I showed homes yesterday. The price range was closer to one million than it was to one hundred thousand. I only bring this up, because it is somewhat customary for the selling agent, representing a high-end luxury home, to meet the buyer's agent and the buyer's agent's clients at the property. Carlos was that seller's agent.
Carlos met my clients at the last house we saw, parking his 1970's' red Camaro and ambled to the driveway before we had a chance to get out of my car. He introduced himself to my clients. I went to hand him my business card and he looked at me and said, "I just throw those away. Don't bother."
Without asking any questions about what drew my buyers to the house (you know, understanding their wants and needs or even why on Earth they wanted to see this particular home to begin with), Carlos proceeded to quickly escort them through the house, giving them minutiae that my clients didn't really care about. What my clients wanted to know about was would the house be a good fit for them. None of his, "the seller spared no expense on this flooring," really made a shred of difference to folks checking to see if their home theater would work in the extra bedroom. And, "the owner would be willing to remove the extra orange trees at $250 a tree after escrow," really wasn't a selling feature when my folks needed to ensure the garage was large enough to hold their workout equipment and pottery kilns.
In addition to all that, Carlos only took two breaths. The first was when he looked at the wife and pointed to the kitchen, "This should be big enough for you. Don't you think? That kitchen sink can hold all your dirty dishes until you have a chance to wash them." As we all sucked in some air, Carlos took his his last parting shot. Pointing to the laundry room, he said to the wife, "This is so big that when you take a break from cooking and cleaning you can handle the laundry. In the meantime, the dirty clothes can just stay in here."
While the husband and I slowly processed this, the wife lost her cool and told Carlos what she really thought of his comments. And, to the shock of nobody but Carlos and his seller who hired Carlos to sell the house, Carlos didn't back down or act the least bit contrite.
When we were leaving, the wife said to her husband, "I don't care if we live in a pup tent, we aren't buying that place."
Frankly, I personally thought the home, new or not, was overpriced and wasn't that great of a house. The floor plan was clunky. There was this odd room that made no sense (it was off the kitchen and had no window or closet and did not seem to have any reason to exist. One bedroom THAT FACED THE FRONT OF THE HOUSE, had a sliding glass door as its only window ("The seller would be willing to put in a window for $1,000 after close of escrow if the buyers are interested."). The other bedrooms were in willy-nilly places and nothing felt cohesive. Plus, there was no fence around the backyard. If one is spending three-quarters of a million dollars (or more) on a new home, it is reasonable in the Phoenix market to expect a fence around the property.
Today Carlos contacted me, asking for feedback. "What did your buyer's think?" He wrote. "Are they going to put an offer in, or do you want me to schedule another showing?"
My reply was simply, "Once you insulted my buyer with the kitchen and laundry room comments, they were done the house. Sorry we couldn't make the sale."
I am sure his seller is doubly sorry.
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