So I get this e-mail lead from RE/MAX Lead Street. It's an in-house lead generator that distributes potential buyers leads who visit remax.com. It's not the most wonderful lead generation tool on the planet but it's free (to me).
This particular lead is looking at a very nice house that I can comfortably say is in the luxury market tier. A very nice house with a very nice sales price. I get a little excited. "A good lead!", I think. In fact the e-mail accompanying the lead says the buyer is relocating from another area and will only be here a couple of days. Great!
I e-mail the guy telling him I'd be happy to help him with his home search and begin to ask about arrangements to meet, yadda, yadda, yadda. He e-mails back, "I'm staying with friends and will have a car. I'll meet you at the house." Great.", I think. I ask him, again, if there are any other houses he wants to see while he's in town for only two days.
Then....the veil is lifted. He writes back that he has other properties lined up. He works with listing agents and doesn't want to work with a buyer's agent. Mmmmmmm. Bummer.
I know the strategy, though. Work with the listing agent and since you're such a sharp negotiator you'll not only negotiate good terms for the price of the house, you'll get the listing agent to cut their commission to the bone to "make the deal work"and get an even better deal. Been there, done that, have the t-shirt.
A couple of hours later he e-mails again telling me no one has responded to another Internet inquiry and would I be a seller's representative to show him this other home (also very nice).
As if.
A tour guide is a tour guide whether it's for a bunch of $200,000 homes or a couple of homes at $1.5 million +. All I would be doing is opening doors and maybe satisfying my own curiosity about what the houses looked like. Hey, I can preview houses any day.
I politely disengage by e-mailing back that I'm not the listing agent on the houses he's interested in, I woud not be able to show him the homes without a Buyer Broker agreement and then passed along contact info for the listing agents whom I immediately e-mailed to give a heads up (not a referral request) about the guy who will be calling them to look at their very nice listing...and only that listing...with them as the listing agent.
I guess there is some opportunity with working only with the listing agent. After all they can work with their commission as can a buyer's agent work with the co-op being offered. Maybe there are other reasons.
It just seems a little risky. After all, buyer agency exists for a reason. Even rich people can make dumb mistakes. (Hey, just look at the banks and auto makers!)
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