A summer or so ago, I was meeting a buyer client at an open house. When we arrived, I ran into another past client with his sister and another woman. It turns out the other woman was an agent. The buyer was browsing on Zillow and clicked "see this home," and was assigned an agent who didn't ask if she was working with anyone, made an appointment to meet them at the home, and as luck would have it, she loved it and didn't realize she now had to work with the agent who met her there. She was just in the "thinking about it phase," so she hadn't called me, we hadn't filled out any paperwork, and she was shocked to learn that she could not buy the house from me. The other agent even tried to get the home she currently owned as a listing, but the buyer... now a seller, was firm. She was listing her current home with me. I had worked hard with her brother to find him a house, and she had always intended to work with me.
Why am I telling you this story? Because the general public often doesn't understand how these things work. Even if you are at the beginning of "maybe" thinking about, possibly "maybe" making a move, please do yourself a favor. If you have a relationship with a trusted agent, call them even if you aren't sure. You will not be wasting their time; they want to hear from you. The fact is that the house in the story above was already an open house. She could have seen it, decided she liked it, and we could have gone back to see it again to confirm this was the one.
We sold her home for over asking with her preferred closing date, and she is now happily in her new home.
The moral of the story isn't that I should have kept in touch. I do. Always. The moral of the story is, please don't ever feel you are too early in the game; your agent will always be glad to spend time with you to help you decide when the time is right.
Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash
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