Real Estate Agents Offered Incentives for Attracting Florida Mortgage Applicants
As the demand for Florida home loans slows down in the south, real estate agents from Keyes Co. are being offered incentives to show and sell properties.
On November 1, the Miami-based firm started the 30K Program in which agents who sell certain homes have the chance to win cash awards totaling $30,000. But the initiative raises a question:
Are these promotions necessary nowadays or do they give consumers the wrong impression, perpetuating a negative stereotype?
So far, 90 home sellers have agreed to participate in 30K, according to Keyes. They’re paying $1,000 each for added marketing muscle on their homes, which get a 30K designation in the Multiple Listing Service. That flags the properties for agents, who will be entered into the contest if they manage to sell at least one of the homes.
During the past year, when sales slowed and prices leveled off, sellers have tried just about anything to attract interest, offering cars, cruises and other perks to potential buyers and/or Florida home mortgage applicants.
“And we thought those things are a lot more expensive than $1,000,” Keyes spokeswoman Andrea Nelson said.
Questions about the program
Billy Fine, who recently bought a home in Weston, wonders why a seller would fork over up-front money for added exposure when agents already should be doing their best to market the homes to receive their 5 percent or 6 percent commissions.
“It’s just a way for [Keyes] to make money even if the home doesn’t sell,” Fine said.
But Nelson said nobody is forcing sellers to join the program.
“It’s just another tool in the toolkit,” she said.
Plenty of real estate firms, large and small, employ similar gimmicks to encourage agents to sell, sell, sell. But some Florida mortgage brokers are wary of them.
“Whatever makes an agent work harder is fine with me,” said Inez Fleming of Delray Beach-based Tauriello & Co. “But I’m concerned that it might be interpreted as steering” a client to a specific property that means more money for the agent.
But in the era of the Internet, many buyers know what properties are available and don’t depend solely on the agents for that information anyway, Nelson said.
“It’s such a different world now,” she said.
Keyes says the extra exposure 30K sellers get will come through print publications, e-marketing and direct mail.
The contest is open to all buyers’ agents in Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, Martin and Volusia counties, not just those who work for Keyes. Listing agents aren’t eligible for the individual prizes of $15,000, $10,000 and $5,000, but they benefit because the homes are more likely to be shown and sold, Nelson said.
