Article by Bill Glover.
It pays to be very careful when your home is being advertised for sale. Any hint that you are under pressure to sell, will be taken as an open invitation to buyers to make unrealistic offers.
To us, anything about the sellers’ circumstances, rather than about the property, is a breach of our ethical duty – to use our best endeavours to achieve the best price for the owners. Other agents also have that duty, but I don’t think that it is always taken as seriously as it should be.
It is noticeable that many of the worst examples occur in advertisements that are vendor funded so that not only is the poor owners’ circumstances being advertised to the buyers but the seller is having to pay for the advertising as well.
With typical vendor-paid advertising space being somewhat larger than company-paid advertising, there is a lot more space to fill and personal information that should never be disclosed is regularly being shouted from the rooftops. Do the agencies involved not realise that their sellers are being adversely affected by this, or it simply that they just don’t they care?
The following phrases all appeared in one issue of our local newspaper on 13 May 2010:
‘Vendor Bought – Must sell’
‘Vendor Desperate to Sell’
‘Negotiable’
‘Seriously for Sale’ ‘
‘Bank say must sell’
‘Urgent – Owner gone to Australia’
‘Beat the bank’
‘Must be sold’ (x2)
‘Urgent sale’
‘The vendors are packed…’
‘Vendors off travelling’
‘ Highly motivated vendor seeks..’
‘Our owners have purchased and this home MUST be sold’
‘Price reduced after fallen sale’
‘Owners have bought’
‘Forced Sale’
‘Vendor must sell’
‘..forces them to sell their home.
‘…must be sold’
‘Vendors have already purchased’
‘It’s got to go – instructions from Oz’
‘southbound owner instructs to sell’
‘Must be sold’
‘Forced sale – beat the bank’
‘An immediate sale is required’
‘sell without delay’
‘Circumstances require immediate sale’
‘Must go under the hammer’
‘overseas owner wants it sold’
‘reasons force owner to sell’
‘owner moving overseas and must sell’
‘Urgent Sale’
‘Overseas owner needs this sale’
‘..owner moving overseas.’
While the agents would probably say that they are trying to create urgency, I would say they are trying to make a sale at any price, with the loss the sellers’ to bear. Nobody needs this lack of professionalism.
Ways to avoid this happening are:
Don’t pay for advertising, certainly not for large advertisements.
Don’t tell salespeople your reason for selling – they may use the information against you.
Insist on reviewing all advertisements BEFORE they appear in the newspaper or on the internet.
