Considering putting your home up for sale in Fort Worth, Texas?  Thinking of hiring a real estate agent? What about the commission, that is negotiable isn't it?

When you put your home up for sale, you should think long and hard before you hire just any real estate agent.  You should use an agent that is experienced and who has a proven track record of success in their business.  If you don't see their individual yard signs up around your neighborhood, that may be a sign itself that you should investigate further before you hire them to sell your house.  Also, you may need to change the way you think about real estate agents.  I mean, some people are just ordinary real estate agents while others are professional real estate consultants.  The difference is in how real estate people think about themselves and how they respond to their buyers and sellers as well as what are the overall expectations that you (the seller) have of them (the agent).  The Christian Group markets itself as a group of professional real estate consultants under the care and expertise of myself and my wife Terri.  We come from contribution (a mindset), because in order to differentiate ourselves from ordinary real estate agents we must service our customers and clients with value that goes beyond the basic sales approach to marketing a home.  We stay ahead of our competition through research, training and by finding new ways of marketing.  We strive to be the local economist and area experts on the local housing markets.  We contribute expertise that yields the maximum return to our home owners and that can only happen when you know what your doing.  To provide the highest quality service, we consult with our customers and clients and provide marketing solutions that are unique to the property that we are hired to sell.  As with any real estate professional, our commissions are negotiable.  We consider several factors when taking listings at a particular rate of commission:

• Scale and cost of the home to be sold
• Does the seller have a realistic sales price in mind after the consultation?
• Is the seller going to buy another home and are they using us as their agent on that purchase?
• Are there other challenges and difficulties involved which require an unusual effort to market the home
• Overall expectations of the seller

Three things that home sellers should keep in mind about hiring a real estate professional at any particular rate of commission:

• Be wary of agents who agree to sell your home for a low or reduced fee - you will have to take up any of the slack in the activities that a full service professional would otherwise provide and their marketing approach will likely be at only a very basic level, leaving you at an overall disadvantage in a housing market where you are competing with home sellers who have hired professional full service consultants like The Christian Group.
• Agents who cannot negotiate their own fee will probably not be effective at negotiating the best sales price for your home (emphasis added!).
• Quality full service professional agents will likely bring you a higher net sales price for your home and more than make up any difference that you might pay in higher commissions for their services.

I hope this information has been useful to you!  Please call us today for a free market consultation on your home!

By Bernie Christian