News Limited has conducted research recently to establish how a vendor eventually decided on which agent to go with. Whilst there has always been a belief that vendors were attracted to an agent offering a low commission and a proposed higher selling price, these factors scored very low in the survey. The transparency of real estate pricing due to the internet and real estate data organisations now having a direct pathway to consumers has meant that vendors are no longer seduced by inflated artificial selling prices at the listing presentation.

In fact, in the survey vendors clearly demonstrated that the second most important factor that influenced their decision on who to list with was the abilty of the agent to use evidence based data to provide an explanation on the price they were suggesting was achievable.

The number one factor used by vendors to decide was the personality, professionalism, and trust that they had of the agent. In other words they were looking for someone they could get on with and were happy to hand over their keys and biggest asset to.

It seems once you establish trust, the terms of the listing (i.e. commission and advertising costs) become secondary.