:49:22] Speaker C: That is actually true. It may be fun and there's lots of people where the team members do just as great a job. But there are some sellers that are frustrated by that. [00:49:32] Speaker A: And with regards to that, if you are with a big team, just know that you may not be getting someone or if you're with a small team that also does a lot of business, just understand that you may not get the same level of service if that agent is stretched too thin. There's a couple of agents that we know about that have a large market share. And, you know, having heard some feedback from some of their clients, it's like, well, I felt like they were just stretched a little too thin to be able to service my listing to the manner that I would want it to be. [00:50:01] Speaker C: And accustomed to the person you're speaking about in particular. It's also difficult, from our perspective of going and seeing their listings to get in touch with them. [00:50:10] Speaker A: So very difficult to get in touch. [00:50:12] Speaker C: With the listing agents when we want to buy the property or they're short with you or they're rude, they're stretched and they're stressed. [00:50:20] Speaker A: The biggest thing is these are questions that you could ask. You don't have to ask them all, but we're hoping that it gives you an idea of what to expect if you are interviewing multiple agents or even if you have one agent. And it's interesting, you know, let's talk about the media very quickly, because in a hot seller's market, when things are flying off the shelf, you may think that it's not that important to have a listing agent. That is, you know, top shelf, because everything's going to sell no matter what. You put a sign up a week later, you get multiple offers and you sell for way over your expectations or sold over asking. That's a whole other thing. No one was ever really asking for that price initially if they're doing an offer date. However, we don't think that that is the case. You know, we say do everything to a high level, and that way you're not going to leave any money on the table. Because if you have a poorly presented and marketed property in a hot market, yeah, it'll sell. But if you have a really well represented, it'll sell for more. [00:51:16] Speaker B: It'll sell like crazy for more. [00:51:18] Speaker A: So we always say, no stone left unturned. And I want to talk. Cheryl, you want to talk about the super hot markets that 2017, 2022. We had a lot of listings then, but we saw some listings that didn't sell. [00:51:31] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is something that. It always frustrates me. Just because you're in a seller's market doesn't mean that every house sells. Absolutely. And just because you're in a buyer's market doesn't mean that a selling sort of strategy won't work, because everything is house specific. Everything. [00:51:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:51:47] Speaker C: So don't make an assumption one way or another. I would say this might be something you want to have a radar on for your listing agent when you are interviewing, is that they understand that every house is different, every person's different. It's a case by case basis every single time. [00:52:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:03] Speaker B: 100%. [00:52:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And then in a buyer's market, that's when we think where there's more inventory than there are buyers, lots to choose from. That's when it's even more important. Because what do we see in the market? We see terrible photos. We see properties that just aren't even cleaned when we go in, we see that properties, and not all properties will maybe warrant staging if it's potentially got renovation and as is property, but make. [00:52:29] Speaker C: Sure it's clean and preserved. [00:52:31] Speaker A: We see a lot of properties that are just plain overpriced. If it's a hot seller's market and it's a good looking property, but it's been on the market for 60, 90 days, there's a very good chance that it's just overpriced. And that's what's impeding the sales. [00:52:42] Speaker C: If it's a hot seller's market and they've been on the market for more than 14 days, not 60 or 90. [00:52:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Then it's like, what's wrong with it? Like, people will, in their mind, come up with objections that maybe you wouldn't if it was priced properly. [00:52:55] Speaker C: Pricing is everything because the reason why something isn't selling is going to be. It's not priced right for whatever it is. [00:53:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:02] Speaker B: Yes. [00:53:03] Speaker C: You can say all the things that it is, but it's about price. [00:53:06] Speaker B: Yes. [00:53:07] Speaker A: And I think that your agent should have a plan and a strategy and. [00:53:11] Speaker C: Maybe even a backup plan and a backup plan. [00:53:12] Speaker A: That's right. Yes. And I've got some takeaways here. We're going to talk about something that you're really good at, statsy McGee. What's that? Cartwheels. [00:53:22] Speaker C: We're going to talk about cartwheels now. Great. [00:53:24] Speaker A: And then, of course, the marketing is things that we see in a buyer's market, if, you know, just has next to. No marketing. The photos are terrible, no video. Like all those types of things. I did cover that. So what are some of our takeaways? Because we're wrapping it up here. I think one of the biggest one is that the little things do matter. In our opinion. You don't want to have death by a thousand paper cuts if you have your property listed. So just, I think, attention to detail, being meticulous and doing all the little things right, because while you can't control the market, there are a thousand little things that you can. [00:53:57] Speaker B: All the little 1% add up. [00:53:59] Speaker C: That's right. [00:54:00] Speaker B: I like that little part. [00:54:01] Speaker C: That's atomic habits. Have you read that book? [00:54:03] Speaker B: I've tried three times, but it's been so interesting that I haven't succeeded. [00:54:07] Speaker A: He talks about atomic habits. [00:54:09] Speaker C: Yes. He built the build on the 1%, but we talk about. We didn't go into this, but death by a thousand paper cuts is a big one. Not that you would ask the agent on the spot, like, you take care of death by a thousand paper cuts, but it's a good thing to bring up as us sitting in front of somebody that it doesn't matter if these three things are wrong, but if these three things and these three things and these three things are wrong, then it might. [00:54:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:29] Speaker C: Hurt you. [00:54:30] Speaker B: Paper cut. [00:54:31] Speaker A: Next takeaway for me is I think experience matters. A brand new agent without good support and