I remember back in 1996 my first job in Real Estate. I had just gotten my license and I didn't know what the do next. It was a late Friday afternoon and I was so excited that I wanted to go get my first client. Yup...you got it right...that day 20 minutes after receiving my results...I was hunting down my first lead and I didn't even have a place to hang my license. Well...nothing happened that day. The following Monday I started to scour the newspaper want ads. I figured something out at that time. I wanted to be like Donald Trump. No....not the Trump we now see on TV firing everyone. The one before...when he was actually considered the king of the Real Estate developers in Manhattan. So I figured if I wanted to start out on the right foot then I needed to get a job in the city. I wanted to sell the Empire State building. What hight hopes I had. I found a company that was willing to call me back for an interview and I joined them that day.

So now I had a job and I wanted to conquer the world!The first thing they wanted me to do was meet with this agent who would be my trainer and of course he would get a percentage of the first ten deals I would make. I went around with him for a few days and spent countless amounts of money on cabs and the subway. During that time all we did was look at property. That was getting boring to me and I wanted to go hang back at the old office of 4 days. They then put me to work on the phones. They handed me this advertisement that they place on the paper and when a call would come in I would get the lead go with it. The only problem was that I had to wait my turn and when my number comes up they would give me the signal to take the call.

I kept hearing people calling for this rental apartment I think it was a 3BR 2BTH apartment with about 2000 SQFT and they were advertising it at $1500 a month. WOW!...that sounded like a great deal that I was even interested in. The only problem was that everyone was calling for that apartment and every agent was telling the person on the other end of the phone that it was still available. I was wondering how many of these they had and thought that there would be some money to be made. I questioned my concern to one of the seasoned agents and said "what a deal how can I get in on this?" The agent said "you can't..."there is no such apartment available." I said..."what do you mean?" He said it was called bait and switch. I didn't know what he meant by that. He said that's just a way of getting people to call and then we take them out and show them something else for more money. "Oh... so we are just lying right?" He said "not really." He said they did have that apartment available at one time but that was just the way it was done there. A few days went by and I wasn't very comfortable with the situation so I picked up my coat and left.

This was a quote from part of the definition of bait and switch from Wikipidea..."Unscrupulous estate agents commonly engage in bait and switch by continuing to advertise attractive properties in their windows that they have already sold".

I understand that when we place advertisements in places that there could be a chance that someone will buy the home by the time the ad hits the newsstand but this particular situation was something that I thought was so illegal and I didn't want to be part of it.

So if you are a new agent you should really make sure you don't have that happen to you. And if you are a consumer you should ask more questions when you inquire about an ad.

Just to let you know...I ended up finding a much better place on Long Island and was very happy there until I moved to Florida.

It's a great time to buy the home that you've been looking for. Come visit the area so you can see all of the South FL Real Estate for sale. You will be glad you looked at all the opportunities available.                           

If you are interested in moving to our area ......then we strongly urge you to visit  South FL- you can view Real Estate for sale here.

If you like reading different stories about our area then please visit my blog The Real Deal tells it like it is in Real Estate

For more information please contact  Neal The Real Deal Bloom(954)608-5556 or Steven Kohn(954)605-5877  /Remax Hometown

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