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Do You Really Have to Interview 3 Agents in Sacramento?
A home seller in Elk Grove figured he should interview 3 real estate agents in person because, well, he didn’t really know for certain, because somebody said that he should interview 3 agents. That somebody might have even been me; I write a lot of online content about real estate. But that advice doesn’t apply to me, I laughed. For starters, most people who call me to come over have already decided they want to hire me.
They’ve read my Weintraub reviews; my clients love me. They’ve perused my website and know I’ve got 40 years of experience. Flipped through my blogs. Studied the photos of my cats, checked out my travels on Pinterest. They know who I’m married to, the places I’ve previously worked, the addresses of hundreds of homes I’ve sold, the type of vegetation in my garden, what kind of Nikon I use, how late I sleep in, the awards I’ve won, and they know more about me than my husband knows and more than I will ever recall.
They probably also know about the day my underwear fell off in the middle of Albertson’s grocery store in Costa Mesa. Yeah, the elastic just went kaput while I was pawing through the potatoes. There I was in the produce aisle, in a yellow sundress under bright lights, when I realized a catastrophe was about to hit. I felt the elastic go ka-ping! Squeezing my legs together in an effort to keep the fabric from slipping and toting a bag of potatoes on my hip, I tried to quietly slip around the corner. Maneuvering a grocery cart with one hand is difficult, especially when the wheels go every which way.
Then, right there at the corner where canned tomato paste meets canned tomatoes, my underwear fell to the floor. First and last time that’s ever happened. I quickly kicked the cramped fabric under the ledge, along with loose rolling wasabi peas. I figured if I kept my eyes level and did not look down, that runaway garment did not belong to me, and I did not to have claim it or even pretend to recognize it.
Now, I’ll do an interview over the phone, but much of the time when somebody says they want to interview 3 agents, they only want to pick my brain. They want to know how they should stage their home, how much it is worth, along with tips and tricks for selling it. They aren’t really looking for a real estate agent because they already have one, but the one they have isn’t as experienced so they call me. Such a waste of time I spend chasing supposed leads.
This means I have to find a way to explain what I do and give people a reason to choose me as their real estate agent without necessarily meeting in person. No easy task. Of course, there is FaceTime, and that works well for people who feel the need to stare into my brown eyes. Unless, of course, I have fooled them by inserting my brilliant blue contact lenses. Or, they can just decide to hire the Sacramento real estate agent all my clients trust. You don’t have to interview 3 agents in person.
If You’re Tired of Your Sacramento Agent
It seems like lately I’ve been contacted by sellers and friends of sellers who want to cancel their existing listings and list with me. For whatever reasons, they are unhappy or they feel like they are not getting the service they expected. Sometimes, this is the fault of the listing agent and sometimes it is not. I won’t know until I actually talk with the sellers and hear the story. However, there are always two sides to a story.
Like yesterday, a seller contacted me to say she wanted to buy a home in East Sacramento. Apparently, she is selling a home in Natomas and has decided that she and her husband should try to buy a short sale in East Sacramento, a home priced around $300,000 to $400,000 that would actually be worth $500,000 to $600,000. Yes, I know what you are thinking right now, dear reader. You are thinking that I should have hung up the phone or not corresponded with this particular person, but President Obama says we should be nice to people who have mental deficiencies. That a mental disease is not a reason to shun people or pick on them or discriminate against them.
I wanted to make sure I heard this person correctly and to double check if she had indeed put her home on the market in Natomas. So I queried as to whether she was asking me to list her home in Natomas and buy a new home East Sacramento. She replied that her home was already listed by an agent but her agent was too busy to help her buy a home in East Sacramento.
That didn’t make sense. Agents are rarely “too busy” to help a client. It’s what we do for a living. We sell real estate. Even if an agent was otherwise occupied, perhaps taking a vacation, for example, an agent would refer the client to another agent who had time. There must be something else going on. So, I asked the person to give me her agent’s name and phone number.
That was the last I heard from her.
Generally, I will call other agents before accepting a listing. Just to hear the other side of the story and to assure the agent that I am not in the business of soliciting other agent’s clients. That’s not how I do business. I don’t swipe somebody else’s clients. Most of the time what I discover is there is a lack of communication. Sometimes, the relationship terminated due to agent ineptness or carelessness or inexperience. But rarely is it malicious as people sometimes suspect.
If I spot a listing that is on the market for a few days and then canceled, generally, that’s not a listing I want to take. It’s a clear signal there is something wrong, and let’s just say it’s not the agent.
