Come On Buyers, Waste My Time. It's Fine, Really.

A few weeks ago, I attended a wedding.  And at the table during dinner I was lucky enough to be seated next to a gentleman who was retired from the real estate business.  Although we disagreed about who would prevail in the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight later that evening, he left me with a piece of advice that I have been pondering ever since.

I was lamenting that evening about a couple who had written 2 offers so far on properties through me, did not want my advice, wanted to "find the house" on their own - which these days translates into their sending me a long list of houses from ZTR to "check out" only to have me send their long list back to them with each property marked "under contract, short sale, under contract, sold, withdrawn, sold, under contract...etc) - and only "needed" me to write the offer.  They would check out houses themselves at open houses. And then had me write two offers that were ill advised, but hey, they could not be persuaded otherwise.

I asked him how I should tactfully "break up" with them.

And he asked, "Why would you want to?"

I looked at him kind of funny, as if he had not been listening and said, "Because they are wasting my time!" 

He chuckled and said, "Okay, let's see, you spend 5 minutes looking up houses that are off the market, you showed them 2 houses and you wrote 2 offers, right?"

You haven't spent all day driving them around, showing them neighborhoods nor have you driven them around all day showing houses. So far, you're in it for chump change, basically, right?"

I had to concede I had not spent that much time with them and the time I had spent writing offers I had spent in the comfort of my own home, with the music cranked up.  I can do that all day. Any day.

"Let me ask you," he said, "what's really the problem?" 

"They won't listen to me.  I could help them actually GET a house, not just write on a bunch of them." 

"Have you ever shown multiple properties and written multiple offers to people with whom who you have also spent hours and hours in the car?"

"Sure." 

"What's the difference?"

"They listened to me." 

And there it was. Ego.

I finally had to admit to him I liked people who listened to me. Who found my advice valuable. Who actually respected what I was doing and thought I added value to their home search.

He said, "You know, there's nothing wrong with that, it's human nature, but at the end of the day, if you stick it out with these folks for a while longer, you may get a paycheck. And they may be listening more than you think."

Hour for hour, dollar for dollar, he may actually be right.  We have all certainly spent time in good faith with people who seemed to be earnest about their home search, who listened to our advice, who did all the "right" things but in the end, never did buy a house, for a variety of reasons. 

We all have to decide when we have "had enough" but for me, I think I will rethink how quickly I jettison clients and be a little more patient when deciding whether they are, in fact, wasting my time. 

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