His 20 years of experience in residential property have, says Louis Schoeman, the Rawson Property Group’s franchisee for the Durbanville area, convinced him of one important fact: in a sellers’ market such as that which is now prevailing in many of the high demand greater Cape Town areas, the seller can make no bigger mistake than to allow large numbers of estate agents to try simultaneously sell his home. This basic truth, adds Schoeman, is particularly relevant when the home is in the middle or upper brackets.
“To those not familiar with property, it may seem obvious that the more agents you involve in a sale, the better your chances will be of selling it successfully. In reality the exact opposite is the case,” said Schoeman.
What sellers have to appreciate, said Schoeman, is that the pool of potential buyers on any one home is much the same for all the agents. By and large, they will be dealing with the same group of people because buyers today do their homework and consult the same websites and read the same advertisements.
Competing with other agents to be the first to sign up a buyer will, said Schoeman, almost invariably lead to the offer they negotiate being not as high as could be expected. With multi listings, the buyer’s goal, not the seller’s satisfaction, it is likely to become the paramount consideration.
Even more inimical to the seller’s success, said Schoeman, is the fact that the agent will quite often divert a promising buyer from the multi listed property to a similarly priced home in the same area which he (the agent) has on a sole agency basis. The obvious reason for this is that on the latter he will not be sharing his commission with other agents and his commission will, therefore, be far higher.
“It is also very tiresome to many of us who do advertise thoroughly on properties,” added Schoeman, “that smaller or less successful agents, who possibly have taken little or no advertising, benefit from the media coverage and advertisements generated by the bigger and more successful agencies. Often, too, where the less competent agencies do find the funds to advertise, there is a good possibility that this will be done with a serious lack of expertise.”
With a sole mandate in place, said Schoeman, the agent, knowing that he will be the sole beneficiary from the eventual sale and will be paid at a good rate, will advertise the property thoroughly and will take time to liaise with all the potential buyers to ensure that they understand the seller’s expectations and to ensure that the best possible bid is submitted. They will not be anxiously looking over their shoulder to see if a rival agent with persuasive powers is getting in ahead of them on a sale, quite possibly with a less than satisfactory price.
Asked how it is that certain sellers always seem to end up appointing less competent agents, Schoeman said that, despite much media coverage on the subject, a small minority of the less competent agents still obtain mandates by overvaluing the homes and encouraging unrealistic price expectations. When these are not met, he said, the agent will very often have a good line up of reasons to explain this, but in the meantime many genuine potential buyers will have gone elsewhere.
Schoeman concluded his comments by saying that his team in the Durbanville area is now selling eight to ten homes per month, 90% of which are in the R1,5 million to R3 million bracket. “Durbanville,” he said, “remains one of the high demand areas in the greater Cape Town precinct and yet it is still affordable, with prices here on average being 40% below those of similar homes in the central Cape Peninsula suburbs.”
For further information contact Louis Schoeman on 021 975 2124 or 082 575 6644.
