Neil Jenman has been fairly vocal about his opposition to Auctions claiming that they only get lower prices for sellers. In fact he lists 9 reasons why they get lower prices. Jenman has claimed that he will and has bought at Auctions but he has never sold by Auction
Well it was with some shock that opening up Saturday’s edition of the Gold Coast Bulletin and I found Fox’s Real Estate, a fully fledged Jenman Approved agency advertising 10 Clinton Street, Labrador as an auction for sale.
It all seems pretty hypocritical to me but is that really surprising?
Unfortunately this raises a few unanswered questions.
So is Jenman now Auction friendly? Are we about to see Jenman join the ranks of the Auction brigade?
Should the owner of this property be concerned that the agent selling their home actually believes that they will get less during this method?
Does anybody know any other Jenman Approved agencies conducting Auctions?
Will Today Tonight run a story on this change of heart ?
******************* UPDATE 13th of November *********************
The auction is tomorrow at 1pm and because of Jenman’s hypocritical stand it has generated lots of interest in the real estate industry including the media.
More and more questions are being asked about this auction:-
- Which auctioneer is going to become the first Jenman approved auctioneer?
- What is the banks response to Jenman’s comment that “Anyone who knows anything about real estate knows that banks and mortgagees often don’t care about the price – they just want it sold and out of the way.”
- As a self described Consumer Advocate will Jenman pay the shortfall out of his own pocket to the consumer in this story who is going to be held responsible for the shortfall between his mortgage and the sales price because Jenman and the agent has openly admitted that the auction cannot get the highest possible price?
- Will the bank concerned confirm or deny that they “insisted” on a Jenman agent auctioning the property like Neil Jenman states. What is the TRUTH Mr Jenman?
- When will the other Jenman agents start handling auctions?
Kevin Turner from RE Uncut has been conducting a range of interviews on the subject covering the story. I believe that neither Jenman, the salesperson or the principal are answering Kevin’s request for interview at the moment but quite a few people involved are. If anybody has Neil’s personal contact details and would like to share them it would be appreciated.
I think it’s incredible when a media whore gets shy when the subject turns back to himself in anything but a positive light. Maybe the cameras and a journalist will be chasing him down the road getting into his car zooming off. With his own personal experience he is probably worried that his comments might be heavily edited and taken out of context and sensationalized like his targets often claim.
Kevin will be running the story at www.reuncut.com next Thursday and Friday and we will update the blog with the auction result over the weekend.
**************UPDATE*************
Unfortunately I did not return from Brisbane in time to make the Auction on the day but someone who was there has advised that they had 3 or 4 bidders with bidding starting at $300,000. The property was announced on the market at $550,000 and eventually sold at $600,000. I have not had a chance to double check the figures but this must give the Jenman group a 100% closure rate on their Auctions.
34 Comments
Craig
Being a Jenman Approved Agent doesn’t disqualify them from performing auctions, it just discourages it. If the owner insists on an Auction and knows the trade offs why should the agent have to persuade them?
Craig
I have never seen any, but i have never really looked into it so that’s no real surprise.
Glenn Batten
Thats true Craig… but just out of interest which Jenman Approved agents have you seen conducting an Auction before?
I have never seen any and it certainly goes right against his stated position.
Jim Algie
Glenn an interesting post and comment from Craig. To add to the issue a Jenman ( not sure if approved ) in the Springwood area is conducting open houses, again frowned upon by the Jenman ( page 163 “Real Estate Mistakes” by Neil Jenman) are we witness to the fall of an empire? I hope not as we need someone to” Keep the bxxxxxxs honest”.is that the way it is.
Blanche Stroeve
Looks like Jenman has trumped you all – again!
http://twitter.com/neiljenman
Peter Ricci
Well I have written a number of articles about Jenman, even during the good times I said the strategy could not work in quieter times. You have to remember back when it all began any kind of advertising was frowned upon. Print, Letterbox Drops, Yard Signs, Internet the lot.
My concern back then is my concern today. If you supported this system, how can you ever go back to the ‘old’ way of advertising (Print, Letterbox Drops, Yard Signs, Internet etc) without looking like a complete fool – unless you admit you were wrong you cannot.
For Jenman, he will always be called up by the press for comment, because he really is the only dissenter and he has made alot of money from this and remember he is actually very effective at his delivery – in many cases I understand where he is coming from.
It his methodology and the methodology that he drags his supporting agents into, that makes their life difficult for credibility in a post Jenman life!
