About Sacramento Realtors Being on Time

Being on time is important to this Sacramento Realtor for whatever life brings.

Being on time, you’re either one of those people or you aren’t. There are some of us who are obsessive about it. Especially this Sacramento Realtor. I set high standards for myself and meet them, particularly when it comes to being punctual. I’ve learned lessons about punctuality. For example, if you’re late boarding the bus, you’ll sit in the back row and puke. Plus, you will have earned the wrath of every other person on that bus you forced to wait. But pure common decency and respect for other people dictates that we should be on time for our appointments, whether it’s an appointment to speak to God (for some of you) or an appointment to meet the babysitter or an appointment to meet a Sacramento real estate client.

I rarely meet another person who is such a stickler for being on time as I am. However, I can report that my Hawaii broker Hella Rothwell is one of those individuals. She was often very early for her appointments. Early enough that during my recent Big Island wor-vacation she would knock on my hotel door while I’m still wrapped in a towel.

When I am on my way to meet with clients, if I run into unexpected heavy traffic on Business 80, I will text that I might be a few minutes late. I never want a seller staring at the clock and wondering where I am. It is a sign of respect to value another individual’s time. Yet I usually will allow time for small emergencies or sudden delays. I go so far as to type the property address into Google Maps and my time of departure to estimate my time of arrival. Then, I leave a little bit earlier than that. I’d say my on-time arrival is about 99.9%.

I recall years ago a fellow real estate agent sharing with me how he determines how long he would wait for another person who is late. In his world, he gave a person 15 minutes if they were a friend and 30 minutes if they were a client. That sounds so odd to me, because it implies that you devalue your own time somewhat in exchange for making money. That it is OK for a client to disrespect your time. To be fair, this is the same fellow who said it was always OK to make a U-Turn in the middle of the street because, “Hey, I’m in Sacramento real estate.”

Well, we are all different. What works for one Sacramento Realtor might not work for another. I give everybody 5 minutes. Doesn’t matter who you are. If you are not where you say you will be to meet me when I get there and there has been no communication, I will call or text 5 minutes later to find out if there is a delay. But then I’m a bit more proactive about being on time.