A seller recently posed an interesting question: "If agents are willing to split fees with their competition, why not cut the consumer some financial slack for helping the property sell?"

The consumer was reassured when I told her that not only were many agents already financially partnering with consumers, the agents found it a welcomed way to better manage their time!

In this article and the second installment to follow, we’ll cover how to job-share with agents, doing the tasks you can and bartering for financial credit against what you’d pay the brokerage and agent.

Where To Begin?

An easy place to start is with the activities you have most control over---those that deal with the property. Jot down the activities the agent would perform in regard to the property. Next, decide which of those (if any) you’d feel comfortable assisting with.

For example, let’s say you detail that the agent shows the property, holds the open house, and prescreens buyer/prospects who call on advertising and the "for sale" sign. You immediately disregard the latter since you feel it involves an expertise that you lack. But that leaves showing the property and holding the open house that you would feel comfortable with.

In the traditional real estate listing model, the agent not only ushered his buyer/prospects through the home, but often accompanied all other agents and their prospects when showing the home as well. Why? In a word, control. It wasn’t that the seller was incapable of "demonstrating" the home, motioning to the room with the porcelain, stating, "this is the bathroom". Moreover, it was that the agent was concerned that the seller wouldn’t see the value of the agent’s services and/or that the seller would say something adverse or damaging about the property or the seller’s situation that could alienate a prospective buyer.

In the reinvented world of real estate, progressive agents realize how time consuming it is to show property after property. Handing that activity to the seller is a great way to build team spirit between them, give the seller an added feeling of control, and cut the seller some financial slack for his direct participation in a successful sale.

Does this mean that the agent never shows a property? Hardly. But most agents claim that until a buyer/prospect narrows the hunt down to two or three properties, they rarely accompany them on initial viewings. This allows the agent to prioritize working only with motivated buyers and take longer when showing the final two property selections in order to do a thorough job of due diligence and information gathering necessary for an expedient sale and risk reduction for all parties.

In Part II of this article, we’ll cover how to determine which tasks you’re capable of handling as a seller as well as how to determine what your participation is worth when it comes to offsetting the brokerage fees you’d pay

Published: October 16, 2000

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Julie Garton-Good, DREI “The Frugal HomeOwner™” As a syndicated newspaper columnist, author and international speaker, Julie Garton-Good DREI, C-CREC™, is called “America’s Home Affordability Expert”, addressing more than 25,000 persons annually on topics of real estate industry trends and home affordability. She is the author of five real estate books and is the sole two-time recipient of the international "Real Estate Educator of the Year" award from the Real Estate Educators Association. In 1997, The National Association of Realtors® nominated Julie as one of the fifty most influential people in the real estate industry. She shared the list with only three other women.