Why do realtors go out of their way to.... (Naples: appointed, attorney)

[03bluecoupe]

Clarification: I never meant to imply that real estate agents didn't do anything or didn't serve any purpose. Far from it. And I can see how people could let emotions get in the way of things. Talking with the owner just worked in our case. I can see though how it could really muck things up.

As for not letting someone put up a fence, etc... I couldn't care less what the people who are buying our house do to it! You wanna bulldoze it and put up a teepee? Go for it!

As I said, I'm weird.

Just that no one really knows the house and it's idiosyncrasies better than someone who's lived there.

[bbronston]

03bluecoup, I also want to be clear that I was addressing evilcart's comments more than I was yours. Also, I don't disagree that sometimes buyers and sellers get along very well. Before I became an agent, and had no clue what agents do (even though my dad was a builder and my step-mom was an agent...LOL), I got along fine with my buyer and with my seller of the place I moved into. I think it all depends on the personalities. Some people just automatically assume that everyone else is out to cheat them in some way. And, unfortunately, some people are!

[03bluecoupe]

Originally Posted by bbronston

03bluecoup, I also want to be clear that I was addressing evilcart's comments more than I was yours. Also, I don't disagree that sometimes buyers and sellers get along very well. Before I became an agent, and had no clue what agents do (even though my dad was a builder and my step-mom was an agent...LOL), I got along fine with my buyer and with my seller of the place I moved into. I think it all depends on the personalities. Some people just automatically assume that everyone else is out to cheat them in some way. And, unfortunately, some people are!

OH, I didn't take anything to heart, just didn't want any agents out there to think I hated 'em or anything.

Actually we like our agent quite a bit. Even hit the bar with her (and her husband) for an afternoon. We asked her to show us a few houses that we saw online, which she did with no complaints. And when we were less than impressed with them she said (paraphrasing and inserting sarcasm that wasn't in her attitude): Ok, so... now do you want to look at the house that I think you'd like based upon your requirements? We bought it.

[macrodome2]

Originally Posted by Sunshine Rules

By the way, some real estate attorneys in our area recommend sellers sign all closing documents in advance so they do not attend the actual closing to avoid any possibility of a conflict at the closing table.

That is such a good idea. When we sold our first house the buyers came to the closing table with additional demands because something was found in the inspection that they didn't bother to tell us about so we could have addressed it. We ended up giving them about $1,500 but it always left a bad taste. Subsequently, we will not attend the closing. Let the attorney deal with it.

My husband and I always hate it when the sellers are there during the viewing. You can't talk openly with your realtor while you're going through the house for fear of being overheard and when you inevitably get introduced, what do you say? I always end up saying, "you have a nice house." Don't want to look too enthused but don't want to insult them either by saying there's something wrong with it.

[Cardiff by the Sea]

Hubby and I were the sellers from hell when we sold our condo in LA and it was the transaction from hell.

We had to go hang out in restaurants during the open houses and it was exhausting just waiting around. When the open house was over we just wanted to go home. But there would still be buyers there and we made them uncomfortable. So I totally get that, but please get out of our home.

The condo fell out of escrow once. The inspection discovered some mold in the wall that was due to windows on a higher floor leaking. After it was repaired, we talked to the original buyer as she wanted to come back and put in another offer. She had the real estate agent from hell. We didn't want to sell to her again because it was too much drama from her agent, but we had formed a connection with her. Both she and I wanted to clear the air. That was a good buyer-seller talk.

The second buyer was very rational. We had a total of 11 offers on the place, many over list, but all the buyers or their agents were crazy except this buyer.

We had more repairs we had to do, because the woman upstairs let her bathtub run over and it flooded our bathroom while we were in escrow. Servepro had to come in and gut our bathroom.

Our agent went to Europe in the middle of the deal, and the whole thing got totally weird because we were communicating directly with the other agent and the mostly rational buyer. We were driving across country to Sarasota, and every stop their was a weird email and phone call. Hubby thought we were being played and he started getting snarky and then more snarky. The whole deal was going really south really fast. That was horribly depressing and anxiety provoking. And everything we did made it worse.

When our realtor got back from her vacation, she got the whole thing back on track. It really made me appreciate the value that realtors bring to the transaction. We learned our lesson. We will never communicate directly with the other side again.

