Real Estate Jargon 101 – Who’s buying your listing?

by Sheldon on 20. Jul, 2009 in Tips for Home Owners

In our industry you sometimes hear agents refer "buying a listing."  That does not mean what it sounds like… that they made the seller an offer in writing that was unconditional and the seller accepted it so the property is now sold.  Oh no my friends that is not what it means.   What it means is that contrary to other evidence and information, the seller was given an exaggerated value by the agent.  This was either done knowingly to make sure they secured (bought) the listing and they'll begin work on getting it "reduced" right away, or they were inexperienced and unable to give an accurate value for the property, or it was outside their area of expertise.

Now I know what you're thinking: "So what, the agent won't get paid on it anyways if it doesn't sell."  Of course you'd be wrong by thinking that.  They may not get paid on that specific listing, but they will use that listing to prospect for buyers, and to generate confidence with other sellers to obtain other listings. 

So the next time you hear someone say they"bought that listing" you'll know what's really happened.

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4 Responses to “Real Estate Jargon 101 – Who’s buying your listing?”

  1. Sell Your House 23. Jul, 2009 at 11:35 pm #

    Your article is make me good analyse

  2. We Buy Houses 24. Jul, 2009 at 6:47 am #

    Excellent point. To make things worse sellers usually shop around for the agent who suggests the highest list price.

  3. toronto condos 25. Jul, 2009 at 8:27 am #

    There are several things you need to know when flipping properties.

    First of all you should go to the nearest book store, purchase several books on buying, fixing and flipping properties. There are several that you might be interested in.

    Once or while you are doing this you should buy one of the TV guru’s distressed property programs. These programs will give you some legal forms you might use when writing an offer to purchase a property. You will also find several scripts to use in taking to your potential clients. The also give you tips and a formula on how to figure if you have a property that you can make money from before buying.

  4. square one condos 25. Jul, 2009 at 12:16 pm #

    It’s hard to know what “jargon” you are talking about. But in a nutshell, a real estate transaction has 2 “sides”, the listing side and the selling side. The listing agent represents the seller and the selling agent represents the buyer. Sometimes the same agent may handle both sides, but I don’t recommend this because of a potential conflict of interest.