Kylie Emans
There are soooo many in our area, a few have recently closed but there are still quite a few and depending on the market they put ads out there with don’t auction, don’t do open houses you will be robbed etc, don’t advertise on the web people will check out your tv and then rob you. Then a few months later they start doing auctions, open homes, internet advertising. Seriously pathetic.
Glenn Batten
The commission for the sale is now being donated to the Salvation Army. Maybe they want to make sure they don’t get corrupted with all that Auction generated revenue.
The funniest thing is Neil now reckons it was all his plan to confuse agents and this was the plan all along. I reckon that there is more chance that Neil flipped his lid when he found out and a Gold Coast member got a very nasty phone calling and a rescue plan was worked out when agents found out about it. He has even created one of his question and answer pages on his website to respond to the matter.
Neil being proactive and planning to confuse agents by doing an auction…. even by his wacky thought processes that makes no sense..
or
Neil being reactive to the fact one of his agents got caught doing an auction and it embarrassed him and his organisation so he tries to save face in hindsight.
I reckon a few Gold Coast agents are going to be at this Auction. They better not stuff it.. I wonder which auctioneer is going to do an auction for an organisation who hates auctions?? 🙂
Robert Simeon
I actually thought he had closed up shop as I don’t know of any around our immediate vicinity – it was a failed system that sent businesses broke! Which would explain the turn-around in the state of the “great white shoe” 🙂
Maybe Queensland should change their slogan “Beautiful one day – Jenman the next” LOL
max
The thing that drives me mad the most about the little fella is that prides himself on ‘keeping that crooks and scamers honest’…all the while making his fortune selling a clearly irrational system through fear.
Would love to see the stats on the % of Jenman agents who are also members of new age churches. My guess is it would be pretty high.
Kylie Emans
Max, I agree with you, the system tends to encourage brain washing as do the new age churches. What is his next fad going to be?
Glenn Batten
It seems that the whole saga has got a little darker thanks to Neil’s official response.
In response to the industry’s collective cry of hypocrite! Jenman has responded on his website:-
***************************************************************
Dear Neil
One of your Jenman APPROVED offices is selling a property at auction.
What’s going on?
We heard you didn’t like auction and that auctions get lower prices.
Please explain.
Confused.
_______________?
Dear Confused,
You’re right. I don’t like auctions (for selling; they are often great for buying). And auctions sure do get lower prices. Click here for more details.
In this case, here’s what’s happening…
The “owner” of the property is a bank. It’s a mortgagee-in-possession sale. The bank insists on giving it to the Jenman APPROVED agent but also insists that it be sold at auction.
Anyone who knows anything about real estate knows that banks and mortgagees often don’t care about the price – they just want it sold and out of the way.
In this case, the APPROVED agent had two options:
1. Say no to handling the sale which meant one of those auction-believing agents would get the commission.
2. Say yes and donate the commission to The Salvation Army.
The agent chose the second option. And, what a great idea. Confuse the silly auction agents and help the Sallies at the same time.
Pity about the seller. But, just like smokers, the seller has been warned – AUCTION IS A WEALTH HAZARD.
Regards
Neil Jenman.
***************************************************************
So what about the poor consumer in this whole story? He\She\They have lost their house to the bank who has engaged the services of an agent to auction the property who has little to no experience in selling by auction and in fact openly does not even believe in the auction system.
The head of their real estate group has come out and publicly stated that “banks and mortgagees often don’t care about the price – they just want it sold and out of the way.”.
Any shortfall between the sales proceeds and the outstanding mortgages falls on the consumer…. but in Neil’s words “Pity about the seller. But, just like smokers, the seller has been warned – AUCTION IS A WEALTH HAZARD.”
So according to Neil the agent in this case has officially warned the seller of their inability to achieve the highest selling price. Really?? So the bank has a letter from Fox’s Real Estate claiming that they wont be able to get the highest possible price from this way and the bank chose to continue to use that agent? I find that hard to believe as most banks I have dealt with a would not act that way but if Neil Jenman says it’s true it must be!
Thankfully the exposure that the whole matter has got seems to have embarrassed those involved to giving their commission away to the Salvation Army but maybe it should be given to the owner of the property as he is the one who stands to cover the loss from all this.
Maybe the right thing to have done would have been for Fox’s to have just said no and let an experienced auction agent confident of getting a good result do the work. I know if I was the property owner what I would have liked to have happened.
Nigel - Ray White
When I opened up the Gold Coast Bulletin 24 October page 85 Lift out section I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Auction” I couldn’t wait to send Neil Jenman an email on Monday morning regarding this amazing phenomenon.
