Listing agents enter into listing agreements with sellers that (presumably) want to sell their homes. Most agreements call for the agent to put the home into the Multiple Listing Service, present offers to the sellers and get paid at closing. There are many details that occur between the items specified, but how the agent does or does not handle them is usually not specified in the agreement. For instance; the listing agent may or may not do anything to prepare the property for the market, suggest pricing, develop a marketing strategy, suggest timing, show the property personally, hold open houses, promote agents open houses, promote the property to other agents, provide regular feedback to the seller, attend the home inspection, negotiate the home inspection issues, get involved in any way with the purchase and sale agreement, or attend the closing, to name just a few items that many sellers expect, but not all get.

Buyer’s agents are supposed to help people buy homes. Some people think that a buyer’s agent is responsible for finding the property, while others would rather find it themselves and have the agent write the offer. Some want assistance with the value and negotiation strategy while others just want to tell the agent what to offer. Some want to go to open houses themselves; others want their agent to accompany and drive them. Some buyers want to see everything in their price range; others want the agent to pre-screen properties and suggest the best ones. Some want assistance evaluating their financing options; others don’t want their agents involved.

As you can see, the list of buyer and seller expectations, including the times that they expect their agents to be available to them, can vary significantly depending on the client’s past real estate experience, their experience with agents, the clients’ personalities and their own careers (i.e. engineers are very different from nurses).

The list of services that the agent and/or broker/agency provides will also vary depending on their level of experience, past experiences with other clients, the agent’s personality and possibly past career, if applicable.

With so many variables involved, it’s clear that not all agents will be a good match for all buyers and sellers.
With no standards to measure by, in the end, success will only be determined by how well the client feels that her expectations were met. Those expectations can be incorporated into a listing or buyer agency agreement to be sure that both parties are in agreement with the scope of services to be provided to get to the desired outcome. Like any relationship, the clearer the expectations are up front, the better the outcome should be.

Would you have been better off adding your expectations into an agreement?
What would you add or take off of the list of possible services above?