When you find yourself working with a not-so-good real estate agent, you must do everything in your power to put an end to the listing agreement right away. Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit share various approaches to escaping such a partnership that has gone off the rails. Learn what it takes to part amicably with your agent, as well as some tips on avoiding this situation as much as possible and addressing conflicts as soon as they arise.

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Ending A Listing Agreement With The Wrong Agent

This is The Land Academy Show. This is episode number 2061. Jill and I are talking about how to end a listing agreement with the wrong real estate agent. A pretty popular topic, largely because I think it’s a pain in the butt, but we all do it. We all chose the wrong listing agreements and midway through the agreement, we said, “This did not work.”

It happens. Not very often. It’s so infrequent, but I just want to talk about and I’ll explain the situation. I’ll explain how to best set yourself up going into it. What to do in the middle, why you’re trying to decide if there’s something to save, and then what to do at the end if you decide. It’s not like we need to part ways. I’ll help you with that. It’s not tragic and it’s not hard, and you can do it where everybody walks away okay.

The truth is I want to hear what she’s going to say too.

Thanks.

Discord Question

Each day on the show, we answer a question from our Land Academy member Discord forum and take a deep dive into land-related topics by popular request. Let’s take a question, Jill.

Mike wrote, “Leads are going slow for us. Is everyone else experiencing this? Is it me? What is everyone’s experience?” This is an interesting time. I was reading about this in Discord and then some other stuff online. One of the people commented that there’s so much active for sale. Here’s what I think it is. I was reading the discussions and let me paint the picture. There are times in the year when things just fly off the shelf, like summertime, and springtime. We just experienced that, especially during COVID.

Everybody knows wherever you were, houses were flying off the shelves as people were moving and making all these changes because they could. We didn’t have to go to an office anymore kind of thing. We had crazy prices happening. A lot of people are making changes. Now we’re leveling off a little bit. We got a couple of things to think about, and this was the whole discussion. Hold on, everyone. Number one, and especially as we air this, we’re right before the election. That’s a huge thing.

It’s got a lot of people’s things on their minds, and they’re waiting to make some major life decisions until we know what’s going to happen. I don’t roll that way. I know you don’t roll that way. A lot of people do. They’re like, “I don’t know where I want to be.” Let’s see how my state ends up. Maybe I’m a swing state. Maybe I might leave. People have done things like that. Also, it’s the fall time of year. There are always things that happen too. There’s always seasonality is real, especially in a lot of parts of the country.

What’s really interesting is, and we watch this because Jack tracks us every week on our Thursday weekly member calls in Land Academy of a closed call. He looks at what percentage of properties are listed for sale now versus last year by the week. Our days on the market going up, our days on the market going down, like nationwide. We’re watching for these trends. There have been a few things in the last couple of weeks where there’s just been a lot of property. I think it was like 30% more property on the market right now, trending the last couple of weeks versus the same time last year. Interesting. There’s all those things that play into this.

Reading between the lines in Mike’s question, what he’s really saying is, “The stuff that I’ve been doing in my business for quite some time isn’t working anymore. What the hell?” Are you doing it or is it me? That’s the real question here, I think, because that’s the way I would ask the question, mostly in the mirror, not to anybody else. The fact is, Jill and I have been at this for many decades. I can tell you with confidence, that I am shocked and amazed that we have done as well as we have financially and that we continue to do that.

When I look at why, it’s because I’m not surprised at all that when stuff slows down and I know what to do. You have to really look into your soul and make the changes. I don’t do the soul-searching anymore at all. We just automatically make changes. The thing that we’re doing right now that’s changing everything for our business for the positive is diversifying back into other product types.

For years, we were very anti-buying and selling SFR houses. Now we’ve found a newly rekindled interest in that because the way that we’ve been buying and selling land has really slowed down. Is it the election? Probably part of it. Is it the fact that there are so many people attempting to teach this that everybody’s sending mail to properties that have never received mail forever? There’s a saturated market, there’s an election, and there’s an economic scenario that we’ve identified like Jill said on the Thursday calls, you have to change stuff.

I like what you said, we never panic about it. I’m not surprised. I know why we’ve done so well over the years and you know what it is, Mike? I don’t sweat it. I don’t sweat this anymore because it’s going to change and that’s okay. When things are slow too, to me it’s like I go into buying frenzy mode. One of our guys, it was really sweet.

We just started Career Path 10 earlier this week and there was a guy on there who said, “For years with my other business, I panicked. This was like COVID times and there were property prices going. It was actually before COVID.” No, try to remember what timeframe he was talking about. Basically, he was watching his note mortgage business and property management go down. He’s like, “I looked at it wrong. I should have been buying everything back then.” It’s a lot of this perspective too.

