Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Agent to Meet? Or Not to Meet? That is the Question.



I've been showing homes to an out of town couple around the $2 million price point over the past few weeks. Each time we view approximately 6 to 8 homes. I give at least 24 hours notice as most of these properties are "agent to meet"...the last thing any Realtor wants to see in the showing instructions section for any listing. I'm not exaggerating when I say at least 5 of the agents attempt to reschedule the 30 minute time frame I give them because they "can't make it at the time we've requested".

On the surface that sounds fair but you have to look at it from a buyer's point of view - and their agent's. When you're looking at 8 homes from Russwood Acres to Jan-Mar to Bluffview to Greenway Parks to UP/HP the listing agents should be THRILLED that I only gave them a 30 minute time frame. Let me give you an example you probably won't care much about. And that's ok. This is my own form of therapy time so let me have it, dammit! :)

You have to have a starting point so let's pick Jan-Mar (Royal and Hillcrest) at 11am. From there we're heading to Russwood Acres (Royal and Midway). Then down to Bluffview and Greenway Parks. And shoot across the toll road to the Park Cities. We'll probably end around 2pm.

But...The first agent can only meet me at 1pm so we'll need to reschedule that one. But then what about the other home in Jan-Mar we just scheduled with the other listing agent for 11:30am? I guess we can move her to 1:30pm.

And then...The second agent can't do 1:30pm because she has a massage appointment.

And then...Both of the Russwood Acres homes we want to see are having an Open House from 2pm to 4pm so it would be nice if we could reschedule our times to view the homes at that time instead of from 12pm to 1pm.

So now...I have to call the Greenway Parks listing agents and the Park Cities agents to reschedule with them and hope they can make the new appointment time after they've probably already made plans.

You see what I'm getting at. It's a pain in the arse and we typically have to cancel at least 2 of the homes on our orginal list because the agents can't meet us to show the home.

I am not, nor have I ever been, a fan of "agent to meet" showings. They are pointless and my buyers find the listing agents more distracting than helpful as they prattle on about how "special" their listing is while following us from room to room.

In my opinion, no home in the Park Cities or Preston Hollow areas under $3 million is special enough to require a Realtor's presence at the home when it is being shown. If you want to brag about the special features of your listing then open up Microsoft Word and prove it by placing an information sheet in the home. You running your yapper and rattling off the 1,000 special things about this home is lost on every buyer that walks through the front door. I don't care if Lambert's did the lawn or the guy standing by the DART bus stop. If it looks nice then it looks nice. That is not a special feature of any home.

The saddest and most important part of all this is that sellers of these homes will never know someone tried to show their $1.8 million dollar home. No wonder it has been on the market for 178 days. I mean seriously, do you think the listing agent will tell their sellers they couldn't make the showing because they were too busy? I didn't think so.

Ridiculous.

4 comments:

  1. Jeff, I completely agree with you. Here in UTAH we have several high end neighborhoods, I have experienced the exact same run around. Drives me nuts. I am sure it is the same in your area, but we have a couple high end home realtors in our city Salt Lake City, UTAH. And they always meet you at the home, I have actually had one of them try and steal my client from after the fact. They got their name and looked them up on line. Told my client they should have a high end realtor like them representing them! I kid you not. Ridiculous, best part about it was my client totally stuck up for me and told the realtor how unprofessional they were. What a nightmare. In my opinion, don't show those homes. Obviously the realtor isn't that motivated to sell it anyway..

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  2. You are so, so right Jeff.
    On the rare occassion that I have a property that is 'agent to meet', I team with another agent so that one of us can meet the showing when requested (or at least send my assistant to open the home). The big commission is reason enough to alter my schedule and make it easy to see the property. In today's market, its just crazy to make it difficult to view a home.
    Ironically, most of the homes that require their 'agent to meet' the buyers are that way at the request of the sellers. Agents need to educate their clients to understand that this is usually not in their best interest.
    It is inconvenient and annoying.

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  3. Listing agents of homes in this price range should know better. Any showing by appointment should be on time. To do otherwise is just bad service. I wonder if the sellers know this is happening.

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  4. Could not agree more. One of my first clients was in HP/UP area. The agent to meets did nothing but screw up my schedule and honestly everyone of them pissed off my buyer.

    Buyers choose their Realtor because they want to work with them, not because they want to get hard sell from a listing agent.

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