So why is it home sellers need a vendor advocate more than ever?
It can be a stressful process when selling your home, especially in this market and making sure you get the best possible out of your sales agent and marketing is key.
To help ensure that everything goes smoothly for your house sale, you may consider engaging the services of a vendor advocate – an experienced professional who provides important third-party, independent advice to those selling their homes.
From understanding market value to aggressively negotiating deals on behalf of sellers, working with an experienced vendor advocate can make all the difference when it comes to selling your home quickly and profitably.
Read on to learn why every seller should consider working with a vendor advocate.
What is a vendor advocate?
A vendor advocate is an experienced professional who provides independent support to those selling their homes. They will help you through the entire process, from getting your home ready for sale and marketing it properly, to negotiating a fair commission with your agent, to riding shotgun during negotiations so that your agent doesn’t under sell your valued asset.
Vendor advocates are knowledgeable about current market conditions, understand the importance of pricing correctly, and are adept at marketing property in such a way that your property receives the kind of exposure necessary to find the best fitting, highest paying buyers for your home.
They provide support and advice with every step of the way, giving home sellers a better chance to get the most out of their house sale.
5 reasons why hire a vendor advocate?
There are many reasons why working with a vendor advocate can be beneficial. Here are some of the key reasons why you should consider hiring a vendor advocate:
- Save time, hassle and money – Vendor advocates will help you select a selling agent to list with and will critique and provide advise to all aspects of those first critical steps leading up to placing your home on the market. They’ll also negotiate a better commission rate for you. This alone could save you tens of thousands of dollars. Reason alone to engage a vendor advocate.
- Get an expert opinion – A vendor advocate can provide you with an expert opinion about how your property is being marketed and how it’s being priced, helping you to get the most out of your sale.
- Get your property back on track – The property market in Australia has gone through some major changes over the past few years. Often agents haven’t had prior exposure to these changes and their lack of preparedness can cause a property to sit on the market unsold. A vendor advocate can analyse and diagnose the problem you may be experiencing and provide some new direction to get your property sold.
- Get a better deal – Vendor advocates are experienced negotiators who can help ensure that you get the best possible sale price for your home. They can be your sounding board for all offers and support you on the day of the auction.
- Stress relief + have someone in your corner – A vendor advocate can take away much of the stress that comes with selling a home, providing professional support and guidance to help make the process easier. They’re job is to protect your interests. They’re in your corner!
What does a vendor advocate cost?
The cost of working with a vendor advocate will vary depending on the complexity of your situation and the extent of services that you require.
A true vendor advocate doesn’t charge commission. The reason being is, commission which is performance based, erodes unbiassed advice.
Instead, you can expect a modest flat fee (a fraction of the cost of commission) typically paid upfront for their expert advice. Starting from as little as a few hundred dollars but can run into a couple of thousands depending on the brief.
These advocacy briefs usually cover basic support such as answering questions, providing advice, critiquing marketing and helping to negotiate the best deal possible for you.
Can a vendor advocate be the real estate agent selling your property?
Mostly, no.
A vendor advocate needs to be truly independent of the sales process so as not to have a vested interest in the sale. That way their advice to you can’t be influenced by the prospect of earning commission.
To be fair, your listing agent selling your property can also act as your vendor advocate if they are doing their job right. But as explained above, you just need to remember because the selling agent gets paid commission for selling your property, they have a vested interest in getting a deal done and that can sometimes compromise their advice to you.
A vendor advocate is there to look out for your best interests, so make sure you find one who is independent and impartial to ensure that their advice is truly unbiased.
How a vendor advocate works best in a tough real estate selling market?
A vendor advocate is a great asset when it comes to selling your home in a tough market. They can provide valuable insight into current market conditions and give you advice on pricing, marketing and negotiation techniques.
They will be able to identify the target market and help create effective sales strategies that work within the current market. Additionally, they can help to negotiate a good deal that works in your favour, even if the market is not favourable.
“We are finding more and more vendors are seeking our advocacy services. With over 30 years in real estate and being involved in 1000 + property negotiations, home sellers are recognising this experience to be crucial is getting the best possible outcome with their home sale” commented Peter Hutton, Principal Advocate, Hutton and Hutton.
A vendor advocate example
A seller had placed their immaculate, colonial home set on pristine grounds of 1,045 sq meters onto the market. Research had shown this property should sell in the low $2,000,000’s.
But 4 months after the property was passed in at auction, the best offer was for $1,900,000.
The sellers were confused and disappointed. They didn’t know what to do. Should they take this low offer, take the property off the market or change agency?
Such thoughts are very confronting. They cause enormous amounts of stress.
Inexperience for sellers can be costly
One reason for this is that most sellers only ever sell a home once or twice in their lifetime.
Secondly, they are not ‘in the market’. They can read all the articles about market conditions, watch the nightly news for comments on where the housing market is at or even subscribe to ‘expert’ newsletters.
But they are not experienced in hundreds or thousands of sale transactions nor do they have a feel of the current market. Markets can switch on a whim and there is often a market within a market.
By this, we mean activity within a particular suburb can be strong yet five suburbs away it can be flat.
Time to call in an expert vendor advocate
The seller decided to ask Peter and Karen Hutton to review the marketing on the property to see if it could be tweaked.
They discovered the hidden from the public ‘match price’ set on the real estate portal REA by their selling agent was at $1,900,000, below the $2 million + expected price.
Peter and Karen recommended the seller goes back to their agent and have a match price set within the backend of the portal to be at $2,250,000.
They knew there would be resistance from their agent but they advised the seller to stick to their guns.
An unknown tweak delivers a 32% windfall
Within days of the price change, a flood of new, fresh enquiries hit the agent’s inbox.
One enquirer loved the property so much that they offered $2.5 million cash unconditionally to secure the property.
The sellers snapped up the offer and settled 30 days later.
A vendor advocate is your trusted advisor
Having a vendor advocate is invaluable to home sellers, especially when the entire sales process is usually left up to the sales agent who has a vested interest in the outcome by way of the commission they are paid.
As we’ve discussed, a vendor advocate provides transparency and objectivity to the seller in all dealings, resulting in even more successful outcomes for the vendor.
As a result of having an experienced and knowledgeable individual assisting them throughout the process, home sellers can feel confident that their best interests are being kept in mind while they navigate the intricacies of selling their homes.
All in all, there’s no doubt that hiring a vendor advocate is an excellent decision for home sellers who want to make sure every angle is covered before agreements are made.
So don’t wait – start looking into working with a vendor advocate today so you can have peace of mind knowing your property sale is being handled professionally.
With their help, you can move forward confidently and reach the best possible outcome for your sale!
Hutton and Hutton offer a vendor advocate service backed by integrity and decades of real estate negotiation experience. Check out their service here – it’ll be your best investment!
