One of the biggest complaints I hear and have been hearing for the 4 decades I’ve been in real estate comes from frustrated buyers who had a very bad experience with the real estate agent they retained to help them buy a home. I’ve written about this many times over the last 2 decades, but I recently received a question via a comment on one of my blog articles, and the story remains the same.
Here’s a real case scenario in this person’s own words followed by my answer:
“We put a bid in on a house and our realtor came back and said they took the other offer, which was only $1100.00 more. Our realtor never even asked us if we wanted to bid more. We went to the asking price, we pay the closing costs. We are pre approved. Our realtor can’t understand why we are upset. Every single house that we have bid on, we never hear back WHY our bid isn’t accepted. Realtors not wanting to let us see certain properties. We just moved to this state, and we both have good jobs/ credit history and we can’t find a house here at all. We are done, and we tell our friends and family that want to move here too, not to waste their time or money!!”
Here’s My Compassionate But Honest Response
I feel your pain. Seriously, I do, because one of my pet peeves as a life long real estate lawyer and real estate broker is the incompetence of real estate agents and brokers. I started in real estate as a young 21 year old agent over 40 years ago, and guess what? There were incompetent, unprofessional, and dishonest agents back then, and in all these years I have not seen that change. The biggest stress factor I have to deal with these days is not my clients or negotiating difficult transactions or the uncertainties of marketing myself and managing a successful brokerage–it is dealing with incompetent and narcissistic agents on the other end of the transactions.
Such agents kill transactions out of ignorance and incompetence, but many do so without a care in the world about how they just screwed a buyer (or a seller). That’s narcissism! I could give you a hundred stories of bad real estate agents, but I won’t do that here.
Here’s what I would leave you with [name deleted] – 2 pieces of advice from the school of hard knocks:
1. It is absolutely critical that a buyer retain a truly good buyer’s agent, one who is knowledgeable, experienced, competent, professional, honest with integrity, and who puts his client’s interest above all else, even his own commission. Now, I’ve learned that for some inexplicable reason, the vast majority of buyers assume the buyer’s agent they retain is all those things and will take good care of them, even though they have not intelligently interviewed that agent, nor have they bothered to do any online research on that agent. Sounds kind of dumb when I make the case that way, doesn’t it? Well, it is dumb. Forgive me [name deleted] , but I’m most certainly not calling you dumb. I’m simply pointing out that the “vast majority” of buyers, like you, make a mistake that is dumb, and obviously you and the vast majority don’t realize until you’ve been burned. A little online research plus a personal telephone interview do not take very much time and effort. I could do all that in less than 30 minutes. Wouldn’t that be the best time you ever spent when it comes to making one of the biggest investments of your life?
2. If you’ve been burned by a bad Realtor or a bad agent (called “brokers” in the State of Washington), do not automatically conclude that the State of Washington is a bad state and no one should ever live here. You might be surprised to learn that grown up adults will often conclude that, even though it is obviously not a rational conclusion. If you had one bad experience with a dentist in the State of California, would you assume California is a place no one should live? If you discovered your pastor in a Southern Baptist Church in Alabama was convicted of child molestation 10 years ago, would you decide never to live in Alabama? If one stupid incompetent real estate broker stabs you in the back, are you going to conclude Washington is a place no one should move to, that they should “not waste their time or money!!”?
Okay, I know I’ve not held back with this answer, and please understand [name deleted] , I’m not disparaging you, only how you approached retaining an agent and your conclusion afterward. It’s all wrong! But that doesn’t mean anything negative about your character. You sound like a wonderfully honest and good person. The bad culprit in this story is the broker you retained. He’s a bad person, and that is a character issue, but you also bear responsibility for hiring an incompetent broker. The decision as to whom you would hire was totally in your hands, and you hired the wrong one. It’s not a matter of bad luck. I have many articles out of the 2,200 plus articles on this blog that explain the importance and the specifics of how to find and retain the best buyer’s agent out there in your market.
If I sound a little perturbed by this story, I am. I’m tired of hearing how people get screwed by their brokers. But I’m also tired of hearing how they hired incompetent brokers without doing their due diligence on him or her. I’m here 24/7 as a buyer’s agent. “Pick me,” is what I’d like to shout from the mountain tops. I’m one of the most visible buyer’s agents on the Internet in the State of Washington and particularly for the Sequim area. I’m not hard to find. Do a search during your due diligence with hundreds of search phrases, and you’ll keep finding my articles and videos, as you obviously did Donna Rose when you searched for answers to your question now.
Ladies and gentlemen, let this tragic story be another real life lesson of the importance of finding and retaining the right real estate buyer’s agent. Had Donna Rose done that, she would have been taken care of with integrity from the beginning to the closing.
Rapping This Up Post Comment
I realize I was blunt with my answer, but I have to ask all my readers, what’s it going to take for you to take the advise I’ve been shouting from the mountain tops for decades?”
“Do your research, discover what you need in a professional and competent and trustworthy buyer’s agent, and learn how to do your due diligence on him. And once you’ve found him and interviewed him, for goodness sakes retain him with loyalty and never look back, because he’ll take care of you in ways you won’t even know.”
Last Updated on July 6, 2024 by Chuck Marunde
