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I'm a Realtor, but I also work full time in financial services. My husband and I were not having luck marketing our house for sale, so we decided to hire a full-time agent with one of the big brokerages around here. We interviewed 3 people and selected the person who we thought understood us best.
He promised that he would call us with weekly status updates, that we'd have access to a web page with stats about our house views and said he would pass on any feedback he got from potential buyers. Prior to meeting with him in person for his sales presentation I spoke to him on the phone a couple times.
Then, once he had our listing it is like he disappeared. He would take days to reply to an email, if he replied at all. And, the most frustrating thing of all is that he ONLY wants to speak to us in person. We are busy people. When we're home, we want to relax and unwind, not meet with him. He flat out refuses to give us feedback or any information at all over the phone or through email, even though we have both requested that he do so several times.
When he does want to meet us in person he has never asked for our availability, but instead tell us his. He will give us two options, one the day that he calls and a second the very next day. Of course, he only wanted to meet after I called to ask that he cancel our listing so we can go back to marketing the house ourselves.
I'm so glad that our listing expires on Wednesday. I cannot wait to be rid of this guy. Is it typical of Realtors to refuse to give feedback or any other type of information over the phone or via email? I find this completely ridiculous. I myself have closed a sale and gone under contract on a second during our 90 day listing period without needing to be in the same room as the buyer/seller. In fact, the sellers of the house I sold lived out of state. I really just don't get this mentality at all.
Note to other Realtors... if you have some weird hang up where you can only communicate with your clients in person, let them know that up front so they can sign with someone else. If your clients ask you to give your advice/feedback in an email or over the phone, do it, lest you become the subject of many unflattering reviews posted all over the internet.
No. As a matter of fact, you sound like the sellers from heaven. Most people today are limited on time. It makes better sense for the agent to compile that info when he can and email - and you will be able to review when it suits your schedule.
Your listing is about to expire -try another agent and telll them you would like periodical report by email.
Also, if showing service companies are available where you live, computer feedback is available for your review at any time.
No. As a matter of fact, you sound like the sellers from heaven. Most people today are limited on time. It makes better sense for the agent to compile that info when he can and email - and you will be able to review when it suits your schedule.
Exactly.
Of course, I caved and agreed to meet him tonight around 9:00 this morning. Did he reply to that email? Call? Show up here as offed in his email/voicemail? Nope! Not a word from him.
What a total waste of time this guy was. My one comfort is in knowing that it will be all over the internet in a couple days as I am great at writing reviews (both positive and negative) and I know where to post them.
Seriously, I try to be a good customer. I know a Realtor's time is valuable (heck, I AM a Realtor, so I know how annoying some clients can be). But, this guy really just has me pissed off, and I intend to let the world know all about it on Friday.
How frustrating! Made me think of another irritant if you are a busy person.
Ever have someone that has to pick up the phone and call you everytime you email them?
Good luck with the new agent!
Oh God, yes! I spent half of the day on the phone with my client's parents today!! She's a first time buyer and only child. Good lord. We also exchanged 45 emails in 6 hours. Fun times, right?!?
If you went with a mega-firm, odds are the listing is actually held by the firm's principal broker. I am the principal broker of a mega-brand firm. We only have a small office, but if a client of our firm is unhappy with their agent, then I want, no, I need to know about the issues. While Johnny-agent did the work and took the listing, I own the listing, and I have and will reassign listings if necessary.
I highly recommend that you schedule a meeting with your listing firm's principal broker.
I sorta agree with tomocox -- if the listing really is "owned" by the broker then I could see the broker wanting to make every effort to "fix" whatever went wrong.
I suspect that may not be the case as probably 75% or more of listing in Illinois / Chicago are with a primary agent. There are some agents that sorta rely too heavily on the "old school" techniques that were popular in the days before the interwebs were common. In those seminars the agents were taught to treat every "client contact" as a BIG DEAL so that clients felt like they were getting "full service".
