‘The buyer literally stole it’: The sales strategy that has crept into the market

“Grateful sales happen when real estate sales agents list and sell properties for much less than the property should sell,” she explained. “We are starting to see a lot of them happen where agents just want the commission, and they are happy to sell for the first offer that comes along.

“Pick the wrong agent that has a ‘grateful sales’ mentality, and you are already going to lose a lot of money.

“They are literally advising the sellers to take it [the first offer] because they are scared that negotiating or waiting may see the agent lose the sale and the listing altogether.”

“That is a terrible approach and property owners are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars by doing this,” she said, pointing out how she recently watched as a property she sold last year was sold for $300,000 less.

“The buyer literally stole it,” she exclaimed. Ms Hay established that good agents work hard for their buyers, placing the interests of the home owner above their own.

She added that “they know when and how to push harder for more money for the seller, [and] they draw on years of experience and the ability to read people to get a sense of how to manage things”. 

Building on this, she reaffirmed that good agents “certainly do not allow good properties to sell for less than what they can really achieve in a challenging market”.

Ms Hay acknowledged the trying conditions agents are asked to operate in, which have resulted in a mass exodus of agents departing the industry; however, she noted that experienced agents had mitigated difficult circumstances such as the 2008 global financial crisis and, as such, know how to work through such conditions.

She urged home owners that picking the right agent is crucial to receiving the best possible sales result, advising them to not just “judge the potential agent on their talking skills” but also to “find out what their sales history is like”.

“When looking at costs, place less emphasis on real estate sales fee percentages. All of that means nothing if the agent sells the property for tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars less than what it should have achieved.

“You don’t want a grateful sale; you want a successful sale and one that delivers an outcome that you, the agent, and the market agrees is a good outcome,” Ms Hay concluded.