Broker for owners - benefits / advantages?

What am I aiming for as the owner of a property when I hire a real estate agent?

Most agents I have met so far are blabbermouths, clueless and/or demand a ton of money from the buyer just for posting a few bad photos along with listings full of spelling mistakes on Immoscout/Welt/etc and a few viewings. That actually scares away many potential buyers – personally, as a buyer, I would not agree to pay several tens of thousands of euros for the maybe 2 hours total contact with the agent, which then disappears from my own capital. He doesn’t even want to be liable for the statements in his own exposé.

The only valid reasons, from my point of view, could be:
- I live very far away and cannot conduct viewings
- I don’t want to take care of anything at all

The first reason is completely understandable. Although, actually the seller should bear the "fault" and pay for it. The second reason is simply pure laziness that the agent lets themselves be royally paid for. Is it really so much effort? Usually, you can reuse the documents you already received when buying/building. Plus an energy certificate. And purchase contracts are made by any notary. What else could be behind it?

What other reasons are there? In my eyes, this is an almost superfluous professional field with disproportionately high pay... you can already tell from all the secrecy like “sign here and here and there, otherwise I won’t tell you the address, I could lose my commission (sic!)”

Written deliberately provocatively, I would still appreciate factual answers ;o)

Well, most people only see ONE person in a real estate agent who takes a few bad photos of the properties and adds a standard text without even being liable for this information. For a 1-2 hour viewing, the agent then shamelessly charges several thousand euros. That’s the generally common image of a real estate agent, reinforced by the classic agent joke: “We’ll call you back...”

In fact, things look completely different with a good real estate agent. There, 10 or more people work, you need an office, and advertising costs for listings alone run into the five-figure range every month.
Additionally, for example, I use camera equipment that costs well into the four-figure range, and the photos are partly extensively edited with Photoshop and Lightroom. It can easily take 10 hours just to finish a listing.
The fact that the agent cannot be liable for all information is simply because the agent can only inspect the house and therefore cannot notice intentionally hidden and concealed defects and has to rely on the seller’s statements.
The problem is that many people who simply did not have a job once thought, "I’ll just become an agent and make a ton of money." These are exactly the many bad apples who do a lousy job and then offer “special conditions” where, for example, you only pay half the commission. Of course, the service is poor, and this reflects badly on all agents.

Regarding the properties, sure, I have had some that practically sold themselves and where you earned good money with relatively little effort.
However, there are also properties that have been on the market for years. Some do not even cost 100k€, and you go to viewings dozens of times with supposed bargain hunters or you only have a general contract, work on it for 1 year, and in the end the house is privately sold.
That is exactly why such a “fuss” is made about the address. There are numerous “interested parties” who want to ask for the address, then do not show up for the appointment and later ring the doorbell privately when the seller still lives in the house.
These people are then even happy about how clever they were and how they got one over on the evil agent.
The joy quickly faded, however, when an invoice for double commission (buyer and seller) landed in the buyer’s mailbox.
Since it was clearly documented, and he at least gave his phone number, that he had the address from us and thus the purchase only came about through us, he had to pay after all. After some negotiations and goodwill on our part, however, only the buyer’s share.

For example, I have also had an investment property where the owner was no longer able to take care of anything at all. We spent days with his tax advisor going through files until we finally got an overview.

So there are definitely good reasons for a (good) agent.

However, if you want to sell your nearly new property in a popular location at a reasonable price, this is not necessarily necessary, I completely agree with you there.
Nevertheless, an agent can also make sense here. We often experience that a person, due to a job change, turns to an agent to look for a few suitable properties in the region for them.
These people often do not have time to search on their own and, depending on how urgent it is, also pay a higher purchase price, which then benefits the seller again.

As a conclusion, I would say, with a general contract you can’t go wrong, you can only win.
If you yourself do not have the possibility to take care of everything, you should enter into an exclusive contract with a good agent.

Hello

here is an offer for a property without agent commitment, a good selling point.
And I would not hire an agent anymore.
So far, I had one good and one bad experience with an agent.
The bad one: I wanted to sell my apartment (8 years old, 100m², upscale fittings, in the catchment area of Düsseldorf). The building society, through which the financing was arranged, offered me their agent and suddenly, I had signed a contract that only he could sell this apartment. The contract was for one year. Nothing happened. I asked. He replied that there were some interested parties at the moment. After a few months, I asked again. He said the apartment was too expensive. After the year, I canceled the contract. There came a long list of potential "buyers" on whom the agent had his hand.
I was then recommended another agent. The deal was, if I sold the apartment, he would not get a commission. Within a short time, there were several interested parties (the purchase price was increased on the agent’s advice) and suddenly, the apartment was gone.
In a confidential conversation, the agent told me that he feared the first agent was interested in a strong reduction of the purchase price so that a friend could take over the apartment cheaply. There was some evidence supporting this suspicion.

Steven

120h for a property? I cannot prove it, but it seems to me to be significantly overestimated! - and definitely not on average across all properties of the broker and certainly not at the moment. There are certainly exceptions, but I stick to my point: the broker's commission is not proportional to the service provided.

That doesn't matter....the hours. The performance is the signed purchase contract. That way you could denounce all brokers, ship brokers, insurance brokers, travel agencies, etc. Anyone who wants to sell themselves may do so, it is not forbidden. However, brokers usually sell better and with less effort for the seller; the buyer is also well served by the broker, since if he is reputable, he does not conceal construction defects and describes realistically what is being bought. Commission rates are, by the way, not fixed but negotiable. But if house xy is in such high demand that it sells almost by itself, there is no room for maneuver. Carsten

Even a broker has to do things like this: Scout-ID: 95415878

No broker envies such houses / prices by any means.

: There are boom areas in Germany; yes, the big cities; but for example, the Eifel or many parts of the East go through real estate like stale bread.

When we drive through the Eifel and stop by the savings banks, many notices regarding real estate are quite yellowed.

There are certainly exceptions, but I still maintain: the broker's commission is not in proportion to the service provided.

Commissions are not set arbitrarily. There is also no obligation to use someone.

Per real estate agent: - Usually have their own client base of potential interested parties - Know the real estate market of the region very well and know what can be demanded - Form the emotionless intermediary, usually the seller is emotional, which an agent does not have - Sales professionals, provide tips to offer the property in a way that increases sales (e.g. repaint everything once, costs 5000 € but raises the price by 10,000) Contra: - It is difficult to find really good agents