What are the drawbacks of an exclusive contract on my rental property with a real estate agent?
I have a vacation rental property in Costa Rica and I have received an offer from a real estate agent for exclusive rights to the property for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Let me hear any perceived drawbacks anyone can think of.
If you rent it yourself you still need to pay the agent their commission.
Any time you give a stranger any “rights”, you are trusting that they will be honorable and that they won’t cheat you. And that they will work hard promoting your interests. That is easy if you have worked with that person for years. Not so easy if you have never met them.
So write a cancellation clause into any agreement. At any time you can unilaterally cancel the contract by paying her everything you owe her plus $250. If she won’t agree to that, she wasn’t looking out for you anyway.
Fortunately you do not need to write in a cancel clause. You can withdraw this contract at anytime. However, this sounds very silly. An agent wants a 3 day contract? Just tell them to get busy and earn a commision. Realtors are usually uneducated and very legally ignorant people. They write contracts all the time that are illegal and would be thrown out of court in a heartbeat. I know, I challenged many and when a contract violates law – its void – its no good and 99% of these realtor contracts violate general law. Most people do not know this – you cannot write anything into a contract that contradicts general law. For instance someone might agree in writing to be your pimp – but since the law forbids it that contract is not going to be enforceable. Its the same thing no matter the subject or industry. The realtor is just wasting time trying to look professional when in the end the opposite comes out – wasting time and totally ignorant of legal framework.
The short of it is they know you are going to rent it. With an exclusive contract they will get a commission from you if YOU rent it. Which is what they are hoping for. They are toying with you so they can guilt you into a commission when you rent it yourself. Buyers agents do this all the time. Thats why they want contracts. They know they are terrible agents and the only way they can get $ from people is to have contacts then chase them if they have any activity. Good agents have no time for this.