Exclusive contract. Is it worth it?!

  I have few friends who are real estate agents. As it happens during the discussion over the bier, sooner or later the flow of discussion turns towards complaints about the job we have.



   Usually I hear from them how difficult it is to convince sellers that they should sell the property through an agent. Big part of the Slovakian population believes that they can sell the house easily themselves. They post few ads on some servers. (only those, which are free of charge), they hang few stickers on the supermarket notice boards, and that's it. They wait month, two months, year, 2 years, and still nothing.... It is crisis, so why I am surprised?
   Sale of the property is something most of us does once maybe two times throughout our life. But  to pay few percent of the selling price to the professional is waste of money. At least I see this kind of thinking all the time.
  But investment into a GOOD Real Estate agent could be the very best thing the seller does. Yes the basic rule is, that in order to sell well one must invest first! Into the property itself and also into the marketing.
    GOOD real estate agent has possibilities and access to the tools the rest of us normal mortals can only dream of. The question is how they use these tools. When I ask RE agent if he/she did think already about professional photography, 9 out of 10 immediately answers:
1.) It does not pay off or
2.) I know how to photograph.
  The same person who speaks about professional approach to the property sale, 5 minutes after the contract is signed, pulls out mobile phone, or in better case cheap point and shoot digital camera, and in few seconds shoots one or two pictures per room and is out of there. Composition, lighting, proper white balance, sharpness of the photo? Usually terms he/she never heard off.
   So why there are so many sellers in Slovakia selling by themselves? Are they cheapskates? Or just normal people unable to find RE agents, who would sell and present their property properly?
  When RE agents complain that the Slovakian market  is 20 or 40 years behind the US, and that in Slovakia nobody is willing to sign exclusive contract, they should think first about what are they doing for the customer, and whether it is really forth their fee. The GOOD real estate agent should sell not only properties, but also himself.