“Hello Annie? I found you on Zillow. Will you be my Fourth Agent?”
Yup. Picked up my mobile phone yesterday and there was a buyer on the line asking me if I wanted to
be added to her “stable” of agents who are scrambling like mice to find her a home in my town. I wanted to laugh outloud, but my mother raised me to not to respond to rudeness with rudeness.
Now, a bit of background, I work in Metro NY, where believe-it-or-not Buyer Brokerage accounts for only about 1% of the transactions here. Yup, has not caught on here at all. (Some listings don’t even offer buyer brokerage compensation and some offer a pittance.) Realtors don’t write contracts, lawyers do and we are a “caveat emptor” state…that’s Latin for “buyer beware”. In my town, we have a local board that has its own rules and one is we don’t have private listings. If you take a listing, all board members have access to the listings. You don’t have to put your listings on the MLS but most of us do. We are our own little animal.
So, I asked this nice lady why she decided to call me. She said she read my profile on Zillow and saw i had sold a lot of houses in my town, the town she wants to buy in and I seemed to have a lot of real estate knowledge. Thanks for noticing!
I asked her if she had something to sell in order to buy this next house – yup. She has a property to sell and it’s on the market out of area. I explained to her that in our little world, seller’s attorney’s will not accept offers contingent on the sale of another property. “Oh.” she said.
I asked for her price range and wish list. I quickly pulled up current and sold inventory and quickly told her that YTD only 12 homes had sold in her price range and only 6 met her move-in criteria. A couple of them had been my listings, so I shared that they had sold at full-price, one over ask, both with multiple offers to buyers who had nothing to sell and one was a cash buyer with 50% down and the other put down in excess of 30%. “Wow”, she said.
I then pulled current inventory in her range that met her criteria to review with her and she told me that she had seen them all with the other 3 agents. 3 agents she has met while wandering through open house. 3 agents who all know she is working with other agents!!! (Who are you crazy people?)
I asked her if she was familiar with buyer agency. She wasn’t interested in signing a contract with anyone despite my pointing out the benefits to her. And why would she when 3 knuckleheads are willing to run around with full knowledge of each others efforts with no commitment from her?
I explained that we all share the same listings, that in my area we do not allow private listings. Oh she said again. Then I asked her, “What is it that you think I can do for you that the other 3 chumps agents can’t do for you?” She was quiet. I was quiet. She was quiet. Finally she spoke…”Wellllll, I just want 4 people looking for me at the same time…whoever finds the house first will get my business.”
That ladies and gentlemen is a little game I like to call “Beat the Clock”. I gently explained to her that I don’t play Beat the Clock for a non-loyal buyer who has a property to sell as that is not a productive use of my time and I work for buyers who are willing to commit to me and be loyal to me and I did not think a buyer using a multi-agent strategy would fit my business model. But hey, good luck with your 3 agent search.
She was shocked. She was silent. Finally she spoke “Okay, but if you change your mind, and you are willing to be one of my agents…will you call me?”
Oh…you can make this stuff up! Maybe you’ve met a buyer like this? What would you do?
Thank you to Ralph Gorgolione who’s blog “Never drew up a Buyer Broker Agreement…….until now. Here’s why…” inspired me to write this post.
Leave a Reply