Follow Me On Pinterest
There is more to Real Estate, more to representing Home Buyers, more to representing Home Sellers than merely writing a Purchase Contract. It is exasperating to witness HomeBuyer agents who frankly don’t take their responsibility seriously and think showing a property and writing an offer is about all that is needed.
Let me amend this by saying that I’m sure there must be some Realtors representing Home Buyers who are new to the profession that have been properly trained and do a good job. Unfortunately, I have not been running into them. This disturbs me greatly! Not only, is it a bad testament to our profession and to their non-represented home buyer(s) but it effects my home sellers and for that reason I will expound on this subject at great length removing any “real” names in order to help those new agents who may not have been trained properly. Please read, retain and then practice!
My home sellers who have moved out of state now that their home is in Pending Sale are at risk due to the negligence of a Realtor and his HomeBuyer. I am here to talk primarily about the Realtor.
Throughout the transaction in the beginning it was obvious that I was dealing with a new agent. I took the time to meet with him (we’ll call him James), and give him some pointers. I let him know right up front that I require communication.
James is new to the real estate arena but came from a lending background. His broker, use to take him to homes and thought that James picked up on some of the nuisances of our profession, as realtors. Hence the fact, that James, doesn’t feel comfortable now asking the Broker rudimentary questions since he should have learned while being a lender and being mentored by his Broker.
So, the manner in which this nice young man runs his business is by the seat of his pants. Very nice guy but definitely not representing his client nor taking care of business. This transaction has been like pulling teeth, for me…always having to remind and ask for paperwork. Not to mention trying to get return phone calls and his fax machine to work properly.
The kicker came this past week when I called the Title Company that he chose who also is not communicative, only to find out that the docs had not arrived for James’ homebuyer. I immediately called and left a message for James and then proceeded to call his mortgage lender for his homebuyer.
Now, this is a story in itself. The mortgage broker has letter head that depicts a company but back during the acceptance portion of the contract when I called to verify the home buyer’s loan qualifications, it became obvious that this is a home business. Not impressive! Due to the market, the lack thereof…my home sellers went forward anyway.
Now, getting back to all of the messages I left for James and the mortgage broker…it took until 10:30 for James to call me back because he was just getting up. Never to this day has the mortgage broker bothered to call me back.
James was SHOCKED that the docs were not in Title. It took all of my strength to remain professional and calm. I asked him why he was shocked since he should have been keeping up-to-date with the loan process and scheduling an appointment for his home buyer to sign at Title.
James said that he hadn’t called the mortgage broker for awhile (since the last time I called him to ask how the loan was going), and that he never goes to Title or schedules for his Home Buyer to sign. He then laughed and said that it “usually works out and that the lender typically calls him after the whole things over to let him know that he should give keys to the Home Buyer and that he’ll be getting his check shortly.”
Once again, I had to control myself and remain professional and calm. I very politely told him that he is suppose to be representing his client and that he has a fiduciary responsibility to take this whole thing seriously and follow thru. Writing a contract and waiting to pick up the commission check is not what it’s all about! I asked James to call the mortgage lender who never called me and find out what was going on with his client’s loan since there would be no way to close escrow on time, now.
When James called back, he said that his client had been a victim of fraud. When the lender pulled the credit just before pulling the docs, her credit score had gone down from 650 to 600 and had quite a few new charges showing that had not previously been there.
James was very apologetic and thanked me for my help and assured me that he would be “on it.” I told him that I would be writing an Addendum to extend the contract, his homebuyer would be increasing her deposit and it would be non-refundable, his home buyer would be paying PITI for my sellers and that he would be keeping me updated daily.
James said that the person dealing with the fraud told him it would take 2-3 weeks to get it cleared up. As a side-note, the buyer thinks that a family member has committed the fraud.
Last night, I called James while on my way to another client’s house for dinner and told him that I would be faxing him the Addendum when I got home last night which would be late. Today, it took me calling James to ask if he received my fax (which I knew he did), and he said, “no, I don’t think so.” This time I was not as sweet and understanding but also not mean, just forceful.
I told James, that this is not the way to handle this. He must take a more active roll and not be passive when dealing with my client and his client’s life. I appealed to him about his own commission of $14,000 that he should care about, at least. And that I want the Addendum signed today and back to me today.
Now, if that isn’t bad enough…what I found out next was mind boggling. This young man who doesn’t take any thing seriously, doesn’t follow, and who I had to tell to write something on the TDS because he didn’t know that it was that important and doesn’t follow through …. has quite a few homebuyers. He has so many that he doesn’t have time to handle all of them.
I asked where he was getting all of these illusive home buyers that the rest of us are aimlessly trying to locate. James’ answer was that they are all referrals. He hasn’t been a realtor even a year…how does he have all those referrals? Oh, he refinanced all these past clients in the mortgage end and decided that he would get his real estate license because he had a nice array of clients.
Sometimes, life is not fair. Why a home buyer would choose a person with little or no knowledge is beyond me. I am still in shock and felt the need to hopefully let some new Realtors know that this is a very serious profession where you are dealing with the largest investment that most people have and that they are trusting that you know what you are doing and that you do it well.
Take Real Estate seriously and give a 100% to your client. The rest of us will welcome you and help mentor but you must realize the importance of what we do. Real Estate is more than just writing a contract!
