I totally understand your frustration! What is this all about? Do they want to sell or not? I can't tell you how many homes I have had to skip over because they were so difficult to show and I couldn't get the timing right for the seller. Their loss.
Carol: some sellers are very frustrating. In this case, Specialy if its a divorce or a future divorce there maybe some emotional issues and even though they have to sell they don't want to make it easy to be shown.Either way the agent shouldn't have told you that the wife is moving out.
This is actually a good case for exclusive listings - some sellers need to be especially accomodated. If scheduling is limited, either get a written schedule of OK times & post it on the MLS. Still, some sellers just have no clue!
Most of our market use ses a showing service. We have used CSS for about two years now. I think it is even easier for sellers to try to pull this with a showing service than when it's the listing office scheduling showings.
I don't mind if showing instructions are spelled out beforehand on the listing sheet, but to call and hear "24 hour notice" or "Can't do it today, how about tomorrow" without any warning is difficult. Many buyers ( like yours) have a specific time frame that they can view homes. Accomodating the buyers should be high on the sellers priority.
Carol:
Sellers who are not flexible with the showings of their property have the great potential of losing out on a sale of their home. They need to have this spelled out to them by their broker. If they really want to sell, they must accommodate.
this happens to me on every showing....i assume because my buyers are 90% relo and only looking during a certain weekin. But i agree...seller what is your problem...Ok tommorow at noon you are having your 4 yr birthday party and i wnat to show at noon...that is understandable....but to say as a selller it is Saturday and we dont want to get up and make the bed and leave...BS... seller you dont want to sell you house and you ecpect your listing agent and me, the buyers Realtor to sell you house with out you doing anything...BS.....
And what about the seller who is at work , no one is home, but did not make the bed and do the dishes before leaving for work...so what my buyer is not buying the unmade bed...they are buying a home. and id the seller didnt make the bed , well shame on you...Mr. Seller do you really want to sell your home. and some of this is the listing agent fault for not telling the seller how to stage a home to sell
This happens to me so often. It is truly amazing especially in this market. I have actually had my seller/clients behave this way even after they have been counseled on the importance of making their home available and promised me they would do so. Thanks for the post.
Ok so I'm not the only one who seems to run in to this and get frustrated beyond belief!! I have also had sellers who have pulled this despite my thorough explanation of how showings work at listing appointments. I always tell my sellers - you have to be prepared for your home to be shown at ANY time! (Well, ok you won't have a buyer wanting to see it at midnight and if you did, I can understand turning that down.) But I have had sellers who turned down showings at 10am because there was "no way to get the kids out of bed that early." 10am is too early?? You can't get the kids out of bed?? How about a simple, get your butt up and get going! Always seemed to work for my mom! LOL And we weren't even trying to sell our house! Ironically enough, it's always these sellers who call to complain that their home isn't getting enough showings. That's when I have to recall for them the number of showings they could have had, if they hadn't rejected all of them...
I appreciate your sentiment and agree that serious Sellers need to be accomodating to prospective buyers. That being said, I'd like to offer another point of view. If I were the listing Realtor and I heard you state that "...by noon I plan on being 3 towns away with this buyer", I'd be tempted to advise my Sellers that making preparations to show to your Buyer may be a waste of their time. With regards to maintaining certain information "confidential", as a Buyers agent, I wouldn't want the Sellers to know that my buyer hasn't even decided on the area they want to purchase in. Just a thought....
It boggles my mind when a seller tells me I can't show their home at a 12:00, but I can at 1:00. I don't think they realize how much frustration it causes for us. Sometimes I think sellers believe their home is the ONLY home I'm showing that day. I'm surprised at how often my buyers said, "Just skip it." Or how about when you try and try to reach someone to schedule a showing, receive no response, just skip the home and move on, only to receive a call from the seller or their agent TWO DAYS LATER asking how the showing went. When you explain that you did not show it because you didn't receive a response, they get mad. Well....let them. You snooze, you lose.
We have a lot of short sales in our market and the sellers often have no real vested interest in selling their home. it can be a real crazy maker when trying to schedule appointments. On the other hand the majority of the homes we show are vacant so that is obviously much easier.
I think these Sellers are disqualifying themselves as candidates for your client and that roses could be in order. They have revealed up front that they will be unpleasant to go from contract to close which is when the real work gets done by agents,
Losing a showing is the worst thing a seller can do. We get people in town to golf, sometimes they are here for just a day or two, like it so much that they want a second home. Many pay cash.
Sellers here must be able to show the house on a moment's notice, I tell them to be ready at all times to walk out the front door when an agent calls and says they are coming over with buyers.
'You just need ONE buyer, make it easy for agents to show your home.'
Great post, Carol.
I have been on both sides of the fence. It is SO frustrating when you have the buyer, but it is also extremely frustrating when it's your Seller. These are the Sellers that usually bounce from listing office to listing office because their house didn't get enough showings/offers.
When owners of real estate sign a listing agreement, it says they will allow the home to be shown in reasonable times and days of the week., NOT at all hours of the day and every single day of the week.
On the other side of the coin, we must WORK with the owners and buyers of real estate....
If the seller does NOT want to show the house, then it MIGHT not end up being sold in the long run, because they were so hard to deal with.
It is a balancing act............. and some owners and some buyers just wobble the balance beam too much.......
It ends up being THEIR LOSS.....
=-/
In Dallas, this was easy. You go through the showing service, end of story. If someone wanted to change the appt, oops, didn't get the message...
In Austin, we have to call the sellers of each property. If I have to leave a message, I don't really give them a chance to say no. If they answer, I give the time and wait. Many have said no, and my response is, "Do you want to sell your house? My buyers are buying a house, not looking, and if your house isn't on our list, you're not getting even a possibility of an offer." I've also just shown up like, oops I forgot you said no.
It's a buyers market! These sellers have apparently been poorly educated by their listing agent. It sure says something about the motivation of the sellers - and could also be an indicator of future difficulty with them. Hope you found your out of town buyer the perfect home and acommodating sellers!
Right now the homes that have easy access i.e. lockbox or Supra key access are the ones with over 10 multiple offers coming in within 2-3 days. The ones that have "Appointment only" are the ones that are sitting. The listing agents who are not following up are definitely part of the problem and not the solution and its getting worse.
I called one listing agent, then text and emailed her. I did everything but shine the bat signal in the sky to get her to call me back to schedule an appointment. Agent remarks said "Appointment only" and "Dog that bites - do not show unless appointment." Its been two weeks, still shows ACTIVE and no call (not that we haven't already made another offer and are in escrow anyway). It's so frustrating!!
Los Angeles is still catching on to the showing services idea. We need it with everything being spread out so far.
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Carol, some of this sure isn't rocket science and yet some people seem to make it seem so. I think "yyyeeeesssshhhh" about covers it:)