I Want a Shorter Term for My Listing Agreement

[ryan_gz]

Hi there, I understand that the industry standard tenor for listing agreements is 180 days, or six months. However, I signed up for the flat fee Agent Assisted FSBO listing and do not want to be bound for that long. Can you guys edit the listing agreement and re-send it to me for 90 days?

[HauseitAdmin]

Great question! Please note that for the self service, Agent Assisted FSBO listing we do not offer custom edits to the stock agreements which have been pre-approved by our partner brokers.

With that said, you can de-list your property at any time per the agreement. Unlike traditional listing agreements where both the agent and the seller must agree to de-list a property, Agent Assisted FSBO sellers can simply send an email or submit a listing update to take their property off market.

This means the additional time in the listing agreement is option value for sellers, and there's no good reason for you to want a shorter listing period. After all, you've paid for our service which gives you a full six months!

[showtime]

Why would you want a shorter listing period? You've paid for 6 months and you can cancel at any time. If you want to de-list at month 3, just send them an email or submit a listing update. But if you wanted to keep it on the market because you hadn't found an offer by then, you may have to pay for a new listing as the team will have to do the listing upload process all over again.

It's option value, makes no sense to ask for less than what you paid for. Especially since the Hauseit agreement is so flexible and you can cancel at any time, vs a traditional listing agreement.

[ryanser]

I am considering the full service listing option but the agreement comes with a "standard" 180 day term.

I want a 90 day term. This was suggested by my attorney whom I asked to take a look at the agreement. Let's do 90 days. Please have you partner broker call me and let me know.

Thank you.

[HauseitAdmin]

Hi Ryan! 180 days or 6 months is industry standard for full service listing agreements because properties take three to four months to get from listing to in contract on average. For example, the average days on market from listing to a fully signed contract in the NYC market as of this writing is just over 100 days. Therefore, it would be extremely counter-productive for a listing agreement to expire right before the listing broker is able to secure an accepted offer or signed contract, statistically speaking.

It would be a pure gamble for a broker to agree to a shorter listing term, as the partner brokers spends time, money, resources and opportunity cost upfront for no compensation. As a result, there needs to be a reasonable chance of selling for listing brokers to agree to take on this type of risk (for a full service listing).