Have you ever noticed how so many people in other professions don't respect Realtors? They think we take a listing, it sells itself then you go to the closing table and collect that "Big" commission check for basically doing nothing.
WOW... they have no idea what we do.
Let's see reality now......
One of your old clients calls you and they want to sell their home and want you to list it for them, but of course they want you to immediately take a reduced commission. You show up at the listing and the house looks like crap. The floors are dirty, the house is full of clutter, it is in bad need of work and you can smell the cat's litter box when you open the door and by the way the litter box is in an upstairs bathroom. Your client tells you he wants top dollar for the listing. At this point I feel like saying , "You guys live like pigs", but of course I can't so I give them tips instead to make sure the home looks good when it is showed. I fight hard to not reduce my commission and in the end I explain to the client that in these market conditions we need to expose the home to as many potential buyers as possible. He agrees.
The home now starts to get shown and you field about 100 calls from Realtors and you schedule every appointment for the next 3 months until finally you get an offer. The offer comes in lower than you expected and you go back and forth for 3 days until finally a contract is executed, by now the contract has been faxed so many times that you can't even read it.
Now is when the works starts.
At this point you have to start dealing with the other Realtor, Mortgage Company, Home Inspector, Title Company, Appraiser etc...
You field about 368 calls in a 45 day period before closing, by now you have sent or received about 124 pages of faxes which require you to get some more $45 toner and that is if the Home Inspector doesn't send you his 84 page inspection report which require even more toner.
The deal is going smooth to this point but all of sudden out of nowhere, the appraisal doesn't come in for the selling price. My client doesn't want to hear it; we have to lower the price by $5,000. The buyer doesn't want to budge either so you go back in forth for the next 3 days until finally you are exhausted, but you get your seller to give in and lower the selling price.
We are back to sailing along until the home inspection report comes in. The house needs $6,500 in repairs. My client says are you crazy this home is in perfect conditions as your nose hairs start to singe from the awful urine smell of the litter box.You finally get your client to agree before any further damage is done to your nostrils and you leave.
Your back to sailing along until the other Realtor calls you and says that his client is trying to back out of the deal because he is not happy with the interest rate he is getting. You tell the Realtor that he is still under contract and he has to convince his client like I did on the appraisal and the inspection reports to go forward with the deal. The other Realtor does a great job and it looks like clear sailing from here to closing.
The closing day. The closing company forgets to schedule it properly the parties involved can not make it to the closing table at the same time and why is that? Because the closing company forgot that this was a "mail away" closing due to the fact that one party is in another state. Great now the closing date gets moved for 3 days no one is happy and I have to go back and forth to get addendums signed. By now I am frustrated, my blood pressure keeps climbing and my wife asks me, "Are you going to drink again tonight"?
Finally everything gets signed at the closing table and I finally am about to receive my commission check, but wait. The deal had not been funded and I have to wait until tomorrow to pick it up. By now I would drive to North Pole to pick it up.
I think I need to raise my marketing fee again, this is too much damn work........
Comments(6)