Adventures

You know how to get busy in real estate? Buy plane tickets.

My realtor pal, Sally, got two offers on her house in 24 hours. That's right folks, this $600,000+ gem is in a bidding war. What I find interesting about it, is that Sally has been asking me for advice. My answer has been, "ask your broker," but then we continue as a hypothetical scenario ("what if you got two offers on your listing...").

She isn't the first agent to call me asking for my broker opinion. Heaven knows I have called my fair-share of brokers and agents asking "hypothetical" questions of this nature. Sally surprised me. It turns out she is a wee bit unhappy with her current company. I suspect that's why she called me. However, I still can't give her concrete answers.

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Tomorrow is the Grievance Committee Meeting. We are hearing six cases. SIX!!!

Seriously you agents. Why the heck would you let your buyer move into a vacant house a week BEFORE closing???

Why would you PUT IN WRITING that you are blatantly stealing another agent's client?

Why would you, as a seller's agent, send an addendum directly to the buyer's clients cancelling the contract and demanding the earnest money for the seller? And doing so, then tell these unsuspecting buyers who are now living in a hotel, waiting to move into their new home, a teensy lie IN WRITING, saying you, "work for the buyer's agent," and was asked to send such a document?

If you are an agent, you KNOW there is a hefty fine and some continuing education classes coming your way for these kinds of transgressions. And if you don't I assure you, your broker does know.

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Right after the Grievance Committee Meeting, I am jetting across the metro Phoenix area to a small hamlet known as "Youngtown." There I will find a couple who want to sell their home without an agent. However, because they came as a referral from a good friend, I agreed to give them a complimentary consultation. Frankly, in this market it will sell immediately even without an agent. Hopefully everything will go smoothly and they won't find themselves in front of a judge.

I suspect there might be some agent out there who will sell them on putting it in the MLS for $100 or something silly like that. It won't be me. I don't take on a million dollars of liability for a $100 paycheck. These are the same agents who give the rest of our industry a bad name. They are the ones who I end up reading 42 pages of complaint about every other month when it is my turn to sit on the Grievance Committee.