Page 21 - Selling your Home - The CommFREE guide to all you need to know

In principle, this sounds like a good arrangement to get competition going amongst the
estate agents.

However, in reality there are also disadvantages such as in order to be part of a multi-listing
arrangement, the listing agent sometimes must agree to a certain commission percentage
which cannot be reduced. Just like with open mandates, MLS estate agents compete with
each other to get the first offer that the seller will accept, which is not necessarily always
the best one.

It can be very inconvenient dealing with independent requests for house viewings from
estate agents you may never have even met. For each one you will have to arrange keys,
alarm codes etc.

If a multi-listing mandate is
signed, the listing agent
often does not spend too
much money marketing

your property since there is
a chance that the other
estate agents might find a
buyer first, in which case
the listing agent will only
get half of the commission.
But, as with open
mandates, the other

agents also aren’t going to
exert themselves too much
because of the risk that
they aren’t first to get a
buyer.

So, what usually happens is that the other estate agents don’t market the property actively
but will show a potential buyer the available multi-listed properties if the buyer has no
interest in the agents’ own listings.

Multi-listing mandates might increase the potential exposure that your property gets but,
equally, there is far less accountability and more passive marketing than would be the case
for a sole mandate.

However, this arrangement is not your concern and you only have to deal with the single
estate agent you appointed. Your agent retains control of the selling process and you
won’t get calls from other estate agents.

21
21 Title of the book
The CommFREE Guide to Selling your Home