Selling your house can suck. There are sucky things that you expect when selling your house…you have to keep it clean, you have to let people walk through your home…you feel JUDGED by people. But there are other things that you DON’T expect to be difficult… and often those difficulties come in the form of real estate agents. Here are 5 ways that real estate agents SUCK.
1. Real estate agents SUCK at making appointments to show your house.
They give you windows of time that they will be there, sometimes those windows are three hours long! What are you supposed to do? Pack up the kids, the dog, and the stinky trash and put it in your minivan and drive around the block for 3 hours? What about nap time? What about lunch? Or if you wait for them to show up, you KNOW it will start a colossal toddler melt down when you turn off Cailou and try to hussle her into the car.
Mary’s response: As much as we know these windows suck, often they are the best we can do. Often we are showing our clients 8-10 houses in the same day. Let’s say all of the houses are in either Chandler or Gilbert…do you realize that is 105 square miles? So there can be some serious travel time between the houses. It is hard to estimate not knowing the daily conditions of…traffic, accidents, construction….or the buyer’s child needing a restroom. Plus, sometimes buyers spend 5 minutes in a house, and sometimes they spend 20 minutes. So…if windows are the best an agent can do, what can YOU do to make it survivable? Talk to the agent when they make the appointment. Tell them your challenges. See if they can work with you to make it easier on you. Maybe they can START at your house so you know exactly what time they will be there. It is not always possible to work around a seller’s challenges, but often we can shorten the window or change things around enough to make it a little easier.
2. Real estate agents suck at cancelling appointments.
You leave your house, perfect and shiny for the two hour window the agent requested… you never receive the notification the lock box has been opened, but sometimes the notification is delayed in cyberspace…so you try to be patient. After the window is up you head home. You go inside, you look on all of your counters and table tops for a business card….nothing. No surprise, most agents forget to leave one. You run upstairs and you look at your freshly vacuumed carpet…no footprints, anywhere. Did they even come upstairs? Wait a second, did they even come to your house?! Do you mean you cleaned your whole entire house and left for two whole hours and the agent didn’t show up? You run downstairs and call the agent back that made the appointment, he answers while laughing and talking to others. You ask if he showed your house. He says, “Which house is that?” You give him your address, he has no idea which house it is STILL. You remind him of the appointment he made that morning, and all of a sudden a light bulb goes on and he says “Oh, are you in “Your Neighborhood?” and you quickly respond that you are, hoping that he is just running late and will be at your house in a minute…but, no….the agent then says, “Oh, yeah, my buyer decided that was too far away from his work. Sorry.” and hangs up on you.
Mary’s wisdom:“Buyers are liars” is a common comment among real estate agents. Not that buyers mean to be…but once they start shopping for homes they change their mind about what they want. Buyers may not realize how far out your house is, or after looking at 4 houses they decided they don’t want a two story …so they don’t want to look at your house anymore, or the three other two stories on the list. As an agent we are fielding changing the times of the viewings of the houses the buyer still wants to see, canceling your showing as well as others that get knocked off the list, calling the real estate agent of the favorite house they saw earlier and making sure there haven’t been any offers, or calling the lender to see if the buyer can increase their purchase price. WHILE WE DRIVE TO THE NEXT HOUSE. We are human and things happen and sometimes a ball gets dropped. A heartfelt apology is not every agent’s specialty, but accept this from me, we ARE sorry when we forget to let you know we won’t be coming by. We usually feel like dirt when we realize we dropped a ball like that. It shouldn’t happen, ever.
3. Real estate agents don’t respond to your agent’s requests for feedback.
Really? How hard can it be to let you and your agent know what the buyers thought of your house? You left for TWO hours, you cleaned your WHOLE HOUSE…they can’t take two minutes to give some feedback? Or if they do, it is completely unhelpful and rude…you KNOW your house doesn’t smell…it must have been a different house that stinks and the agent just got them mixed up. What a jerk!
