"Cooperating broker" is a term that is usually refers to the splitting of commissions in a real estate transaction. For some agents and brokers, the buck stops there (pardon the pun), and this mistake can ultimately end up costing you money.
A recent post entitled The Irony of the "Courtesy" Key!, highlighted the fact that there are a number of agents that have decided against using electronic lockboxes to make their showings more convenient to other agents. In the comments of that post, a number of you pointed out that this tactic may be based more on greed than laziness. It wasn't something that I thought about when writing the post, but in retrospect, it may very well be one of the reasons that agents choose to make the home more difficult to show.
Things have started to pick up quite a bit, which is why I haven't been around Active Rain much in the past week or so. When things get busy, there will ultimately be some scheduling issues during the weekend because that is when most buyers are available to look at homes. There are some buyers that are willing to go to open houses on their own when I can't accompany them. Although I prefer to be there for all appointments, I can only be in one place at a time, and I don't want to discourage buyers from spending the day viewing homes.
Things may be different around the country, but on Long Island, it is a fairly common practice to "cooperate" with other agents by allowing their buyers to come to open houses on their own as long as arrangements were made beforehand. I've done open houses where people told me that they were already working with an agent, and I respected their relationship, even if I wasn't notified beforehand.
This past weekend, I had appointments scheduled already, but one of my buyers wanted to check out some open houses on their own. I told them that I'd call ahead and notify the other agents. The first agent was extremely friendly, and was more than willing to have my buyers attend the open house without me. In fact, this agent wasn't even going to be at the open house, but passed along the information to the agent that was doing the open house for her. The second agent was happy to have the buyers come, as she was selling her own home.
As we all know, open houses are a kind of hit or miss proposition. Anytime that you can guarantee having people attend the open house, you would be foolish to do anything to prevent buyers from attending. It's bad enough when agents take this stance and turn away a potential buyer, which is not in the best interest of the homeowner that they represent, but when they refuse to allow you to send a buyer to the home that they are selling, it becomes even more mind-boggling. Here is the story...
This agent's home has been on the market since January, and she has already started dropping the price. It is very likely that previous open houses didn't generate much traffic. The agent wasn't even the one hosting the open house this past weekend. Her husband was going to be at the house while she was out on other appointments. When I spoke to her and asked if I could send buyers to the open house because I had a scheduling conflict, the response was "I'd rather you didn't. Why should I pay a commission if that person ends up buying the house and my husband was the one that showed them the house?" Needless to say, I was shocked at this response. It's one thing to be greedy and try and get both sides of the transaction when you are representing a homeowner, but turning away a potential buyer for your own home seems to be totally illogical.
The lack of cooperation that this agent showed this weekend will have an impact beyond this one event. Now that I've seen this agent's true colors, why would I bother showing any of her other listings? Of course, I would do so if the home was a perfect fit, or if the buyer requests it, but with the amount of inventory on the market, it is fairly easy to avoid showing the listings of difficult or unprofessional agents.
We, as agents and brokers, face enough of a challenge overcoming the daily doom and gloom of the media. Our best chance to close deals in this market is to "cooperate" with other agents and brokers.
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