Are You Really Sure You’re Not Working With an Agent?
Categories: About Realtors, For Buyers, Hoboken Condos
Misguided Buyers 
I had an interesting conversation with some Hoboken condo buyers the other day. They were not customers of mine but were buying in Hoboken and for other reasons we got to chatting. They were in contract for a condo in Hoboken in a building with which I am extremely familiar. I asked them who their agent was and they replied “oh, we aren’t using an agent“. They had seen the property on the internet and called the listing agent directly. They viewed the property with the listing agent, made an offer through the listing agent and negotiated the sales price with the listing agent. But they were convinced that they weren’t using an agent.
A few days later I was on a listing appointment with sellers who were in contact for a new contruction condo in Hoboken. Similarly, they told me that they weren’t using an agent for their condo purchase. They had gone to the sales office, viewed the property and made their offer through the sales office. Yet they also believed they were “not using an agent”.
When you, as a buyer, deal directly with the listing agent or the sales office to purchase a property, that listing agent, know it or not, IS YOUR AGENT. The listing agent loves when this happens because he or she gets both sides of the deal and makes double the commission. Right there – if buyers realize this single fact – they could avoid making their first mistake. If I were a buyer negotiating an offer directly through the listing agent one of the first things I would ask for during my price negotiations is that the listing agent cut his or her commission.
The first couple went on to tell me about some specifics the listing agent told them about the building. Many of them were simply not true. For example, the listing agent actually told the buyers that they could build a deck on the roof. He failed to mention anything about needing to get a building permit and possibly a zoning variance from Hoboken City Hall. Or that City Hall almost never grants them anymore. Clearly, the listing agent was either simply ignorant or would say just about anything to get the property sold, especially to his own buyers ($$$).
Hoboken Buyers Need a Wake Up Call!
The listing agent works for and is an agent of the seller. He has a fiduciary relationship to the seller. There are many states that have made it illegal for the same agent to be on both sides of a deal because it is viewed as a conflict of interest. New Jersey is not (yet) one of those states. New Jersey does have rules that require the agency relationships to be disclosed to the consumer in writing. (As a lawyer, I can tell you that the “Consumer Information Statement” disclosure form typically used by agents is one of the worst written legal documents I’ve ever seen.) Yet how many of these agents actually understand and can explain what it means to be a “dual agent”? So what is a buyer to do?
Any time a buyer sees a property on line, or at an open house, or in an advertisement of any type, chances are that property is in the multiple listing system. That means that you can view the property with the agent of your choosing and let them work on your behalf while the listing agent works on the seller’s behalf. That is the whole point of the multiple listing idea. Any agent can sell any property. Even if you are looking at, say, Toll Brothers properties at Hudson Tea, Harborside, or Maxwell Place. Before you go, find an agent you like, trust, and wish to work with and bring them with you to the sales office! Or if it’s a spur of the moment visit, walk into the sales office and state “I have my own agent but she is not with me today – if I look at your properties will you allow him or her to represent me?”. If the answer is no, walk out. Come back later with your own agent.
The same holds true when visiting an open house. When you enter the property and you’re asked to sign in, let the hosting agent know that you are working with your own agent. Should you decide you’re interested in the property, you’ll be able to move forward with your own agent at your side. If you don’t care, and you do work with the listing agent, be aware that anything that you tell that listing agent must be disclosed to the buyer. That is part of the fiduciary duty the listing agent has to the seller. During price negotiations, if you say “let’s start at $475,000 and see what the seller says before we go up to $500,000″, the listing agent must tell that information to the seller! Forwarned is forearmed.
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A Picture of a Hoboken Condo is Worth a Thousand Words
Categories: About Realtors, For Sellers
How to Sell Your Hoboken Condo – Step 1.
It’s no secret anymore that buyers start their home search on line. What do you think they look at? That’s right - the PHOTOS! Well, also the video. Yes, there are agents who do video – real video, not “virtual tours” which are a compilation of still photos. Every day when I look at the new listings hitting the MLS I am flabbergasted by what I see:
- MLS listings with no photos – Why bother? Some agents say “oh, I didn’t have a chance to take the pictures yet but wanted to get it listed”. I’m sorry – you can’t wait until you have all your materials ready to list a property? If you don’t have photos, you don’t have flyers, you don’t have exposure on all the consumer sites like trulia.com or realtor.com either. Isn’t that sort of a wasted opportunity? Could it be that the listing agent doesn’t want the property shown by other agents?
- MLS listings with fewer than 9 photos - Unfortunately, 9 photos is the max allowed on the MLS (don’t ask me why). Why would an agent would post fewer than that? Did you know that if your agent pays extra costs he or she can upload mor than the standard 9 photos on sites like realtor.com? He or she can post up to 25 photos on realtor.com and the search results are listed in order of those with the most photos to those with the least. So if you are a seller, where would you want your property to show up? At the top of the list or the bottom?
- Terrible photos – I see them every day. Blurry photos, photos of the toilet bowl with the lid open, photos of the kitchen with a bunch of junk on the counters and table, photos of the bed unmade, photos that are shot with bright windows in the background so that the room looks like a dark black box, photos of the realtor in the mirror taking the photo. You get the picture!
So when you are interviewing an agent about selling your property, ask them for the address of other listings they have had, both sold, expired and withdrawn. Then go on line to realtor.com or trulia.com and take a look at their work!
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Can You Count to 10?
Categories: About Realtors, Hoboken Condos
How Many Floors is That, Here in the USA?
I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Europe, where the ground floor of an apartment building is the pianoterra (in Italy) or the rez-de- chaussée (France). The next floor up would be labeled “1″ on the elevator button and so on. It makes it very confusing for me when I go back and forth frequently and I get in an elevator here and forget which button to press. Evidently certain other Hoboken agents are suffering from that same confusion. 
I’ve seen a new “trend” in Hoboken condo listings on the MLS where an agent will represent that a unit is on floor, let’s say “3″. In fact, the MLS sheet specifically includes the unit’s “floor number” and the agent fills in “3″. Yet when I bring a buyer to see the unit, we climb 3 flights of stairs to a unit that is on the 4th floor by our standards of floor nomenclature. Not only is this incredibly annoying, it is often a waste of my time and the buyer’s time. Many buyers will say “I won’t look at anything above the 3rd floor”. I do my best to meet the buyer’s request only to find out that the listing agent either doesn’t get the US floor numbering system or simply doesn’t know how to count. Of course, I couldn’t imagine that a reputable listing agent would actually purposely misrepresent the floor number of a unit simply to get me and my buyer to go see the unit anyway! Shame on that agent. You know who you are and you make us all look bad.
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