Many agents--espescially those just starting out in the business--try to avoid the expense of a home fax machine by using the one provided by their broker's office.
This is ALWAYS a bad idea. Let me tell you why.
One reason not to use the office fax machine is travel expenses. With gas floating between two and three dollars a gallon, a home fax machine--even a nifty laser one--will pay for itself in a matter of months by saving you all of those trips to the office. Even if you end up being in the 80% of agents who drop out of the industry within the first year, a fax machine is still a very useful thing to have--regardless of your line of business.
The other, more important reason is that an office fax potentially exposes your client's confidential offers to other agents in the office (not to mention chatty office staff!). Consider this likely scenario: You get an offer that's $10,000 below asking, and your seller accepts it. Your fellow agent Joe happens to see the offer sitting on the fax machine before he puts it into your box. The offer your seller accepts falls through because the buyer couldn't obtain financing, so your listing is back on the market. Now, Joe sweeps in with another offer $10,000 below asking even though his buyers were willing to pay full price before Joe told them about the previous offer.
Even though Joe's actions in this scenario are unethical, using the office fax machine is what made this whole rotten situation possible.
So agents, get a personal fax machine. You'll thank me for it.
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