Email Elizabethdealing with unreasonable people
Selling a House Four Times Means Getting Screamed At
An agent who is selling a house four times is only paid once.
A seller’s partner recently exploded over selling a house four times. It’s not unusual that this can happen in a real estate transaction, especially when the seller’s partner is not involved in the day-to-day particulars of the escrow and, let’s face it, who else is a seller gonna blame? The listing agent is the only other person available. I suppose the seller could blame the escrow officer or title officer, and that would make about as much sense, but no, getting screamed at can come with the territory of being a top producing Sacramento listing agent.
Sooner or later, an agent will encounter a seller who doesn’t realize that when an agent is selling a house four times, it’s not because the listing agent wants to or isn’t doing her job. In fact, many listing agents would bail after the second buyer cancellation. Those agents would figure there is something wrong with the house because having two buyers in a row cancel is pretty peculiar. But it does happen. And sometimes it is the house. Sometimes it is a quirk in the market.
Sellers do not realize that listing agents cannot talk to the buyers in the transaction. The listing agent does not meet the buyer at all. There is no communication between the listing agent and the buyer. Often, the listing agent engages very little with the buyer’s agent as well. Our purchase contracts allow a buyer to cancel for pretty much any reason without penalty within the first couple weeks.
Listing agents cannot predict whether a buyer will cancel. When an agent who wants to write a backup offer asks if I have a solid purchase offer, I have to honestly respond: I do not know. It seems OK, all the correct boxes are checked, the lines are filled in, the preapproval is received, but is the buyer committed? No Realtor alive has the foggiest clue. There is no way to get a clue about it. Buyers often flake out. A buyer’s agent won’t warn anybody.
Although it would be nice if they did. Can you imagine a buyer’s agent submitting an offer and saying: “Hey, my buyer is a squirrel. She has made other offers and canceled. I don’t trust her to close.” No, of course not. They all say “my buyers LOVE your home.” They include dozens of heart emojis with their text. Give me a break.
But when I am selling a house four times and getting paid only once, it means I am committed to the transaction. I am not bailing on the seller. I am loyal. I work on that sale diligently until it closes. When a seller’s partner calls — a person I have never spoken to or had any contact with — to scream that I am the worst real estate agent ever because I sold his house four times and it closed, I don’t know what to say.
A Negotiation Tactic for Sacramento Realtors Dealing With Unreasonable Demands
Sellers deserve a Sacramento Realtor who is fearless with strong negotiation skills.
Whenever I am faced with a dilemma, the way this Sacramento Realtor works her way out of it — as hokey as this might sound to some of you — is to consider my fiduciary duty to the client first. Forget what I might think or what the other parties might want, which negotiation tactic is best for my seller? The answer is almost always crystal clear at that point. That’s a little secret I pass along from me to you. It keeps things more simple when focused.
Notice I didn’t say it makes my job easier because much of the time it doesn’t. The negotiation that is best for the seller almost always involves extra work and it can be complicated. Not only that, but I can’t go around making unilateral decisions without my client’s acknowledgement and permission. It’s not my house nor my transaction. That’s a good point to remember. As a Sacramento Realtor, you can’t get too wrapped up in somebody else’s situation that you start to make decisions for them. Because that would be bad.
It can be a fine line to walk. To want to protect your client and negotiate what is best while at the same time not making the decisions for your client. It’s in the approach though. I’ll give you an example that happened a few days ago on a home that just closed escrow on Friday.
The buyer’s agent has had terrible experiences in the past with tenants, which might have clouded his judgment somewhat. Although this home was not tenant occupied, he felt the family who lived there acted like tenants, and that was enough, probably through transference, for his buyer to submit a Request for Repair asking for the squeaky front door to be unsqueaked and a minor hole in the closet patched. The buyer asked for a few other things, including shampooing the carpet, and he tried to force the family to move prior to closing.
While we were pondering how to respond to this unreasonable request at the 11th hour, the agent hit me with an email to say he also decided they would prefer to close escrow on Monday and not on Friday. Our purchase contract stipulated a closing on Friday. The seller was about ready to agree to credit a small amount of money to the buyer to compensate for his anguish over the squeaky front door until the buyer’s agent came up with an additional demand.
At that point, the seller rejected the Request for Repair outright. In addition, I mentioned to the seller we should submit a Demand to Close Escrow because the buyer appeared to require a kick in the seat of his pants. She wasn’t sure what that meant, I suspect, but she agreed to the negotiation. You really can’t renegotiate a contract, I explained to the buyer’s agent, without an agreement from the seller, and while I could not speak for the seller, I had a suspicion she would cancel the contract if they tried.
The best way to cancel a contract is to first send a Demand to Close. The buyer’s agent forced us to produce it. That negotiation tactic was the best protection for the seller. The seller has less to lose than the buyers, I pointed out. Now the home would be vacant, making it easier to show, which means we would get more showings and, in our tight market, probably a higher offer. Yeah, let’s go back on the market.
Painful to say, but the right negotiation for the seller.
We closed escrow on Friday on time. No Request for Repair, either.
When a Sacramento Realtor focuses on the negotiation that is best for her seller and takes herself out of the situation, the solution is apparent.
Pleasing All of the People as a Sacramento Real Estate Agent
To paraphrase John Lydgate, a 14th-century English monk and poet, a real estate agent can’t please all of the people all of the time. In today’s Sacramento real estate market, an agent might wonder if she pleases all of the people some of the time but there’s no need to focus energy on that question since she pleases some of the people practically all of the time — those people being her clients.
It’s nice if everything balances in a real estate transaction, but it’s not always possible. Sometimes, an agent has to pick which side she wants to please, and most agents will always choose her client. Well, the ones with any brains.
The REALTOR Code of Ethics says an agent must treat all parties honestly and fairly, but it doesn’t stipulate making the other side — the side we do not represent — happy. Sure, we hope they’re happy and speaking strictly for myself I’d never want to purposely upset somebody else, but we can’t control what other people think, say or do. We can only control our own behavior.
This is why I get to be the rational and calm person. The agent who sticks to the purchase contract by managing performance and ensuring the transaction closes. I get to deal with all kinds of personalities in this business. I get the screaming hysteria, the weeping and sobbing poor me’s, the F-150s in a China shop, the indignant hyenas, the bipolar-sans-meds, the threatening gorillas, the barking dogs, the guys with explosives strapped to their backs, and that’s just the agents.
It’s a balancing act, sometimes, to try to keep that noise away from my clients but still deliver important information to my sellers.
I went to lunch last week with a Sacramento agent I met years ago on an agent website. She lives in Rancho Cordova and still sells real estate into her senior years, a ways past retirement, and I love her to pieces. She lamented that agents have become more mean lately. I wonder if it’s the transition into a normal real estate market that sets so many of them afire?
It’s tempting at times to return fire, that’s only normal, but it’s better for all concerned to keep my eyes on the horizon. That’s why so many sellers hire Elizabeth as their Sacramento real estate agent. Pleasing all of the people all of the time is unreasonable.
