NOTHING MORE FRUSTRATING than when a Buyer calls asking for information about a home they saw driving down the street. Upon further information gathering it turns out they have a Agency Agreement with another agent. These Buyers are then explaining to me that they have been calling all the agents or offices listed on the yard signs because their agent is never available to see a property or doesnt call back for a day or two.
My particular experience goes something like this:
These Buyers were wanting to see a home and their agent wasn't returning their calls. Their current home was listed with this agent and is in contract. They were happy with how prepared she was to sell their home and how quickly it sold. However, now that they needed to go out and look, she wasn't as available. They felt a time crunch to find a new place.
According to their story, they missed out on 2 - 3 other homes because from the time they contacted their Agent and she responded, the home when into contract. They were very frustrated. So where does this leave us, the floor agent? With our hands tied.
Here are Buyers with prequalification letters in hand, ready and able to buy and a Agency Agreement with a Agent that is too busy to give them the time and energy necessary to find their new home. Who is getting hurt here?
I am all for Agency Agreements to protect the time and energy we put into our client and to have that protection from Agents that may be overly agressive. But we need to also make sure we fulfill that Agency Agreement and that our Buyer's needs are being met by us. We have locked up their ability to seek other Agents to help therefore we need to make sure we are available to them. We are asking for their loyalty and we need to give the ours.
The only people getting hurt by unavailablity are the clients, who cross boundaries in search of help placing other Agents in a tough situation of ethical and professional boundaries. If we have our Buyers sign an Agreement, we need to make sure that we can live up to their expectation and not place our field Agents in a place of having to explain to a Buyer that while I am available I can not help you. That isn't reflective of the customer service business we work in.
IN MY PARTICULAR CASE: I explained they could cancel with that agent but they felt like they couldn't because their current home was still in the closing process and didn't want to ruffle the agent's little peacock feathers ! Oops.. inner voice!!
Any other opinions??
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