How Not to Sell a Home

Don--I'm always amazed at sellers who don't keep their listing agent apprised of their schedule; I mean, really, it would be nice to know when they're going out of town. I'm also amazed at listing agents who respond to your calls about their listings hours (or even days!) later. Yup, I'm EASILY amazed....

Sometimes sellers and agents just don't get it! Do they think agents want to take a chance of setting off an alarm? A call the next day is just so very helpful : )

how funny.. why would they say "I am out of town"  the bad guys don't need to know that... and really do the real estate agents???  I think in most cases we go to great lengths in our market to keep that info confidential... we schedule all appointments through the listing office. Some the agent schedules the showing, some a showing service schedules the showing, some the brokerage staff schedules the showing with the seller or gives the agent showing instruction.  They can give out security codes, call before showing codes, special instructions as needed. It's just the way we do it...

A true professional burglar may not necessarily be deterred by a security system but a real estate agent without a code will.

I hate security systems, I understand why they are used but I hate it when I get a code and instructions about where to run, what to push....

I thinks it's up to the listing agent to set things like this straight. The listing agent should absolutely not allow this note. If a seller prevents showings one way or another such as canceling a showing just b/c their mother is in town or something like you describe, I take that as a sign they aren't serious enough about selling their home and may not be worth keeping as a client.

I've had a client cancel showings about 5 times before b/c of some excuse or another and I finally dropped them. Should have done it sooner.

Even when the agent is informed of an alarm they sometimes screw it up and set of the alarm anyway. That is sometimes worst than not attempting to get in because then the cops show up and then the buyers get upset and you can sometimes loose them as buyers.

I'm always amazed at the number of poor quality listings.  This one sounds like a limited service discounter that puts in on the MLS instructing you to call the owner for showings.... As is usually the case the owner is not really prepared to handle the Sell-it-Yourself task....