We have the ironic luxury of Jill and I having to go through the 2009 real estate depression that happened because of subprime loans. The feds have since then addressed that and That’s not now no longer an issue. Predatory lending let’s call it is no longer an issue. Now there are just new issues. There are issues with COVID and pushing back and allowing properties that should be foreclosed on to not happen. Ten years from now this will happen again. We’ll have an uptick after this, every 10 or 11 years this cycle happens and you’d need to just plan for it.

Every decade or so, the economy goes up or down. You just need to plan for it. Share on X

When you’re young and everything’s going great, you start to think that you’re bulletproof. I went through all this. You start to create reasons in your head why you’re smarter than everybody and why you figured it out and no one else can and you just don’t understand why. The fact is you had a good run and it’s about to end. You don’t want to sit around and say, “I’m amazing.” You want to sit around and say, “I cannot believe this has worked this long. It’s going to stop at some point. I better be ready for it.”

Be in the pivot and make changes. That’s why you’re with us. That’s why you’re in land academy. Why are we doing it? We’re here doing deals right with you, staying one step ahead of this, and helping you through it. That was a great question. You brought it up.

We have each other that really helps because Jill sees things differently than I do. I apply money to everything.

I think you say like, “One of us is Eeyore and one of us is Tigger and you figure out who that is.”

True. When is Tigger ever said, I’m really concerned about the financial implications of what we’re doing right now?

“Tata for now.” That’s all Tigger says. TTFN.

Ending A Listing Agreement

Our topic, How To End A Listing Agreement With The Wrong Real Estate Agent?

Let me paint the picture. You have a property for sale. It’s more than $100,000. It doesn’t make sense to do Facebook marketplace and do it yourself. It’s this great area. You bought it for $30,000, you’re selling it for $110,00. Do you have the commission baked in? It’s a property and an area that most do at that price range commands that level. An agent, most buyers are going to be working with agents when they’re going for these bigger more expensive, I should say properties thing and you need to get it out there on the MLS and all that good stuff.

Other ways to do it, but still it just makes sense. The bottom line is you did everything right. You found the area. You went and found an agent who just sold three properties in the last six months, just like yours, and you signed an agreement with them. Here we go. It starts off good. You guys are having a good time and good communication, and then something happens.

The honeymoon period.

You’re like, “They’re not around. They’re not really taking my calls. They just don’t seem to be answering the phone at all. If they’re not answering the phone when I call, are they answering the phone with a potential buyer’s call? Where are they? Let me go check the listing. Views are down. That’s not the pictures that I approved. I trusted this person. What do I do?” Pause, this can happen as a real situation and maybe you even did three deals with them before and now they’re just stale a little bit. Stuff happens.

Number one, was there stuff that you should have done differently in the beginning, and then how do I get out of it? A couple of things are in the beginning when you’re picking this person, you do want to make sure you have that communication and then set up how and when and how often and make it like, “I’d like to get weekly updates from you. Is that too much? Bi-weekly, I want to know what’s going on. I want to be accessible to you too. We’re in this together.” Establish a communication routine and format.

Two, always do six months. Don’t do more. When I go in with these agents and say, “I want to sell it. I want to know what you think is going to sell it. I don’t know, between 30 and 90 days. There’s no fire. What do you think the price would be?” They’re like, “This is how we should listen. This is what I think we should do. Great.” When you have that chat and they come with you at a year agreement, you can go, “Hold on a moment. Remember we talked about selling us within 30 to 90 days. That’s why we price it this way.

Let’s do a six-month agreement. If it doesn’t go for any reason and you and I are okay with it, we’ll extend that.” Most agents are like, “Totally understand. Get it, let’s do that. We got the six-month thing.” The posting. The third thing would be communication. You’re on the same page with the timeline, check the posting. I have been guilty of this in the past myself when I trusted the agent so much. I just was like, “It’s live. I even have a link and I don’t go look at it.” I’m like, so you need to get the link, pull it up, and make sure it looks good, passes everything, you’re like, “Those are 30 phenomenal pictures I can see. Everything that I would want to see as a buyer. That’s a great description.”

You want to feel like this person’s earning their money. This is going to be awesome. I see phone numbers there, everything checks out. I can sit back and work on the next thing. That’s to do going into it. Let’s just say something happened in the middle now. The honeymoon’s over, they got distracted. Maybe they’re not doing well in life. They could have some life events. They’re like, I’m even trying to decide they want to be in the real estate game. You don’t know what’s going on, but all is they’re not working for you.

