In Episode 57 of the Toe-2-Toe Podcast, hosts Jenn Murtland and Monica Weakley duke it out over how many months your listing contract should be. 30 days, 90 days, 6 months? This one might surprise you!
Episode Highlights:
- Monica is firm on her stance of a 90-day listing contract, regardless of the amount of inventory.
- People’s opinions of the real estate agent changes based on how long the sign is in the yard.
- Jenn’s preference is 30 days for the same reasons that Monica’s preference is 90 days.
- There was a time when Jenn first started that she assumed all contracts were a year long.
- Agents should take the average days on market into consideration when proposing a listing contract.
- 90 days in a buyers’ market and 30 days in a sellers’ market sounds good to Monica.
- Sellers like the confidence of a short listing contract as compared to an agent that needs a long time to sell their house.
- Jenn thinks it’s important to look at the average days on market and take what makes sense.
- Monica believes that limiting the listing contract offers confidence and a break from a possibly mismatched relationship.
- Jenn and Monica actually agree with each other on this one.
- Tiebreaker, Rachael Real, believes that listing contracts should be no more than 6 months long.
- It’s important to have an extension that takes you through the closing and a longer contract helps with that.
- Auditing by the state will make your life a living hell, so, you are better off making sure you have room for an extension.
- Stay completely transparent with the client about what’s going on at that point of the process.
- Rachael thinks, in theory, 90 days is enough time to sell the house.
3 Key Points:
- If an agent can’t sell a house in 90 days, then it’s probably a bad match with the client.
- People tend to not show their true colors until after the contract is signed, so in order to be careful, the contract should be limited.
- Shorter contracts show confidence from the agent in their ability to sell the house in a shorter amount of time.
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