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Elizabeth Weintraub
Is Your MetroList Rapattoni Client Portal Broken?
Tech Support at Rapattoni report the Rapattoni client portal is broken and is not working correctly all over the country — not just in Sacramento. Listings vanish before our client’s eyes. That doesn’t make us feel any better to know we are not alone with a broken client portal. Not every real estate agent has a problem, either, with the client portal from Rapattoni; it’s sporadic. For example, this Sacramento real estate agent doesn’t have that problem. I set up client portals to test the issue and they worked for me, but one of my team members continually struggles. He’s a young, techie guy, too, just in case any readers are wondering about the ever-ubiquitous operator error.
We called MetroList, which didn’t seem to be aware of the problem until we talked with Rapattoni. The Support team at Rapattoni confirmed that client portals are not working for other real estate agents as well. It’s odd that it works for some and not all, but that seems to be the case. My team member was also able to show the Support employee at Rapattoni how to duplicate the issue of vanishing listings.
A broken client portal is very frustrating for our real estate clients. They don’t have the kind of patience that Rapattoni possesses. They want their client portals to work, and they want them to work today. There seems to be no definitive deadline as to when Rapattoni will fix the problem.
I can’t send clients to iHomefinder searches because those are broken now, too.
MetroList is a monopoly. We Sacramento real estate agents are forced to rely on and exclusively use MetroList. There is no other system we can use. It’s not like we can call up Apple and ask them to fix the Rapattoni problem. We can’t go to Google to complain. We’re pretty much stuck with it. And since it doesn’t seem to affect a large number of agents, our priority level is low.
But I’d still rather talk to MetroList than listen to a Sacramento home buyer rant and rave because he’s already bought a home and wants to know why my team members at Lyon Real Estate closed down his client portal access. Because, dude, you already bought a house, that’s why. You’re in escrow. Looking at homes to buy is over. Standard real estate practice 101. You want to screw around online, hang out on Zillow or Trulia and look at shit that’s not for sale. You’re not singled out.
And neither are we. We continue to wait week after week for Rapatonni to resolve the broken client portal issue. Until then, we will probably drive to your home to hand deliver listings if that’s what it takes. We go that extra mile. That’s just the kind of Sacramento real estate agents we are.
Working with People You Like in Real Estate
Real estate is one of the few professions in the world in which one can pretty much choose to work with people you like and ignore the ones you don’t. People who don’t work in the real industry and view it only from the outside have a completely different viewpoint of what’s going on and how it works — but that’s true for just about any industry. It always looks simpler and easier when you’re not the one doing the work. Clients try to be helpful and offer suggestions which, to them, may seem like wonderful ideas but are often unrelated to the real estate market at hand. Maybe they got these ideas from a book, somewhere online, or from a family member who sold a home 20 years ago, and it can be hard for these types of clients to let go and let a professional do her job.
There’s not a real estate agent working hard in Sacramento right now who doesn’t know exactly what I’m talking about.
Even when we lay out the principles of real estate in an ABC format, people still have their own ideas about what a real estate agent should do and how they want their property sold. It’s OK because they wouldn’t be human if they didn’t have preconceived notions. It’s tough for us agents to explain because we don’t want to come right out and say to a seller, for example, that the seller is wrong. Nobody wants to be wrong. But sellers can be less right than they may have a right to be.
It’s a delicate balance. To inform, educate, bring about an agreement, a mutual understanding, a mutual agreement and to overcome stubbornness that might be staring us in the face, but it’s all part of the job of a Sacramento real estate agent.
There are times in the real estate business when you can’t come to an agreement. There might be no compromise. A client could be working within the realm of a distorted reality. So, what do you do when that happens? Some agents will take the listing anyway and figure they can ignore the yelling and screaming later. Other agents will walk away and decide to work with only clients who are more reasonable.
I try to keep it simple. If I like the person, even if we don’t see eye-to-eye on every single aspect, I might still work with them. I don’t have to agree with their premise to do a job for them. If I don’t like them, there is nothing they could say to make me want to work with them. Not enough money in the world could make me do it. Money is not a motivator to me. I don’t sell out for money; I don’t compromise who I am.
There are agents who say they would have no clients whatsoever if they worked only with people they liked. I guess I’ve been more fortunate.
Assholes, Steve Jobs and the Smiley Face Mac
Because I don’t preplan my Sacramento real estate blogs and write fresh every morning, yesterday was the first day in almost a decade that I did not write a blog, and you know what –no kickback about it, no consequences and nobody cared. That shows how significant my words in a daily blog are — nobody gives a crap. This real estate agent could have dropped dead, and someday will, and the first clue will be no blog that day.
The problem began when I slept in and therefore overslept. Then my phone started ringing at 7:30 AM and did not stop all day. I recharged it twice. I’m up late most nights reading Steve Jobs, the biography by Walter Isaacson. It’s such an enthralling book and not because Jobs was an asshole. I deal with enough of those types in real estate, and Jobs was a level above those guys because he’s also had charisma on top of being a genius. He got kicked out and rose again, like a Phoenix. Most real assholes I run into through my business are assholes to the core, simple guys, but Jobs seemed more complex. Like his asshole-ness was so completely integrated into his personality that it was more easily forgiven.
But I’m not reading the book because I’m fascinated by Steve Jobs; I’m reading it because I have been an Apple customer for more than 25 years, and it’s like reading my own history.
Ah, with fond memories I recall the Macintosh, the PowerMac, and the G3. Some of them are sitting in my garage. I can’t bear to destroy or wipe the hard drives, so I can’t give them away. The will probably sit in my garage until they rust. They are relics already. They will never turn into an antique. Even now I smile thinking about the days of a smiley Mac face and how that image appearing on my computer monitor meant everything was all right with the world. No frowny faces. Plus, one can always depend on a Mac. You can’t say that about Windows.