I got an automated reply. Here it is.
“Thanks for your message. I am spending the month of October writing my book (Stitched!); so am quite literally
Blanche Stroeve
Gee you agents carry on like a bunch of spoiled kids. You are so transparent – no wonder Jenman is despised by you lot and loved by our lot, the sellers who stay away from you creeps. Oh, and censor this one you bully boys. Why don’t you go and write your own books and see how well they are accepted by the public? Because you can’t, that’s why. Honestly, the teenage girls in my high school days were more mature than you lot.
Peter Ricci
Blanche this is an open discussion and we welcome a wide variety of views, we welcome your comments good and bad and I NEVER censor unless it is abusive or offensive
Look forward to hearing more from you.
Regards Peter – Editor B2
Nigel - Ray White
Blanche there have been countless times when Neil has attacked real estate agents via the media of Television and it is always a one sided view. Anything that happens that captures the headlines about rogue agents, let’s get Neil on.
Blanche many years ago my wife and I got ripped off by the Marketeers selling off the plan that was the pre-cooling off days. When we moved to the Gold Coast I wanted to make a difference. I now know after 9 years I can still sleep at night knowing I have made a small ripple of satisfaction to the real estate world and someones life with their own real estate transaction.
There are always bad apples in the barrel but a huge majority of real estate agents service their clients above and beyond the call of duty and if the property does not sell, guess what they don’t get paid.
I could write a book about all the good things agents do AND get no thanks for it.
Craig
Nigel, it is interesting you say if it doesn’t sell then you don’t get paid. On the box the other day they had a story about the standard contract that REIQ hands out with a clause about still getting paid commission, even if the property doesn’t sell. People were unhappy about getting a $10k commission bill from agents for unsold properties.
Nigel - Ray White
Craig, is it possible for you to give me a link or where you saw that story. I’ve never had any clients in nearly 9 years of real estate paying commission for an unsold property.
Craig
Nigel, it was difficult to find any info about it. It was on ACA (quality!) but their web site does not appear to list every story they run. Basically what it came down to was people who’s house sale fell through for some reason and didn’t manage to sell the house at a later date. The agent decided that even though the sale fell through, possibly because of finance reasons, they still should get the commission. The seller was pi$$ed because their house was not sold and they still had to foot a bill for ~ $10k. I think what really annoyed the seller was that they were told repeatedly that they “only pay if the house is sold”. Obviously that statement needs to always have “conditions apply” appended to it.
Blanche Stroeve
Nigel. Sounds like you’ve got some serious sour grapes because you weren’t good enough to get into a Jenman supporting agency. We are about to sell our house and we sure won’t be calling you.
Robert Simeon
Blanche – please send my best regards to Neil when you attend his Christmas party. What annoys me most about this real estate pest is that he built a reputation on industry negativity by focussing on rogue agent behaviour which he then manipulates (for self gain) that clouds the reputations of many fine and honest agents. You don’t see this happening in accountancy, dentists, doctors and lawyers – unfortunately our industry inherited a whinging little Englishman who actually stands for next to nothing.
He never climbed to any dizzy heights as an agent – before opting for the public speaking circuit (all now failed). If the real estate industry meant anything to him why has he never before stood for a position on a real estate institute?
He bagged public auctions for years and now I see he is conducting them (so what does that tell you). He was an active agent in NSW from 1984 to 1995 and has not held a practising certificate since then so from an industry basis he is not really relevant. Personally, I had forgotten all about him until I noticed this tread.
Blanche – are you going to sell by public auction or private treaty?
Nick
I’ve never heard of him before, but damn with him the sky is falling.
I cant see anything positive on his site, except in reference to himself.
And everyone is of course out to get him because he has the truth.
That one is a bit cliche.
And man can someone please get him a web designer?
His sites look like those dodgy sites which try to sell you software you dont need or guarantee you a job making thousands a week.
Frank
Blanche – Unfortunately Neil Jenman works on the priinciple of “Fear” he uses this to his advantage and unfortunately casts are unpleasant cloud on the real estate industry. Though there are merits in some of his views they are not in my opinion, put forward in a fair and objective matter and is like sitting in a witness box and being allowed YES or NO answers only without the opportunity of being able to elaborate…, there always, always is the other side of the coin. Our profession deals with people’s most important asset, their homes and the process of selling is stressful and overwhelming…..this creates a incredible platform to take advantage of the fear they have.
Australia is fortunate to have a the most professional and service orientated agents/industry in the world,with a governing body that works closely with the Department of Fair Trading in ensuring best practices and that the best interest of the consumer. Quite frankly “Cowboys” do not last long….in any profession.
