Outgoing referrals are a great plus in this business- You have a client or a friend who may be moving out of their present area and they are looking for your assistance and you find them an agent to help them. Now what....sometimes everything works great but sometimes they don't and your friends contact you to complain. Now you are in a bit of a quandry. Do you tell the other agent how to do their job in their market ??? I know I dont appreciate it but if you are to receive payment for the successful referral then you have to discuss it with the other agent but the delivery of the issues usually has to be done delicately

I sometimes find that when you are dealing with people who know realtors in another area (that havent given you the referral) they try to show their friends how smart that they are and how inept the other agent is. They will also do things for these people that they wont do for their own clients.

Recently an agent in my office was showing a couple from another province many houses in an older area of the city where they said they wanted to be. Due to it being an older area there were many different styles, sizes and age of the homes and all in various degrees of updates. After viewing for a few days- they asked to sit down with the agent and had a spreadsheet done up on all the listings they looked at with a breakdown on price per square foot for the house, lot etc. They then said that a friend in another area did it up for them but that agent knows nothing about the areas. It then makes the agent backpedal and then prove themselves to the people again.

Another example recently was that a vendor called me to discuss their listing that an agent in my office was working very hard on. There was an offer that happened in the first 2 weeks of the listing and when it was countered - the vendors had already cut his commission (as he was double ending it- they said) He did agree to renegotiate but the deal still didnt go together. As mentioned the vendor called me and was discussing various minor issues and brought this situation up that "Friends of mine in abctown who sell real estate said that if that was their deal they would have cut the commission to make the deal go together." I wonder if they do that for every deal ???? I doubt it. 

Pick your referrals carefully and if you dont give a referral but people call you to discuss- I feel you have to treat the other agent with the same respect that you would want.