Tampa Realtors need to Help Tampa Realtors!

Okay, I think we can all agree that the real estate market nationwide is not the best. And that many agents who thought they could make lots of money when the market was hot, are now long gone. So who does that leave?

I am a full time, full service, professional Tampa Real Estate Agent and am very busy with clients, both buyers and sellers. Each morning I make my appointments for the day's clients that I will be meeting with. This is the beginning of my day and what I call "the phone call runaround." Listing agents don't list direct numbers; this is a problem because I show properties on weekends and week nights when the office number they list as a direct number isn't open. They don't respond to phone messages. So I try emailing them to get an appointment set up. This is problem number one. On to the next problem...

Now once we are out looking at Tampa Foreclosures, driving directions are very poor, but thanks to my GPS I am able to find most properties. I walk up to the door and lo and behold the electronic lock box that is suppose to be on the door is now a combination lock box. Another round of calls and 8 out of 10 times I can get into the property.

My client decides to write an offer on a property and there are additional forms required, another couple of phone calls and emails later I get the docs I need. We get all the forms completed and I fax them to the correct, at least I hope it is the correct fax number. And sometimes it isn't, so another couple of calls later I get the right number. I also make a follow-up call to ensure that the fax has been received, most of the time I do not get a response to this call and I have to make several calls before I get a response.

A week goes by and nothing... another week goes by and still nothing. I make another round of calls to see if I can get any status as to where my clients offer stands. Nothing... Usually by the third week, and several calls and emails later I may get something. One time it was a contract agreement, but it was all wrong! Other times a counter and then the whole phone call process starts all over again. And a couple of times and many calls later I get an email from the listing agent saying the offer has been rejected (no documentation to support this; just the agent one liner). Makes me kind of wonder what is really going on.

I believe that we owe it to our sellers, our peers and their clients to be professional. Answer your phones, correct and update listings; making it easy to contact you and get into the properties. Don't make this any harder than it all ready is. We could probably get a lot more properties off the market if everyone did what is expected of them. In the last few weeks there have been many missed opportunities because of the run around and I'm just one agent; multiply that by the number of agents showing properties and it is mind blowing!