Craig – With regards to the Commission payment regardless of the property being sold; I would suggest that quite possiblly it was Marketing Expenses?? that were the issues, and the media used the word “Commission” , which in fact is not the same expense…it’s all how it is delivered..the Media are masters at this and unfortunately Mr Jenman is the same…
Cheers
Glenn Rogers
Jenman is a victim of his own popularity, the media seek him out for comment and if he doesn’t perform his “I’m telling on the real estate industry” routine they wont call him again.
That Jenman agent should have declined the listing if they wanted to retain their credibility, I guess money is more imprtant than princples to some people.
Strickland
Robert, Blanche won’t only be attending the xmas party but will be throwing it! Jenman is a Somerset Maugham obsessive. Blanche Stroeve is a character from the Moon and Sixpence! I wouldn’t give too much thought to what Blanche (I mean Mr Jenman) has to say. Although he is obviously interested in what you guys have to say…
Robert Simeon
Too funny 🙂
PaulD
Didn’t the original Blanche Stroeve commit suicide ?
Shane Dale
Seems Blanche has been resurrected as a troll!
In any case – the entire debate is highly entertaining – Neil’s comments do offer a convenient single source for all things bad in real estate – thats evry easy and attractive to Jounos – seems like there needs to be a good witch to balance the bad witch – where is the single source of positive agent info and stories and How tos?
if anyone is interested – I will be making a section on the myhome site to accommodate this – and welcome input – email me please! I think its a PR battle, and the alternative view from this negative hype is required to balance the public perception, whilst also acknowledging there is a need for consumer caution, but also validating genuine agent’s reputations. That would be a responsible thing to do for consumers to get a handle on this important part of their lives – selling and buying homes.
Also, remember that most agents get a hell lot of amazingly great PR from all kinds of TV shows every week on lots of programs such as “selling houses australia” and others, compared to Neil’s random appearances on consumer affairs shows. Those shows are so hyped – every night is a new disaster awaiting the poor man in the street – I suspect the audience get a bit disaster numbed – but that is the stock in trade for those shows. Neil is perfect for them – plus why worry? In a business sense – from what everyone says here – they are not successful, and as such they present only an annoyance by that logic. I suspect they serve a genuine purpose in providing a service to the personality types that are attracted to the sales style they offer. Its not for everyone. Remember it takes all kinds to make a world!
Glenn Batten
It seems that the article and this issue has stirred up a lot of interest and some hard and direct questions are being asked of a few people right now. I wonder if they like the shoe on the other foot 🙂
Another thing I will be interested in is just what auctioneer put their hand up to run an auction for a Jenman Approved Agent. Come 1pm on the 14th of November a lot of people are going to be watching and they better get it right!
I wonder if Neil is going to show his face or maybe he can’t get the egg off in time 🙂
Greg Vincent
I wonder who will end up buying the property?
The whole situation will become very interesting, especially if the property gets bought for well above the reserve.
I think Nigel is on the money & the property will end up being sold prior to auction.
Robert Simeon
This just gets funnier and funnier – here is what I found.
JENMAN APPROVED AND AUCTION
What’s going on?
Dear Neil
One of your Jenman APPROVED offices is selling a property at auction.
What’s going on?
We heard you didn’t like auction and that auctions get lower prices.
Please explain.
Confused.
?
Dear Confused,
You’re right. I don’t like auctions (for selling; they are often great for buying). And auctions sure do get lower prices. Click here for more details.
In this case, here’s what’s happening…
The “owner” of the property is a bank. It’s a mortgagee-in-possession sale. The bank insists on giving it to the Jenman APPROVED agent but also insists that it be sold at auction.
Anyone who knows anything about real estate knows that banks and mortgagees often don’t care about the price – they just want it sold and out of the way.
In this case, the APPROVED agent had two options:
1. Say no to handling the sale which meant one of those auction-believing agents would get the commission.
2. Say yes and donate the commission to The Salvation Army.
The agent chose the second option. And, what a great idea. Confuse the silly auction agents and help the Sallies at the same time.
Pity about the seller. But, just like smokers, the seller has been warned – AUCTION IS A WEALTH HAZARD.
Regards
Neil Jenman.
Greg Vincent
REUncut presenter & 4BC Real Estate Talk radio announcer, Kevin Turner has just informed me that “Jenman won
Strickland
Hi does anyone know if this property sold?
Glenn Batten
The article was updated to include the auction results.. Just check at the bottom… and yes they sold it.