Do Realtors in the City of Davis Prefer Dual Agency?

Do Realtors in the City of Davis prefer dual agency?

Realtors in the City of Davis called this real estate broker continuously yesterday. It was difficult to keep up with the phone calls, text messages and emails as I entered into a “no service” zone at a U. C. Davis Medical Center. That was kind of like the Twilight Zone. Eerily quiet. No zing, ping, snap, twinkle, or loud Louie-Louie song breakout while I sat in the waiting room. The doctors were 3 hours behind yesterday. Usually they are right on the button when I show up for my annual SI joint injection appointment. Yes, when you get to be an older real estate broker like me, sometimes you need an injection to keep the old body moving along another year.

The Realtors in the City of Davis were relentless. I figured it would be either me or my client, so it was better to make me the source of these telephone calls. That’s part of my job as a Realtor, to be the buffer. You see, once a listing is canceled or withdrawn from MLS, agents come out of the woodwork. In their excitement, some of those real estate agents don’t even notice that the listing has gone back on the market as a new listing. They still call the seller to beg for the chance to list the home. From their point of view, why not? Here’s a guy who wanted to sell and didn’t, for whatever reason. But still . . .

On the other hand, if a listing goes into Temporary Off Market status, the agents are prohibited from hounding, er, pursuing, the seller. The back story is I have a former client in Davis who wants to sell a home in Davis, and he asked me to list it in May with the hopes of going on the market at the end of June or early July, after a few repairs and sprucing up efforts. As things sometimes go, the projected on-market date was pushed further out a few days ago. MLS regulations are a listing can stay in off-market status for a maximum of 60 days. We would not be ready to go on the market by the end of July, so we were forced to take action on this particular listing.

To put the listing into TOM status requires going “active” in MLS for a few minutes and then off market. I asked the seller to sign a Modification of Terms reflecting this technicality. However, the Realtors in the City of Davis went crazy over this. One of the Realtors left me voice mails that referred twice to this “strange listing,” with a peculiar tone in her voice. I didn’t understand. Then, another Davis Realtor called and asked if this was one of those “games” that Realtors in the City of Davis apparently play or he thought they did. Due to no entiendo, I asked for clarification. What “game” is played by Realtors in the City of Davis, I asked?

I’m certainly not playing a game. Oh, you know, the Davis Realtor explained. You put the home on the market, take it off the market and then buyers call you directly (so you double-end the transaction). That had not occurred to me, probably because it is unethical. Anybody who knows me knows that is not how I operate. In fact, I prefer single representation. But apparently, in the close-knit community of Realtors in the City of Davis, real estate is, let’s say, different.