Crummy real estate agents
Crummy real estate agents.
You may have had one, or you know someone that did. US News & World Report wrote an article about how to tell if your agent is a crummy agent.
There wasn’t anything particularly new about the information, but I am surprised at how many people hire crummy agents.
1) Communication-if you agent doesn’t return phone calls, then you might have a crummy agent. This is true for any profession. How many of you would hire a doctor, CPA, babysitter, etc that doesn’t return your phone calls? It’s hard to do business with people that don’t care about their jobs.
2) No advice-I am actually seeing this trend more in real estate. Due to liability agents are not giving advice on anything. “Look it up yourself,” is often the response. I give advice all of the time. My clients are free to take it or not. Their choice. Really the point of using an agent is for their knowledge. If agents won’t share it, why use us? I do understand the fear of lawsuits, but at some point we just need to get well educated and trained agents that know how to offer advice without causing a lawsuit in the process.
3) Insists on affiliates. Part of being an agent means day in and day out exposure to all aspects of real estate life from builders, to contractors, to mortgage brokers, to home inspectors. Yes, we all have our favorites. I would agree that agents should never insist on someone. Just refer you to someone good if you have no preference.
4) Keeping it in the family. This is more true for larger brokerages. Some agents from large firms will tell you that there is a lot of pressure to sell “in-house” that way the brokerage gets the entire commission. That is one advantage of small Mom and Pops, like my company (okay obvious plug here), we don’t have that pressure.
5) Part time agents. There are some part time agents that do well for their clients. They are the exception rather than the rule though. It is hard to juggle real estate with other job demands.
6) Behavior problems. I am always astounded at this one. Complaints filed against real estate agents are public. There are agents that have been reprimanded for unethical behavior that are still around getting business. Do yourself a favor, just call the Real Estate Agency, and ask about any filed complaints before hiring an agent.
It is hard to pick an agent, there are only 2,000 or so for the Mid-Willamette Valley here. Just remember to ask the right questions of an agent, and it will help to narrow your choices.
(c) Copyright, 2008. Melina Tomson, All Rights Reserved (ie…be nice and create your own content. Don’t steal mine…)
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