How Much Does it Cost for an Agent to Write an Offer?

I've very cognizant of time management. That's because there are only so many hours in a day. When you get to a certain level of success, that success requires even more time management. An agent can't be available to anybody for any reason at any time. That's bad time management.

For example, an agent called yesterday afternoon to say her buyer was about to cancel a short sale. She was very apologetic. Launched into a convoluted story about money transfers overseas, and threw in how much she admired my work. But I had stopped listening after the word: cancellation. I was busy writing an email to put the short sale home immediately back on the market.

Some guy emailed yesterday to ask if I would spend a few hours before the Sacramento Board of REALTORS to talk about short sales to other agents. I asked him to give me a reason to share that kind of time. Instead of giving me a reason, he thanked me for answering him, said he understood why I would say no. I wasn't rejecting him; I asked why I would do it. Apparently, there was no reason.

As a Sacramento short sale agent, I do about 14 hours of concentrated / focused work a day, 5 days a week. That's a 70-hour work week right there in itself. It doesn't count the hours I put in on the weekends, even though I do not book appointments for a Saturday or Sunday. It's generally intense during the week. Some days it is brutal: trying to answer hundreds of emails, handle phone calls, generate paperwork and balance my workload, but I am very organized.

That's why I was astonished yesterday when an agent called to ask about a new listing and didn't seem to value his time. He wanted to know if I had any offers. When buyer's agents ask if the listing agent has any offers, that's because they're trying to figure out two things. How low they can go and whether the seller is close to accepting an offer. There is not a big benefit to the seller for a listing agent to answer that kind of question, because it's very one-sided.

I shared that two of my team members refused to write an offer. I was a little concerned, actually, because I did not want to be in the middle of that decision, if it came to that. Lucky, it didn't. It didn't come to that because my team members are intelligent. They have their fingers on the pulse of the market. They know multiple offers are common right now. They can spot a good listing when they see it. Neither of their investors would offer list price because neither of the investors would listen.

These buyer's agents decided it was not worth their time to put that kind of offer on paper. They were right. And I conveyed that message to the agent who called. He said that it didn't cost him anything to write an offer -- even if that offer was worthless and not about to be accepted. I told him my team members disagreed -- and I disagree -- but every agent goes about time management differently.

I suppose that's why some of us are successful in real estate. And some of us are not.