mentorship may not be the best choice, in our opinion. Yeah. [00:54:41] Speaker C: So then that also goes to part time. Full time. [00:54:43] Speaker A: Yes. [00:54:43] Speaker C: Part time agent versus full time agent. The part time agent is not going to have the same level as experience as a full time agent. [00:54:48] Speaker A: And they may only service your listing part time. [00:54:51] Speaker C: True story. The way you do anything is way to. [00:54:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I think strategy matters. Depending on the market that you're in, what is the predominant strategy? It's not. It'll help you get to where you need to go potentially faster and hopefully for a result in the price that's not just realistic, but maybe can exceed expectations. You never know. [00:55:09] Speaker B: Do you have a plan b? [00:55:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, here's the thing. We always say what. What gets measured gets managed. So Cheryl's track, she'll track showings. She'll track showings just in the greater market compared to our listing. If something isn't working with a listing and we don't always have the properties that it works 100%, you may need to shift strategies and you need the. [00:55:29] Speaker C: Information in order to make an educated decision. And if we're gonna say to any, like, we're gonna give our client feedback, we're gonna need to show them why we're giving them that feedback. So it's important to get a feedback for sure. [00:55:40] Speaker A: And being over communicators like we are, you will get feedback from a lot of the buyer agents, and we'll convey that to our sellers if, of course, they even want to. Some of our sellers have been like, don't care, get it sold. Don't bug me. [00:55:53] Speaker B: Regardless, we're getting the feedback because if they don't care, they've handed over the reins. And we need to have that information so that we can make a strategy. [00:56:00] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. That we can be more effective at our job. [00:56:01] Speaker C: Would you say that we wear our. [00:56:04] Speaker A: Nicole handing over her horse range now. [00:56:06] Speaker C: I forget what I was going to say. [00:56:07] Speaker B: I'm sorry. [00:56:08] Speaker C: I'll remember when this is up. And I see the look on my face. [00:56:10] Speaker A: Of course. Yeah. So, you know, if you're wondering where to start, because it can be overwhelming if you're thinking about selling your property, I think the first step is to call us 100%. Yeah. Because we can walk you through the process. [00:56:24] Speaker C: Unless you're in Sudbury. Andrea. [00:56:26] Speaker A: Yes. You know, 100%. [00:56:31] Speaker C: Definitely call us. And we. We probably have a call. We have colleagues all over the place. [00:56:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Because there's listeners all over from our stats. Because what gets measured gets managed. [00:56:40] Speaker B: Fine. [00:56:40] Speaker C: I just wanted to say Andrea out. [00:56:41] Speaker A: Loud, but I'm just saying we have listeners all across Canada, the United States, anywhere like that. [00:56:46] Speaker B: Feel free in Japan. [00:56:47] Speaker A: I know Japan, too, which is wild. If you want some advice, don't know where to start, give us a call. We can even help to do some research as to what? Some good agents in your area? Some colleagues of ours. Our brokerage is part of something called leadingre, which is an association of some of the top brokerages worldwide. So we do have access to other fantastic agents out there. But of course, if you're here in Toronto, for sure, give us a call. [00:57:11] Speaker C: Actually, to your point, Las Vegas. We helped one of our friends purchase in Las Vegas because we knew an agent that we could refer and they had a great experience. Just to break down everything that you just went through to wrap it up, the questions that you should ask or the things you should look out for. Do they have a listing presentation? Do they have experience? What are their fees and the services offered? And I say focus on how they're going to net you the most amount of money, not how they might save you money. Do they advise you on what to do to get your home ready, their opinion on market value, and do they give it to you? Strategy. Do they go over strategy and what they're basically advising you to do to get to that value marketing? Ask about how they communicate. And this might not be something you ask about, but something you can gather just from the listing presentation. And who will I be getting? If it is team and that matters to you, the end, biggest transaction of your life, you should care, right? [00:58:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Your largest asset, who is going to be handling maximizing the sale of and. [00:58:12] Speaker C: What are they going to be doing? [00:58:13] Speaker A: What is for most people their largest asset? Absolutely. [00:58:16] Speaker C: And this is just our opinion. We may have missed missed some questions that are pertinent to your situation. [00:58:23] Speaker A: If you have any questions that maybe we missed, feel free to email us jncnc toronto.com. you can also go to our website, therealestatepodcast ca for all of our contact info. But before we wrap it up, we're going to do support local because there's an awesome place that Cheryl and I like to eat cupcakes at and it's called Babette and Bell. Have you been to Babette and Bell? [00:58:44] Speaker B: No. [00:58:44] Speaker A: Oh, you have to go and check it out. They do artisanal pastries. They're in Leslieville at 1121 Queen east. Their pastries, their snacks, they're works of art. They're beautiful and they're effin tasty. They really are. Babetteandbell.com. their Instagram and Facebook is Babette and Bell. That's with two B's, two t's, two l's, Babette and Belle. So check them out. Of course, check us out. You can check us out on all of our socials at James, NC Toronto group. That would be Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, subscribe, like, do all that stuff. [00:59:19] Speaker B: And if they listened this far, they did just check us out for like an hour. [00:59:22] Speaker A: They did. So thank you for that. And we just want to thank you guys. Happy spring. Sorry it took so long between podcasts. We've had a busy spring. We're hoping to get a lot more content recorded for you over the summer. The next podcast is going to be ask a home inspector, don't ask John, Cheryl, and Nicole. Or do. And then we'll pass it on the spectrum. Exactly. All right, guys, all the best. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time. [00:59:47] Speaker B: Bye bye. [00:59:50] Speaker A: You have been listening to Therealestatepodcast, Ca. Visit our website for more episodes and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube at jnctorontogroup.