The following is a true story about a prospective client of mine, a married couple living in the Midwest. We’ve emailed each other for about 6 or 8 weeks about their desire to buy a foreclosure home in Arizona as an investment. I usually avoid writing about clients and prospective clients online, because it’s just a little weird & squicky to expose private conversations in a public forum. However, I couldn’t resist posting this gem.
What follows is a snapshot of my Friday afternoon and a lesson in how to make a Realtor very, very angry.
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10. Fly to town unannounced. Call Realtor Thursday evening to say “We’d like to go out looking at homes all day tomorrow and Saturday too.”
9. Act exasperated when Realtor apologetically says that since she didn’t know you were coming, her calendar is pretty booked… but she can shift a few things around to show you homes from 3p-7p on Friday and get a colleague to show you around on Saturday.
8. Present a list of 8 homes in the North Phoenix area which you found online. Explain that you’ve ”done the research,” these are the homes you feel are a good bargain, and generally ignore the Realtor’s attempts to recommend additional areas.
7. Midway through the first showing, insist you don’t want to see condos or townhouses (even though 2 of your original 8 picks are condos).
6. Become frustrated when Realtor says that of the original 8 properties you asked to see, 2 are sold or under contract, 2 are condos (which you don’t want to see), and 1 we can’t see without 24 or 48 hours’ notice to the tenant living in it.
5. Let Realtor drive you to the remaining 3 properties on your list. Describe the 1st as “acceptable”. Decline to go inside homes 2 and 3 because you don’t like the look of the neighborhoods.
4. Announce that you want to call it a day. While Realtor drives you back to hotel, lecture her about your extensive research into foreclosures and the real estate market in general. Explain to the Realtor that it will take 20 years for the Phoenix market to get back to normal, “there are no buyers today” and “we know these desperate sellers will be happy to get our offer, even though we won’t offer higher than 60% of list price.”
3. Listen while your Realtor notes that:
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While Phoenix has tons of foreclosures for sale, we’re selling an average number of homes monthly (about 5,000 each month)
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While outlying towns are down 40% or more from peak prices, central and North Phoenix are generally down about 12-15% from the peak
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The North Phoenix home you said was “acceptable” is located in a ZIP code that’s actually turned into to a Seller’s Market in past weeks, since there’s now only 5 months’ supply of homes for sale (6 is considered balanced, higher than 6 a buyer’s market, lower than 6 a seller’s market).
Listen quietly to Realtor’s statistics, but ignore her information.
2. Tell Realtor that:
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“We’re ready to buy today. We have money in hand and are serious about buying. We want to sign a contract today.”
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After 2 or 3 sentences of polite chit-chat about your lives in the Midwest, tell Realtor “We aren’t in a hurry to buy. If we can’t find a great home at the right price, we’ll just wait these sellers out. The prices are going to drop, they’ll see and they’ll be sorry.”
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Realtor assures you that the ideal home you’ve described is available, is in your price range, and located in a part of town you drove through this morning and said you liked. Perhaps North Phoenix just isn’t the right area for your needs.
Realtor takes a call from a partner agent. She hangs up and says none of her 5 partners are free to show you homes tomorrow but she will cancel her personal plans for the afternoon and meet you again at 2pm to look at homes in the other neighborhood we’ve agreed is good for you.
1. Twenty minutes after the Realtor drops you off, call her and leave this voicemail message: “We’re sure you’re a very nice person, but we just don’t feel that our time is being well utilized. We only have 2 days in Phoenix and we can’t afford to waste our time. So we just wanted to say we don’t want to work with you anymore.”
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I should add that by the time I went to sleep that night, I was over it. In fact, the sheer absurdity of the whole thing made me giggle. Just another day in the life! At least my job is never boring.
Heather Barr is a Realtor and a happy workaholic. She eats more than someone her size ought to be able, and is a runner as a consequence. Her TiVo's full of spy thrillers, police procedurals and Whedonesque sci-fi.
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post! Hey! I think I know those clients…well, maybe not those EXACT clients, but pod clones to be sure. Like Jay said, the redeeming grace is that most of our clients are wonderful or we wouldn’t be doing this, right?
I had clients who came into town (referred to me no less) and I spent my entire weekend showing them property, comping homes and writing up an offer…only to have them disappear into thin air. There’s just no excuse for some folks.
“Let the force guide you.”
Heather, I bet you had an inkling from the first moment that they were trouble and you should blow them off.
Come on, they supposedly want to spend a ton of money on a home but they don’t arrange to meet with a Realtor! They were not at all serious. They are crazy people.
By the way, I got a couple of calls in the last week from Canadians expecting crazy high investment returns. It was a flashback to those 2005 phone calls. It all made sense when one guy mentioned “like on the infomercials you see.” Oh… that explains it.
I don’t have the balls or the time to comment on this subject in any detail; suffice it to say that there ARE those who repeatedly chase rainbows and do whatever they can with customers like the above-mentioned, thinking they can ‘out suck’ them because they are so much smarter (and desperate to make a sale the old-fashioned way). Can’t wait for the future… fewer realtors but QUALITY educated realtors will prevail.
Unfortunately, I think the real estate industry has educated the consumer to behave this way. I know of many Realtors that will skip dinner with family to show a home to someone that “might” buy a house without even knowing the buyer is qualified. I don’t know how Realtors can constantly put up with this behavior.
It’s similar in my industry too. I realized after firing my first customer how liberating it is to tell someone you don’t want their business anymore. I still deal with the occasional bad customer. However, I’ve learned if they don’t trust me as a professional insurance agent then they can find another agent that will bark and sit when they command.
Good luck.
Sure hope these folks take the time to read “Top 10 Ways….”! However, people like this probably never will get the message and will only completely frustrate another poor agent. Sorry you had to go through this.
Keep up the great blogging!
You had a great weekend! I think we all have had those people in our time… One thing I love in this business is that we don’t have to work with everyone who calls us. Just the ones who are reasonable and we choose to work with.
People never cease to amaze me. It’s *incredible* how many times we get calls from people who:
1) call on Thursday letting you know they’ll be in town for the weekend
2) are in front of a home and want to see is NOW
3) want us to show them a home because their agent is “too busy”
Fortunately, the majority of people are wonderful to work with and make up for the a$$hats that are out there too.
Sadly for these folks, the simple fact is they just screwed up worse than they will ever know. Oh, they will find another agent to haul them around, to write ridiculous offers, and I’m sure they’ll blame the agent when they don’t go through. All the while not even realizing that they fired one of the best agents there is.
It’s their loss, not yours.
I love the word “squicky”! Can I use that?
I felt bad about not being able to help out, but after hearing the whole story I’m pretty happy to have been dealing with a dead battery!
One thing about this business is you meet all types – good and bad. Take a deep breath and find your happy place (maybe bring a bottle of wine with you!), and be thankful you only wasted an afternoon with these goofballs!
Yes, Steve they did. Isn’t it HORRIBLE? How do people live with themselves? After dinner and a drink with friends, I found the whole thing very giggle-worthy. HB
They really called you just the day before their arrival, when flying in? And then they got in a huff that you couldn’t clear enough of your calendar for them to be toured around to make a lowball offer. I think I’d be over it pretty quickly as well.
Next-I know how you feel- and you just have to laugh, and they will fire 5 more agents until they get it, and most likely never will!!