The first thing I would do is, of course, try to reach them and tell them what’s going on. “I haven’t been able to get with you.” Call them, text them, email them, and hit them all three ways. Like, “I’m concerned. I haven’t heard from you. I haven’t gotten updated in a while. It looks like the views are down, fill in the blank.” Give them a chance. Tell them, “The posting doesn’t look great. Can we refresh it? I noticed the photos that took were on a cloudy day. It wasn’t that pretty. Can we get another photographer out there? Breathe in some new life into it.”

Even ask them, “What other ideas do you have?” Things like, we could pull it down, put it back, let it reset a minute. I’ve done all these things. I’m not a fan of any agent saying, “It’s your fault. It’s your property. We need to lower the price because we all went in this together.” The way I do it, and I hope you have learned to do it too, is to let your agent start with the price conversation, not you. The reason you picked them in that area is because they’re the local expert, not me, them, I have it in my head.

Often, which is great, I have had numbers in my head called local expert agents and had them price it higher than I thought. They got higher than I thought. I’ve learned to back off and go into it by trusting them in these situations. You’ve done that, you’ve had a communication, you’re trying to do it, then they’re either agreeable or they’re not. If they’re agreeable, great. You got a good agent, you guys are going to work this through together and you just continue. They’re not. They don’t answer the phone, you don’t know where they are.

They’re not agreeable to anything. All they say is it’s your fault. The property actually sucks now. I didn’t realize how sucky it was. We either drop $50,000 and fire sail it or I don’t whatever. They’re just hanging in there. That’s when you can say, “How about this? How about we part ways? You’re not into it and for whatever reason, that’s okay. Let’s just undo this contract. I appreciate what you’ve done. I’m going to redo this. I’m going to take this back on my own.”Most agents, if you’ve tried and you’ve had communications, you’re not in agreement.

It’s not going how you want. Most agents I have found are like, “Fine. Let’s part ways.” They feel that too. Whatever you want, they aren’t capable of doing. They don’t want to continue down that path and be a failure to you and stare at this property as well. Maybe it’s out of their wheelhouse. Maybe they realize, I said, “Not my forte. I need to get back over here to what I was doing over in this part of the whatever county.” They are happy to say or they even see you as a pain in the butt because you have all these requests.

Real estate seasonality is real, especially in many parts of the United States. Share on X

I don’t care, whatever it is, part ways. It’s very easy for them to send you an agreement undoing your agreement, releasing you from your six-month contract in month three, wherever you guys are for in the situation. That’s how you do it. It’s going to pull it. It’s going to come down. It’s going to show delisted if you will. That’s fine. That’s going to give you time to regroup and figure out how you want to do it.

Maybe just like, you’re like, this agent never even sent out neighbor letters. What were they thinking? I’m going to do neighbor letters and maybe you sell it yourself at this point or more. Most likely is what I’ve done is I’ve already isolated somebody else in the area and had a little conversation with them and they’re on the same page and they’ve said, “I know that person and it doesn’t look like their best work and I know I can make this happen for you.” You can reset and move over there.

Much more forgiving on this topic than I am. I have two simple points to make at the end here. Number one, most successful real estate agents in the country, are experts at getting listings, but they’re not experts at selling real estate. That applies here. The sales pitch that you got or the congeniality or whatever it is that made you make a decision to sign up with this real estate agent was not rooted in data on your part. That it’s your job to say, this person’s got 72 listings in the area and none of them have sold.

Maybe they’re not the best person or they have 72 listings in the area and 68 of them were sold in the first twelve months. It’s your job to take a look, but I’ll tell you, being great in selling you on getting a listing and selling your piece of real estate are two completely separate talents. Number two, there are two types of real estate agents after they get the listing.

Number, the first kind, the unsuccessful kind will say something like this, “I looked at it and I think we should list it, throw it up there, and see what happens.” The vast majority of real estate agents are exactly like that. Let’s just get it in the system and see what happens. That’s code for, I’m not going to do anything at all after you sign this listing agreement, except put it on the MLS and then go get the next listing.

That’s the way the system’s set up. The good ones, like the Mossy Oak guys or the ones that are really in the land, they’re going to come to you and say, “You’ve just bought 40 acres and they had zip code? I know exactly who’s going to buy this. Let’s get the paperwork done. I think we should adjust your price to this and you can expect an offer within X amount of time.” That confidence. Whatever Jill said, I’m sure is right, but I stopped just there.

The topic is how to end the listing agreement. That’s what we did though. You’re good. I like it. You gave more things on picking the right guy and that’s always a good thing.

Episode Wrap-up

Join us tomorrow, where we talk about what’s an acceptable HOA in your land acquisition. There are lots of different types of HOAs. I didn’t really realize that when I started. You were not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill, information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.