Pay It Forward - Everybody Has To Start Somewhere!

If you were lucky, when you were a new agent, you had a mentor, or at least someone to go to for help and advice.  I often think back to my early days with gratitude to a few of the special people who had an impact on my success as a REALTOR®.  This week I had an opportunity to pay it forward BIG TIME.

One of my lenders pulled me aside to say that a young couple with whom they were working had become dissatisfied with the agent they were using.  They could tell she was new and they thought she did not seem to know much.  Being first time home buyers, this made them very uncomfortable.  They were thinking about making a switch to a different agent.

I accepted the responsibility of talking to this agent to give her the bad news.  I broke it to her gently sharing some anecdotes of my first year in the business to make her feel better.  I told her I thought it was better to approach this head on and she agreed.  Instead of playing down the agent’s inexperience, we decided to let them know they would get two agents for the price of one!  So as not to make the buyers uncomfortable, I asked the lender to tell them that from this point forward, I would be involved and assisting.  The buyers were very happy about this arrangement and agreed to proceed.

So last Tuesday, I tagged along to show them houses.  There was about four inches of fresh snow and the appointments were scheduled so late, that we were looking at houses in the dark.  Pretty miserable conditions, but we managed to turn it into a fun and informative evening for all.  The agent now understands the reasons why appointments are best in the daylight—not the least of which were the bank owned with utilities off.

They are going out looking again tomorrow afternoon.  I will not be with them this time, but they know when it comes time to write an offer on their dream home, I will step back in to guide and advise.  The agent thanked me and said she learned a lot from watching the interaction between me and the buyers.  I gave her some pointers on what to show them. 

The new agent’s first transaction has been salvaged and everyone from the lender to the buyers feel good about it!