Really? Are you kidding me? Is pre-qualification such a foreign concept these days? When I was being trained in 1991 and 1992, that was one of the first things that I was taught - always, always pre-qualify your buyers.
Why would someone want to spend all that time working with a potential buyer, showing them houses, buying them lunch, writing and negotiating contracts only to find out after all of that, that they can't afford to finance a piece of gum?
Yet here I am, the black sheep of my area once again, because I have the audacity to ask other agents if their people are pre-qualified before setting up an appointment with one of my occupied properties.
What prompted this rant you may wonder? The phone call this morning from an agent wanting to see one of my properties and was aghast when I asked him "are your folks pre-qualified?" (Guess he won't be showing the property. LOL)
In fact, I had a potential customer call my broker last summer and register a complaint against me because I refused to show her a piece of property because she was not pre-qualified. First, let me say that the property was 15 miles out of town (one way) and gas was $4.00 a gallon at the time. Second, I asked her to get pre-qualified for 3 days prior to our appointment. My thought was - "how serious is she if she refuses to pick up a phone and speak with a loan officer for 15 minutes". I have the best broker in the world. She totally backed me up and told the woman that I would be foolish to run all over the countryside with non-pre-qualified buyers!
I may be an old fashioned agent, but I still believe in service and professionalism and that means to all sides of the deal.
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