Do you want to sell your listings or just babysit them?

Frustrating to say the least and most buyers don't understand what's happening behind the scenes. 

Neal - at first I thought maybe that it was one of those agents that writes posts about how they proudly do not return calls because everything a buyers rep needs to know is in the listing. Like you, I either have someone cover for me or I bring my work with me when I am out of town. With smartphones and wireless internet, it is pretty easy to do. As Bill Clinton used to say: "I feel your pain!"

I can't even imagine being able to be unavailable for more than a few hours at a time.  Even when I am out of reach, I always make sure that someone is there to answer any questions/deal with any issues that come up with business.  How fair is it to the seller to agree to work for them to sell their property, and then disappear?  

Conor,

Thanks for type-casting.  I could do the same for buyers agents but I know better. It's a few people who don't know what they're doing (on both sides) that makes it hard on the rest of us. 

I started to write a comment but decided on a new blog: ttp://activerain.com/blogsview/1787943/we-really-do-want-to-sell-our-listings-we-just-don-t-want-to-babysit

Tom

Neal,

It's about efficiency.  In a small volume listing situation you can handle it all yourself and on the phone. Agents with heavy volume need assistants and systems. 

I've blogged on this in the past: http://activerain.com/blogsview/1762147/listing-agents-who-do-not-answer-their-phones

Tom

Great post Neal. Business etiquette and how to be a professional should be a CE requirement.  

Sadly the agents who NEED to read this most likely never will.

I completely agree with you.  There is no excuse for not answering a phone call or an e-mail, whether you are out of town or not.  They have cyber cafes everywhere and your cell phone works anywhere these days.  I carry a laptop with a Sprint card when I travel and I have someone on the ground to cover for me also.

I don't understand listing agents who won't return a phone call. As a listing agent I can't tell you how many times agents have thanked me for simply returning their call. It's part of the job.

I would have been SO tempted to call the owners myself...The agent is obviously NOT doing their job.  I"m with you...get your business covered if going out of town, or take care of it yourself. NO excuse for behavior like that...none. ` 

I would have been SO tempted to call the owners myself...The agent is obviously NOT doing their job.  I"m with you...get your business covered if going out of town, or take care of it yourself. NO excuse for behavior like that...none. ` 

Neal, it is very frustrating trying to get in to view a home, even with plenty of time. If the instructions say call office, but office has no instructions, recently I had to even email the agent to get a response. What is even better is you get the appointment you go and show, the tenants answer the door and they say no one notified them and NO you can not view the home.

Neal - I have heard so many problems about those kinds of showing appointment companies that I'm glad we don't use them here.  Almost all listed homes here have computerized lockboxes, and showing instructions are on MLS. 

Usually it is either vacant, in which case you can just show it whenever you want, or you call the occupants and give them anywhere from 1 to 4 hours notice (as requested in MLS) when you will be showing their home so they can straighten up and leave. 

Occasionally you might have to call the listing agent for an appointment, but that is so infrequent, that many agents won't even bother to show those until they have exhausted all the ones that are easier to show.  The moral, no matter what your system is, is to make it easy for agent to show your listings and you will get more showings.  More showings usually results in a quicker sale!

Hi Neal: I just have to add to your comments that systems like CSS or the front office staff work fine as long as the agent lets the people handling their calls know when a property has a contract or is in negotiations or is pending! I have spoken with multiple friends who have wasted hours (showing and writing) on an REO and then after the fact found out that it is already pending, it just wasn't entered and the staff could not reach the agent. The agents are then arrogant about the circumstances stating that they should have called before writing, even when they were, repeatedly!

As Far as comments about short sale agents being lazy - this is untrue of successful short sale agents, I completed my first short in 2002, if you are going to be successful with closing a short you have to answer your phone, you have to be on top of every aspect of the procedure and in constant contact with all parties involved. 

I agree that if a listing agent is going to unavailable for more than 24 hours, they need to change their voicemail message to give an expectation of when they will receive a call back or another agent that they can call for questions about their listings.  I agree with Tom, that there is a lot of questions that could be answered within the MLS system if we do a better job of completing all of the required and optional information available in the data forms.  We can also keep our showing desk apprised of negotiations and availability to help facilitate showings on our listings.  You are right though, you still need to be accessible for your listings in a reasonable time frame.  Great discussion with a lot of different points of view.

There are a lot of clueless agents out there who don't do anything to actually market and sell the homes they have listed.  I find that most of them are people who are focused on other things (another job, family, personal pursuits, etc) and treat selling a home like posting a used lawnmower on Craigslist - list it and they will come.

Neal, so many of them are not professional with their communication at all. Lately texting their phone with a short message gets their attention.

So very true and sad at the same time, we need some higher standards