I concluded that realtors don't get paid enough. Almost every seller and every buyer are in an emotional panic. Realtors have to deal with nice people at some of the worse moments in their life. I used to be a clinical psychologist and I would not want to have to deal with real estate craziness. Realtors deserve combat pay.

[choff5]

Originally Posted by Michael Koester

Ha, this also reminds me of when my wife and I were house hunting in Sarasota and we went to an open house. The back of the house had a shared back lawn with other neighbors. We have a cute dog and would need some kind of fence for her. I mentioned that I might like to put up a fence for our dog. The lady selling the house said, "I don't think I'd sell the house to anyone who would put up a fence."

Her husband almost tackled her in taking her out of the room.

That could have been me. When we sold our house last year, in Virginia, we knew the buyers wanted to fence in the back yard because they became real pains about where easements, etc were, to the point our realtor called Miss Utility to mark it up just so they can see. Now, my problem with that is our neighbor was on a pipestem driveway behind us and our property went to 15 ft in front of her house. We warned her and all surrounding neighbors of what was coming. What we didn't know, and good thing I didn't, was they also cut down a grove of native hardwood trees in the backyard, totally opening up a half acre lot in a wooded development.

As mentioned, the other hotspot was the home inspection where both us and buyers had our own water abatement people out for solutions to a water problem in the crawl space we had missed. I know the realtors earned their money to get us to all agree on the home inspection. During one of the few interfaces we had with the buyer, first time home buyer, newly married with baby, I just looked and said that after his wife had lived there for over 30 years he would understand, and even he agreed.

[Harbor Hopper]

I can offer a unique perspective on this discussion. Before getting into RE myself, I had sold 4 of my own homes FSBO. I got pretty good at it, but it was a LOT of work. Thankfully I work from home so I was able to handle everything on my own. Doing this, I of course was in contact not only with the buyer agent, but many times with the buyers themselves. When they came to see the house, I gave them a quick 3 minute tour, then if they had an agent, I would leave. If no agent, I would go outside and let them be. I only had one buyer agent that adamantly refused to work with an owner, even though I proved to her that I knew what I was doing. She was completely selfish to her buyers, who liked the home.
The folks who bought our last house have become great friends of ours. We boated with their son this past weekend and are going to the wedding on Boca in August. Their buyer agent actually took all of us out to lunch after closing as a thank-you for such a smooth transaction. Now that's unheard of!!
So, I always wondered why, as the OP asked, buyers and sellers aren't supposed to talk to each other. It always worked great for me. When I'm buying, I love to talk to the seller just to get the most comprehensive info on the house. Just because a switch doesn't go anywhere doesn't mean we're not still going to buy the house. But there's always little things that a pedantic, meticulous DIY guy like myself wants to know about his new house that no RE agent will be able to tell me.
Now that I'm in the "business", I can clearly see both sides of the argument. I will NEVER tell my clients that they cannot talk to the other side, but I may suggest it be done as a group, with me present. I will not be giving them their phone #.

[imagardener]

Some agents have ulterior motives in keeping not only buyers from talking to owners but even not responding to legitimate offers. Happened twice to us in 2 different states. The last time was in Naples where we had vacationed for many years in the same community. We decided to buy a condo there and one day I saw on the MLS what looked like the place we had rented for the last 3 years. We called the realtor who we rented from who had owned it but subsequently sold to the current owner who lived in NJ.

We made an offer and got absolutely no response for 2 weeks. Our realtor could not get any response from the listing agent. Finally I asked our realtor if I could call the owner since I had her phone number (from our previous rental). He said he could not ethically call her but we could. I called her and asked if her agent had given her our offer. She was amazed and said "No. I haven't gotten any offer." Long story short she accepted our offer. Our realtor and we suspected that the listing agent wanted to get the whole commission by getting both sides of the sale. Sorry Charlie.

In this case talking to the seller was good for both of us.

[macrodome2]

Don't know the rules down here in FL, but up in NY and NJ it's illegal for a realtor not to present an offer or counter offer. I believe they could lose their license.

[dpbarr2000]

Originally Posted by 03bluecoupe

keep buyers and sellers from talking to each other? It makes zero sense to me. What sold me on the house we're buying WAS talking to the owner! Gotta be some unwritten law or something because it always seems to be the case but seems dumb to me.

Because both parties talk too much. The religion of the seller, the political affiliation, the family photos, the extended families, are NO BUSINESS of the future buyer.