Once you have decided to sell, it is only natural to want to find a buyer and close the sale as fast as possible.
“But one of the worst moves you can make to try to speed things up is to switch from that sole mandate to an open mandate, in the belief that that several agents working simultaneously will reach more potential buyers than one working alone,” said Berry Everitt, CEO of Chas Everitt.
The fact is that more is definitely not merrier when it comes to home sales, and that making a change like this is actually likely to lengthen the time that your property will stay on the market rather than shorten it.
For a start, much of the marketing done by the original sole agent and the momentum gained from that will probably go to waste as the other agents each start from scratch to build up interest in the property.
“In addition, agents working on an open mandate seldom have the same level of dedication to marketing your property as an agent working on a sole mandate, because of the risk that the deal will be done by someone else and that any time and money that they have put in will go to waste.”
Everitt said sellers should also be aware that buyers who see many for-sale boards on a property will often “shop around” among those agents until they find the one that quotes the lowest price or agrees to present the lowest offer.
“Meanwhile a longer time on the market will also mean an increase in your holding costs, as well as a real risk of the property becoming overexposed and buyers losing interest altogether.”
