My broker is the chairperson on the grievance committee for the area Realtors association. He was discussing yesterday in sales meeting how the majority of the complaints brought to the committee involved procuring cause.
It really made me think of a transaction I had a year ago and again made me wonder why we do what we do?
I had a home listed and a realtor with another company called me for information on the home for a showing. She wasn't familiar with the area, so I proceeded to tell her all about it.
It was clear across town and my seller offered to turn on the lights in the house since she was in the immediate area (it was an evening showing)...
My seller went down to turn on the lights. Her grandchildren were with her and enjoyed running through the house and helping her flip on on the switches. After turning on the lights they went over to visit with her soon-to-be former neighbor across the street.
As sellers will do they were peeking out the window and saw three people arrive, a couple and then a gentleman.
About 30 minutes into when the showing was suppose to take place I receive an email from the agent showing. It said the buyers really liked it and she may have an offer for me tonight. I'm thinking, WOW, these people really move, they couldn't have been in the house more than 10 minutes MAX. So I called my seller at home to tell her we may have an offer this evening. Her husband said she wasn't at home that she was still at the house they had for sale. I asked if he would please have her call me when she arrived.
An hour and a half later she called and the conversation went something like this:
"I just got back, when I went back to the house to turn off the lights the people were still there with their agent, HE was really nice. We talked about the house and I answered a few questions they had. The couple seem to like it."
I said, "who is HE?" She replied with, "The gentleman that was with them, their agent."
I'm thinking what the heck is going on ? I told my client that a woman was suppose to show it and that I needed to call the agent who had the appointment and find out what is going on.
I called and she answered. I said, "There's something really weird going on here.... my seller went to turn off the lights and there was a gentleman showing the house to a couple, what happened?" She said, "Oh not to worry, my car started over heating on the way out there and I asked them to reschedule for another night but they were so excited..... and besides, the front door was unlocked."
While those grand kids were having fun running through the house flipping on the light switches, my seller went out one door, the grand kids went out another leaving the front door unlocked. Honest mistake.
So the couples went in and showed themselves the house, my seller arrived and told them all about the house and showing them things in the house and the buyers agent wasn't even there. The gentleman she thought was the buyers agent was the parent to one of them.
Call me weird, but if I walked up to an unlocked home, would I enter. NO WAY.
Could the buyers agent have called me and said I can't make it, would you mind showing them? WAY!
They made an offer, we negotiated a contract, it closed, the buyers agent got paid, she never saw the house.
Maybe I'm being petty...but this isn't the way I sell real estate in Kansas City, Missouri. I prefer to call myself ethical, professional and mindful of the way I do business.
Was it worth taking her to the grievance committee? Well I didn't think so... but let's check ourselves folks and the way we do business.
We should be working together to make the process smoother and helping one another.
What's your opinion of this situation?
Fran White, REALTOR, 2007
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