(post by Dee) You hear everywhere that people dislike brokers. I happen to be a broker, and I happen to dislike many brokers myself. But, “lucky” for me, I HAVE TO work with them every day. Here are MY top reasons why other Realtors make everybody’s life difficult:

1. They don’t return phone calls! Even if I am bringing them business, even if they called me first. Reason: they don’t want to co-broke and like to play mental games w/ “competition”.

2. They (agents and their office staff) are uncooperative and rude to other agents. Yup, most pick up with the “what do you want” attitude every day. Reason: they think being professional and polite is somehow making them weak and susceptible to losing business to me.

3. They show up late to appointments, or don’t show up at all. Or worse, call you a few minutes after time due and announce they are running late… call again 10 minutes later that they are “almost there”, then never show up and never pick up their phone again. Reason: no integrity is required in their office.

4. They don’t qualify buyers/renters they bring. To save time, I try to qualify every person before I show them a place… answer all of their questions re the place, go over fees, the process, qualifications. But when another Realtor brings them, it is hard to get any answers up front. So they bring a renter/buyer who does not like the neighborhood, rejects the place at hello, and/or does not meet the criteria. Reason: poor training and disregard for other’s time.

5. They break the rules every time… don’t get proper forms signed, act in best interest of the wrong party, discriminate, act unethically, present offers with huge delays, and misrepresent facts about the property. Reason(s): range from lack of proper training to ignorance, to laziness. See these previous posts: Hello Greed , No Co-broking and Land for Sale

6. They lie to sellers about prices ti get the listing. After a seller has been told by 5 others before me that they can sell his house for $1.2 million, how am I going to compete when I tell him the truth? “No, Sir, they all lied to you, I will sell it for what it is worth, a whole $950.” Sure eventually the seller sees through the smoke and mirrors, usually after getting burnt, but by them he/she is usually too disgusted to talk to any broker. Reason: they have no guts to speak the truth and have a “I’ll worry about that later” attitude. See this related post: Overpriced

7. They take any business they can get, regardless of their ability to serve clients. Residential brokers servicing commercial listings, and Realtors from offices 50 miles away taking listings in markets they know nothing about (”She’s my friend, and asked me to do this for her.”) All this results in NO RESULTS, wasted time/money for the sellers, and “it’s a bad market” types of statements. Reason: more is better.

No, it’s not a bad market. And there’s nothing wrong with your property. You just hired a crappy agent.

BAD REAL ESTATE AD PHOTO OF THE DAY

No, it’s not a mistake or a broken image on our site. If you only browsed through different MLS sites around the country, you’d find that a great number of listings contain no picture at all. Not very helpful in researching properties for my customers… So, just like majority of people, I skip those with no picture at all. Bet your client wouldn’t be happy to hear that.