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Nice Guys Finish Last??

By
Real Estate Agent with Exit Realty Tri County

Well do they? We have been asking ourselves this very question.
My gut instinct is a resounding "NO WAY!"

Yea, maybe sometimes Nice Guys have to deal with bad situations. But in the end, they win, right?

Sometimes it seems tough trying to be the Nice Guys. Not that we would do it any other way, but often we are left in the dust of someone else who got the deal, and we think, OK, the client must have felt they would do a better job. And then what do we see?

No Picture AvailableThis house has been on the market since July 28th! What is today? Mid SPETEMBER?!? This is a client we felt we shared a lot in common with. We gave him over 25 pictures of his house, posted 12 on the MLS with descriptions, plus a virtual tour, audio tour, E-magazine, aggressive internet marketing campaign, full color 13 page home book, color flyers, home staging, and well, you get the idea: our entire 84-point marketing plan. It was clear the house was way overpriced. We had many interested buyers call and see the house. No one made an offer. The price needed to be lower. Then the listing expired July 1st. The gentleman tell me he does want to re-list yet as he was going on a mission trip and would be out of the country for the next three weeks. He would call me when he returns on the 28th.


I scheduled a reminder to call him on the 29th if I did not receive a call from him the previous day. When I double-checked the MLS (as I always do to be sure not to incur an ethics violation) what do I find? HE HAS RELISTED!

Ok, I think to myself. He must have thought she would do a better job. No hard feelings. But now? I just don't get it.

That brings me to my next point. How is it that agents can get away with doing as little as possible and still grow their business? This agent doesn't even take a single picture of her $250,000 listing! Down the street from me is a house for sale that was listed with Realtor A, and then re-listed with Realtor B. BOTH SIGNS are still in the yard. Yeah, Realtor A should have come and picked up his sign. But why on earth has Realtor B not taken it down yet?!? (It's been 2 months!)

Yesterday, I spoke with a buyer who called on a listing and I asked her my usual "are you working with a Realtor?" She says, "well, kind of. I got pre-approved with my mortgage broker and he recommended the agent in his building. She sent me a couple of houses to look at, but when I called her to schedule a showing, she never called me back." 

Please tell me, why??

And we have all run across the person who says their previous Realtor never called them period. (Listing expired and they had no clue, house was shown and they never got a call about how it went, FSBO was listed and never received updates about how marketing efforts were going, etc.) How do they continue to be in business like that?

There are so many very good Realtors around, ones who:

  • take tons of great pictures
  • do all they can to market the home
  • provide sellers with weekly marketing updates
  • communicate and return calls consistently
  • provide buyers with an organized way to keep up with homes they have seen
  • even go out and take pictures for buyers when a listing they think they like has none.

These are the agents you know you can trust; you can count on them to do it right the first time. But their job is made so much more difficult by, let's call them the NSGRs- the not-so-good Realtors, because they have to prove themselves over and over again that they are different. As if Real Estate wasn't hard enough already.Piece of the Pie

Yes, business is slow for everyone right now, but how is it that the NSGRs continue to get a piece of this small pie?