Several other AR blogs inspired me to write this blog, some by buyers agents others by listing agents. I keep hearing that without a pre-qual from a lender, they are not inspired to show property. For the buying agents it is more understandable because they show a lot of houses, and lots of time and effort is involved. If the buyer does not have his/her ducks in a row, that can be a lot of wasted effort if he/she is then not qualified.
But how about a listing agent? If someone has seen your sign out front and calls, is it not your responsibility to make an effort to see where this can lead? I think it is. Before I was a "boutique broker" (read into that, that I do not have any agents working for me) I had my license with a broker whose office took all the calls. I did not have desk time so actually did not know how many calls came in from the signs, the broker took them all. Looking back, I think this was a great disservice to "my" (read here, the broker's) listings. None of these listings were sold from their "sign" calls for a variety of reasons, mostly because of the way the calls were handled. I'll leave it at that.
Now here is where I get to the point of this blog:
Since I have taken ALL the "sign" calls on MY LISTINGS since I opened up my own brokerage, I have not only shown my listings to not necessarily lender pre-qualified buyers, I have been able to redirect them to other listings if the one they were looking at was beyond their price range. I have also taken a sign call that turned into a rental client that may turn into a sale.
When I get a "sign call" I try to find out as much as I can in a friendly fashion. Here in Crescent City you have people who drive through and may see my oceanfront house for sale on Pebble Beach. It's a great conversation starter and I usually find out a great deal about those who call ie. are they really looking to buy or just curious about the oceanfront one. Many of them give me enough information so that I can check them out before I proceed further. Several of them have relatives in the area, are looking to retire, or relocating here for a variety of reasons. All of them are added to my database to keep in touch with. None of them get turned away because they don't have a pre-qual from a lender.
Oh, you still want to know whether I would show the house from a "sign call"?
When I have pre-qualified you.
Hella
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