This month I was dealing with a couple who came into my office responding to a Homes and Land magazine ad. For two weeks, they attended the office every morning where I would go over potential listings for their specific property requirements. I put them under contract and then proceeded to keep helping them. When they would find something they thought would work (based on the property size) they would have me set up an appointment and we would go and view the interior together. These were all rural properties so it would take me up to the entire afternoon to see three. We probably viewed about 12 altogether over the period of time. They connected with my mortgage broker and all seemed well. They narrowed it down to 2 properties and decided to put an offer on one that was $25K less than listing. They told me it was negotiable. The offer signed back halfway and I thought they would be excited. Instead I got a "no - thats not acceptable." The other agent explained that after mortgage and commissions the Seller would have nothing left however her children banded together and came up with another $5K to close the gap and I still got a "no". It became clear to me that my clients were being unreasonable, they had no intention of dealing with the Offer and it was just a waste of time. When I discussed this with the Broker for advise on how to identify these types, I was told that it appeared that they were just using me to entertain them as they were in town for the summer and leaving for Arizona in September. These were retirees. How do you identify them - what are the markers? Please help me not get caught in this trap again. Advice?
every lead is a value every client is valuable you never ever know what people will do and what their motivations are, these are dangerous times and issue like yours are not uncommon, service the client and make your best offer, if they cant agree then you have learned something in the process. And exercise of paper work and communications and advance stages of client Realtor relationships, I give you credit for just working hard and trying to make a living, job well done.
Jen.. Dan and I have been caught a couple of times by "time wasters"... some tell tale signs that we have begun to notice in such clients are:
They change their mind about what they want each time we meet ( in most cases it's a DRASTIC change. i.e. from SFR to duplex or from completely remodeled to complete dive)
They only want to look at bank re-po's and think that the maximum offer price is at least 20 to 30k under asking
Their specifications are random and in most cases unreasonable. "It has to be in this area, at this price, in this condition.." when we all know that to meet each of these criterias can be nearly impossible.
And when we meet every single one of their requests they are still un-happy and they decide to hold off.
We have met with clients in the passed that have done all or one of these things and we have been successful with them.. but in the few "time wasters" we have had, these are some of the things they have done. This being said, even with the "time wasters" we stuck it out and learned our lesson.. cause you just never know.
Hi Jenn,
Unfortunately thier are these individuals out thier and thier is not much you can do to stop them. One thing that many realtors have found using my 3D floor plans is it narrows your clients search before they set foot on the property. All dimensions of the rooms are listed, the entire layout of the house is documented, and we can sit your client down with our interior designer to redesign a room if they do not like how it is now. With these services many of the excuses that clients come up with can easily be aswered and resolved by the realtor, and if the client still shows hinderances regarding properties it may be a time then to go your seperate ways.
I find I have a lot of time wasters as well. We've only had the house listed for about 4 months. one open house was a complete no show and the other open house was nothing but nosey people. We just had a showing which we spent the early half of a perfect Sunday, doing a basic tidy up as we were told the people were very interested......is that why the husband stayed outside while the other spent 5 min and 44 seconds in the house??? You would think they were nothing buy thieves checking the place out based on their actions I caught on video. They did not bother to go upstairs or even into the garage/shop which is any mans dream garage. I'm sick of time wasters myself and I'm sick of my agent doing very little to almost nothing to promote the house. People these day want big mony for doign nothing or they want a house for half of what it's truly worth
What what a story.....
I had plenty of clients who wasted my time, but constantly assured me that if they see 'the right one', they will buy.
I just had one today. The lady called me non-stop( she is out of the state, so i got calls at 11pm and it was 2am for her! She was nervous and could not .....sleep. So we got the property she wanted. I explained her everything what we need to do, send email with the same information....Today, she said 'But I thought this and that......I did not know all that!' and she is unhappy and want to get out of the deal. Really?! I asked her: if you did not hear or did not understand what i said, did you read my emails, did you read what you signed?
What a time waster.....
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