Between house renovations and in the midst of my real estate endeavors in the 1990s, I worked on the side for a few years as a communications director at a nonprofit in Minnesota for the second largest industry in Minnesota: printing. I outfitted that nonprofit with Macs. Networked the computers myself. Signed up all of the employees for AOL. Even when the president who is now long dead subscribed to DSL (to track internet activity, among other reasons), I still kept a modem under my desk and used it with muted sound for personal activities.
Today, I own iPads, an iPod, iShuffle, iPhone, a desktop Power Mac, a PowerBook with state-of-the-hard drive drive, and I’m an iTunes customer. Do you know that Apple does not make its own product to transfer music between all of your devices and one has to pay a third-party vendor for that service? This is what happens when Steve Job dies.
Where Not to Go for a Massage in Land Park
One of the best ways for this agent to deal with a million and one little crises in Sacramento real estate is to head for the nearest spa for a Swedish massage. It’s been about a year since I’ve been over to the spa on 6th Street at Southside Park, but it’s been on my mind recently. The reason is a seller of a home near Southside Park met with me at my real estate office in Midtown last week to talk about selling a family home on U Street. That home is right around the corner from a certain bed and breakfast spa, but when I mentioned the Spa, he did not realize it was there, although it’s been in business at that location for years.
This Spa at Southside Park — the name of which is not relevant– is close to my home in Land Park, and I consider myself a regular client, even though it’s been a while since I made an appointment. I called on Friday and left a message. When nobody called back, I called again and left another message. Around noon on Saturday, I called a third time and this time a live person answered the phone. She promised to check on an appointment and call me back in 10 minutes. I waited an hour and called her again.
The employee at the Spa said she had left a voice mail. What number did she call? Turns out she had written down my number incorrectly and left a voice mail on somebody else’s phone. And she had called not in 10 minutes as promised but 30 minutes later, she confessed. See, this is the thing — you don’t tell a person you will call them back in 10 minutes and then not do it. Plus, you make sure you have called the right number.
Gah.
All the more reason to have a massage. These people can be irritating. But, wait, it gets better. Then the owner called me an hour before my appointment. She said her employee forgot to obtain my credit card number to verify the appointment. My appointment was in one hour, for crying out loud. I find it odd that you need to pressure me for my credit card number to assure that I will show up, even though I am a regular client, I complained. She glossed over that comment and demanded my credit card number.
In retrospect, I should have refused and hung up the phone. I considered it. But then I would not have received a massage.
Which, as it turned out, would not have been a big loss. It was unlike any Swedish massage I’ve ever had. Lots of stroking over and over. Not much pressure, even though I requested more pressure. A Swedish massage is a little bit like a pancake: you bake one side, flip it and do the other. When I turned over, I received a lot of stroking down each side of my neck and then there were hands on my head, squeezing here and there. I was pronounced done.
Where did they find this guy? Did they yank him out behind the counter at Mak’s gas station?
I asked if this Spa was under new ownership. Yes, it is.
There is a massage place over on 19th Street in Midtown. It’s a bit further to drive and not as convenient but I imagine they’re doing a bang-up business there. I can see why. There is also a spa on Riverside in Land Park, which is even closer to my home, that I should check out. Because this former client won’t be going back to that place at Southside Park.
The Difference Between a Challenge and a PITA for a Sacramento REALTOR
There is a big difference between a challenge and a pain-in-the-ass (PITA) when it comes to Sacramento real estate for a REALTOR. A challenge presents obstacles that beg to be overcome and resolved, whereas a PITA just gets worse and nothing will fix those problems. It’s sometimes difficult to figure out which is which when they first appear in front of me. I like to try to help every buyer and seller who contact this Sacramento REALTOR. But when I start to question why-oh-why am I working on a house, that’s a definite clue that I should not.
I am not afraid of hard work. I don’t care how complicated a situation presents, I am confident that I will find a way to make it work out. It’s why I am successful. In fact, it’s how I sell hundreds of homes. It’s how, for example, that since 2006 I’ve sold more short sales than any other agent in town. So many agents would not touch those houses with a 10-feet pole. But not this agent. I welcome challenges. It’s how I turned into an exceptional Sacramento REALTOR.
If you have a difficult to home to sell, I’m your agent. I’ll do it. I gain deep satisfaction by successfully closing the seemingly impossible. By the same token, I welcome the easy-to-sell homes and I do a bang-up job selling homes in Land Park, East Sacramento and Elk Grove, all the way in some cases to Lincoln. The really nice homes in Sacramento owned by trouble-free sellers balances out the problematic sales. I take the good with the bad.
So, when a seller called, wiping away tears through our discussion about selling a certain home in Elk Grove, I decided to help her. Yes, I can be a sucker for a sob story. I sometimes feel as though if I don’t do it, who will? Many agents don’t like problems and they won’t work on situations fraught with difficulties. She faces an extremely complicated situation, made ten-fold by a super hard-to-sell property. Whatever pushed her to the edge meant she had to take action, pronto. I stopped what I was doing and jumped on this for her. Took copious notes. Shot photos. Inspected. Qualified. Put together a game plan, gathered required documents.
This went on for a two-week period. Finally, we were ready to go on the market. No more frantic text messages. No more interpreters. We were set. This seller’s 3-year battle was about to come to an end. Then, the seller emailed to say the timing wasn’t quite right. Maybe some other time? I guess there is a reason this has been going on for three years. It has nothing to do with me. It will never get resolved through a real estate agent. That nagging thought about why was I doing this vanished, because I’m not doing it. Not now, not ever.
It’s not a challenge. It’s a PITA. In those situations, a Sacramento REALTOR has to say no.
