Christies Beach 
You have heard the saying ‘nice guys finish last’, this couldn’t be more true when it comes to the real estate industry at the moment, with the increasing number of agents under quoting. And it is frustrating for those agents who are doing the right thing because the general public are unaware of what is happening.
It is one thing to be caught out in a rising market but when agents are consistently $100K – $200k out, they either don’t know what they are doing or are deliberately bating people.
In an attempt to not single out any agencies, we’ll call these agents one name, ‘Agent XYZ’. Now, there is more than one agency taking part in this, but for this article, we’ll use the one fictitious name.
Now, to the general public, they see Agent XYZ listing and selling property all over the place, with people queuing up at open inspections. You’ll hear people say, “you should list with Agent XYZ, they sold one on my street for $100K over the asking price!”
Not only is this against the REI code of ethics but it is actually unlawful. The problem is that the governing bodies, such as CBS, appear to be doing very little about it, and until they do, Agent XYZ will not stop. Why would they?
Droves of people are being lured unfairly to these listings with no hopes of ever buying it.
With no repercussions, it provides no incentive for agents to do the right thing. There is an attitude of ‘if you can’t beat em’, join em’. And in desperate times, after the frustration of losing listing after listing, can you really blame them? This ultimately gives our industry a bad name, which is in itself unfair, especially to the hundreds of practitioners who do the right thing.
We have been asked many times at open inspections “how much more over the asking price will this actually go for?”
We have to explain to people that we are advertising the property at true market value. Of course, it may go for over the asking price, especially when buyers think they ‘have to’ offer over the asking price but it would be unusual to see it go over the 10% legislated guideline.
We feel it is within everyone’s best interest to bring awareness to the problem at hand. The more people talk about it, the more chance there is of change. We feel the public deserves to know the truth.
#OutvotingUnderQuoting
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