I received this request first thing this morning:
Hi, I found this listing on XXXXXX and would like to learn more about 128 xxxxxxxx Ln, Winchester, VA 22601. We are meeting with several other listing agents to view other properties on Sunday afternoon. Would you or someone in your office be available on Sunday sometime between 2:30 and 4? We've been preapproved. Thank you.
My answer? No. For one thing, I'm in competition with every company in our 
community. I don't need to be in competition with every individual agent on every house a buyer looks at, and beyond that, it's a protocol and ethics issue for me. I don't want to get into a spitting contest with an agent who wants to scream, "I was working with them first." So, buyer, "No, I will not be a player in your chess game. Good luck."
This is one of the unfortunate side effects of the Internet. I love the fact that I get to work with a lot of web savvy buyers. By the time a lot of buyers get to me, they are ready to buy. They are pretty sure they have found the house they want, and they just want me to open the door and write the contract.
Am I a doorman for buyers? I can be. If the only thing they want me to do is write a contract, I say, "Give me a call. I'm ready to write." Does that diminish my role as a real estate broker? I say it's what a real estate broker/agent does. A real estate broker does business. That is business. It's just a different flavor of it. Does it lower the bar for me? Why would it? I'm in business to sell homes. That is selling homes.
If I can sit at my desk and sell homes I am conducting business just as much as if I was out showing a couple dozen homes to a potential buyer. Frankly, I'd sit there all day if buyers would line up and fill out contracts, but no, I will not work with a client who is running a dozen agents ragged in the process. I do have some standards.
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