Dealing With Agents

There is so much to unpack here. Real estate has the brightest, nicest and most helpful people in it. It also has the dark, greedy and selfish people. Let’s just go through the process of buying a home and take this step by step and interaction by interaction.

Setting Up A Showing

Try not to make it last minute if the other agent has to set something up. Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on their part. You’ll get a client at the end of your showings say, “I saw this house online. Can we go look at it?” This is your fault by the way. You didn’t set expectations, you didn’t ask them if they found any more homes.

Read ALL of the instructions in the listing. Don’t go off something you printed yesterday. Things change and homes go pending or install alarms because it’s vacant.

If for some reason you think your clients might write an offer, find out what terms the seller is looking for before you see the house. The reason for this is, if you ask before the showing, they have no real idea that you might be interested. If after the showing you asked about terms, they are going to assume you are interested and go tell any agent that showed that house that there’s a possible offer coming and they might want to write. Social proof is an amazing motivator. Knowing someone else is interested proves the house is desirable to some people.

After The Showing

For the love of all that is good, if an agent wants feedback on your showing, give it to them. If you aren’t listing homes, you will be. The main reason the agent is asking for feedback is to tell their seller than another agent has said the price is too high. You are helping the agent and building a relationship. Relationships matter in this business. They may ask you if your clients are going to write an offer or ask about the interest. You don’t owe that information to the agent. You have a duty to represent your client and giving away their interest gives away their bargaining power. You can say it was in their top two or three homes. Show enough interest that they will call you if an offer comes in or if the seller is thinking about dropping the price.

Writing An Offer

The more straightforward the offer, the better. We call that clean. Adding in a lot of different conditions and costs will make your offer more complex. It’s up to your client but keep that in mind. Complexity causes confusion. NAR says best practices are to present your offer directly to the Seller. I know of almost no one who does that and it seems to make sellers uncomfortable. My take is unless you really need to convince them of a super low deal or complex offer, you are better off having the listing agent present it. I make no stand that my way is right but here is my thought.

The listing agent wants this deal to go through. The seller has chosen the listing agent to be the confidant and advisor. With the listing agent presenting, they are almost advocating for your offer. They have to explain the offer which softens the seller a bit. There’s no benefit for the listing agent to through the buyer’s agent completely under the bus but I know it happens. In the end, I think it’s more comfortable for the seller to just be with the listing agent and discuss it.

Dealing with Agents During Negotiations

So many layers here as well and there will be a lesson on negotiating later. For now, remember that you represent your client, they represent theirs. While you are cooperating, you’re not buddies. Giving a short response to an offer or counteroffer is a risky trick. What I have found is that when you push for an answer or are stressed, the answer is usually no, just like the parole board in the Decision Fatigue lesson.

Don’t be the one to end negotiations. Always send a counteroffer, even if it’s the same. Time heals some wounds and I’ve seen deals come and stay together because the agents kept pushing paper and emotions calmed down. One of the values of agents in a transaction is the buffer between the buyer and seller during negotiations.

• Seller to the listing agent, “You tell that so and so, I will never sell this house for that much. I’d rather burn it down!”
• Listing agent to buyer’s agent, “My client’s a bit hot under the collar about that price and has countered at this price and he’s not likely going to budge on.”
• Buyer’s agent to buyer, “The listing agent said the seller gave his final and best offer. I think we got the most we are going to get.”

I do pay attention to the language of the other agent. Are they showing weakness? Some agents are not good at keeping secrets that shouldn’t spill. While they might get into trouble for spilling it, you can ask and see what happens. I’m shocked at what some agents will tell you. So ask.

Here’s where agents can start to get snippy. The demanding agent will start to push and threaten that they will walk. I wrote an offer on a fellow office agent’s listing. Though he and his partner were in the same building, they didn’t walk over to talk to me, they called. It was a new listing that I gave a full price offer. They started going down a list of all of these things they wanted to counter over. I said that’s fine but we are going out to look at homes tonight and if don’t sign it we might find something better. They wrote a counter and we found a better house. They negotiated themselves out of a deal. And I fully believe it was because their seller thought it sold too fast and wanted more, which happens a lot.

I had another deal with a builder that was being held up because they were behind schedule. The principal broker called me because my buyers weren’t going to sign if the house wasn’t completed. The principal broker needed to close to make quarterly numbers with that builder and was yelling at me too, “Get control of my clients!” I told him my clients weren’t monkeys to control and that house needed to get finished.

The video below does a fantastic job of explaining how to deal with “dominance behavior” or bullying in the best and most defusing way. Bullying is a tactic of some agents. Don’t engage in battles. Remember that your goal is to close a deal, not feed your ego in a pointless battle.