Reality has shifted and now true full-time agents that have a clue will rely PRIMARILY on electronic communication and spend most of their time / efforts making sure the exposure of client properties via electronic means is as sophisticated / effective as possible. In person time is generally best for hammering out the details of offers / negotiations.
I think maybe 20% or so of full-time agents get that, and among part-timers the odds are all over the map -- some part-timers that can use email to line-up a great photographer, know the tricks to get great placement / exposure, have a very efficient system for dealing with email can do more in less time than a full-timer that is clueless. Of course there are still a depressingly large group of part-timers that are content to basically do nothing other than collect a commission when properties eventually close despite their total non-efforts.
Sadly until someone perfects a portable "truth-o-meter" you won't know until after you've been burned (or you are fully satisfied and ready to make a referral ...) which agents only talk a good game vs those that have the talent to deliver on promises.
I have to add, even with referrals there is a chance that something has changed in the agent's personal life or professional time commitments that makes it impossible for them deliver for you as they did for previous clients. In a perfect world such events would cause ethical agents to "take a a sabbatical" but the reality of needing to keep life sorta moving forward forces too many agents to not look critically at how much things in their personal life effect their ability to be an effective professional.
Location: Mokelumne Hill, CA & El Pescadero, BCS MX.
6,957 posts, read 22,309,298 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tomocox
If you went with a mega-firm, odds are the listing is actually held by the firm's principal broker. I am the principal broker of a mega-brand firm. We only have a small office, but if a client of our firm is unhappy with their agent, then I want, no, I need to know about the issues. While Johnny-agent did the work and took the listing, I own the listing, and I have and will reassign listings if necessary.
I highly recommend that you schedule a meeting with your listing firm's principal broker.
If you went with a mega-firm, odds are the listing is actually held by the firm's principal broker. I am the principal broker of a mega-brand firm. We only have a small office, but if a client of our firm is unhappy with their agent, then I want, no, I need to know about the issues. While Johnny-agent did the work and took the listing, I own the listing, and I have and will reassign listings if necessary.
I highly recommend that you schedule a meeting with your listing firm's principal broker.
I've definitely been thinking I should go to his managing broker. He works for a big firm (Prudential).
The guy really is just too much... On Sunday he called me and left a voicemail saying he could meet us Sunday afternoon (so basically, an hour or two after his call) or he could meet up with us Monday evening. We were out all day Sunday and I really don't care to see him in person, I just want to know what he thinks about our house/if there is anything he thinks we should change based on feedback from showings.
He replied to my Sunday email Monday morning with a bit of attitude. He said something to the tune of "Well, the market if really picking up and houses are selling much faster now and your house is an anomaly. If you don't want to know why that is, have your husband call me and I will set up a meeting with him." So I replied within 5 minutes and said that of course I want to know, I just don't understand why he cant' tell either of us this information over the phone or via email. I agreed to meet him last night, as he originally wanted to. No response whatsoever.
Then, today, his assistant emails me to schedule a showing for Thursday and our agreement expires Wednesday. I told her that I'd happily accommodate the showing but that by that date the listing would be mine, not Prudential's. She responded that it's an un-represented buyer and our agent was going to handle the showing... what a putz. He knows our listing is up, I thought maybe his assistant didn't know the exact end date, but he definitely does (or should).
I just can't believe that he won't contact us and give us the information we are asking for. We've even agreed to his terms. We have always respected his time and don't demand much from him at all. Every suggestion he has made, we've implemented, from the asking price, to removing our pictures, to furniture placement and the color flowers we should plant out front. Honestly, we were not hard to work with and just want the house to sell.
Would you go to the managing broker in this case? Do you think the managing broker would have any idea what kind of feedback our showings have gotten from potential buyers? Really, that is all I am interested in. I'm planning to cut the price now that we won't have to pay our dead weight agent, so hopefully that will help, but I really have no idea what other feedback he has gotten since he refuses to share it with us.
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