Mary’s podium: I won’t make excuses for the agents that don’t respond. It is part of our job, and every agent should take the time to thoughtfully respond. If an agent does give some negative feedback…it COULD be that they were thinking of another house, but more likely it is something the buyer noticed and commented on. Try to take it as constructive feedback, and if you can change it, you should. Take your trash out every day, especially if there is any kind of food in it…or diapers. If they say it is over priced, they usually mean compared to the other homes they have been viewing with that buyer, you should also consider this. Lots of listing agents tell their clients the hard stuff by using other agent’s feedback. Not me, I will tell you the hard stuff up front.
4. Agents give you a “low ball” offer on your house.
You are asking $300,000 for your house. You know it is priced right because you have nicer upgrades than anyone else in your neighborhood. Not only do you have granite counter tops and stainless appliances, you also have a killer pool with a grotto rock waterfall and slide! Your house is the meeting place for kids all summer long, you KNOW your house rocks. How DARE they come in at $290,000 AND ask you to buy a home warranty, pay the HOA fees, AND $5000 of the buyer’s closing costs? It is rude, and a waste of your time to show to agents that are going to write offers like this.
Mary’s two cents: No one likes to waste their time, and believe me the buyer’s agent doesn’t want to be wasting their time either. Sometimes they are hoping that you will counter their offer and maybe their buyer will see the light. OR maybe you are over priced. And the offer is appropriate. If this is the case the buyer’s agent usually states that in their email they send over with the offer. They may use comps to support their offer price. If a buyer’s agent has done this, I suggest you pay attention to their reasoning. It might be correct. Take the time to discuss it with your agent, make sure your price is supported with comparable sales. If it isn’t, the appraisal will come in low anyway. If the appraisal comes in low that means the lender will only lend on that lower amount, and the difference will have to be made up with cash from the buyer. We are still recovering from the market crash…most buyers are both unwilling and unable to pay above appraised value…so it makes no sense to price your home higher than it will appraise.
5. Your OWN agent sucks too.
She makes excuses for all of this behavior. You thought she was on YOUR side. Are you KIDDING me?
Mary’s excuse: The excuses…maybe you think that is what I have been doing here. And maybe I have been…but so often much of a real estate agent’s job is getting you through it. Keeping your frustration, aggravation, and anger at bay. We KNOW how much it sucks…we hear it all the time from most of our clients. We have lived it ourselves. We want to sympathize with you, but we don’t want to fuel your fire. It is best to try to understand the challenges of the buyer’s agent…and to communicate with them your challenges. The kindness you might find could be staggering. There are agents that will move mountains to help you out, even if you aren’t their client. The level of kindness in some agents still moves me when I witness it. We wouldn’t go into this business if we didn’t care about people…so open communication is usually all that is needed.
I am not going to deny that SOME real estate agents suck. Some suck so hard they make our whole industry look bad. They are used car salesmen type that will woo you upfront then treat you like dirt once you’ve signed the papers. They exist, and like every hated profession…we wish they didn’t. Who is this ‘we’ I refer to? We are the real estate agents that care, and try, and are constantly improving ourselves to give you better service and guidance. Real estate is not the easy ride that Bravo TV makes it seem. Yes, it only takes 90 hours of class time and a few exams to get licensed. But for most agents that is barely the beginning of what we will do for you and the training that we take. Yes…there is a huge range of experience and professionalism that you find even in these agents that care…but that is why you get to choose who you hire, and you can find someone that will make you happy and you can communicate with, and you trust. Always remember open communication can be all that is needed to make a huge difference with YOUR agent, buyer’s agents…and probably pretty much anyone.
If you want the truth up front…from someone that CARES…call me!
When I receive a request for feedback as soon as I’m about to get in my car I know it’s from one of those automated paid-for services. I don’t like those much. I’m much more likely to respond to a personal email from the listing agent.