Who Pays for Discount Agents' Mistakes? You Do.

Some agents offer to sell your home at a discounted rate or for a flat fee. Why do they do this? It's to build up their experience. We all know that the best experience comes from making mistakes. In essence they are admitting that they are likely to make mistakes while marketing your home, and they are paying you for the experience they will gain from those mistakes. These mistakes can range from limited real estate knowledge to misunderstandings about technology.

One of the most common mistakes I see is with a listings photos. The MLS is a great service and uploading good pictures of your home will ensure that a lot of people can see it. In addition to the MLS many websites import the photos and information to their website for increased exposure. Take a look at some of these photos that agents are using to advertise your home.

Because the agent is cutting their commission they have less money to pay for photos and marketing. This resourceful agent saved money by using their phone to take photos of the house. You can even see the phone icons at the top of the images.

One of the first problems with a phone photo is the dimensions. The MLS has a set size for the photos and these pictures from the phone are too narrow. So the MLS stretches the photos to match the space. This stretching distorts the photos and just looks bad.

Here is another innovative agent who couldn't afford to drive out to the house to take a photo. What did they do? The took a screen capture from Google Maps streetview.

Their technological in-experience also hurts your listing when they can't rotate the image.

This listings has been on the market for months and everyone looking at the images looks like this:

Part-time and amateur agents are known to make mistakes. If they recently got their license they don't have the years of experience that an expert agent has. If they're part-time they may not keep up with the latest updates and changes in technology or the market. Here are three other marketing mistakes I see in real estate.

Because I'm a full-time expert with over 15 years experience and 1,500 homes sold, I can recognize these mistakes quickly. I have a marketing team with the technical expertise to make sure your advertising looks good. I also spend the time, energy, and money required to get your home sold.

This is one of the reasons why experienced agents are 160% more likely to sell your home, can get $25,000 more money for your home, and can sell your home 32% faster!

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