peter principle

Your Sacramento Realtor Should Rise Above the Incompetency Plague

A competent Sacramento Realtor

Incompetency is not a foreign concept in any profession

I am a Sacramento Realtor my clients can rely upon. That is not a statement I take lightly because, believe me, I have my share of interactions with others that seem to be plagued by incompetency, like it’s a disease that spreads. Things fall through the cracks. People don’t do their jobs or are inept at their jobs, and it can be frustrating. I never want a client to say their experience with me was frustrating or that I let them down.

It’s not uncommon to hear agents say the reason they went into Sacramento real estate was because their previous agents were idiots, and they want to protect others from their own bad experiences. I can understand that. There are times I have to do the other agent’s job in a transaction, and I just do it for them without expectation that I will receive an acknowledgment of gratitude.

I’m always looking for ways things can go wrong and trying to prevent those things from happening. I think ahead. I can’t say it’s not unnerving at times, but giving into frustration doesn’t solve the issues at hand. My sister says I have the optimistic energy level of a 5-year-old, which sort of threw me for a loop because I don’t see myself that way, but perhaps in comparison to her low-key approach, I do.

There are times I do not trust any professional’s competence. Like last Friday, I was at the hospital for a routine examination, waiting in a small room without any magazines nor cellphone reception. After 20 minutes went by, I poked my head out the door. The hall was empty. No folder was attached to my door. I roused a hospital employee to go on the hunt for my folder. She returned laughing that it had been placed on the wrong desk. I shudder to think how long I would have sat in that room if I hadn’t spoken up. Incompetency.

Or yesterday, when I came home to discover the plumber who was supposed to have installed a new control board in our Rheem tankless water heater had left, and we still had no hot water pressure and the control panel was dead. I did not want to have to figure out the problem nor read the installation manual, yet I did. I had to call the plumber back to install the programmer chip. I don’t want to know these things. I don’t want to do a plumber’s job. Incompetency.

When I spotted the plumber outside thumbing through the pages of the tankless water heater manual and looking puzzled, I went one step further and called Rheem to get a tech on the line who could walk my plumber through the installation process. Incompetency. The control panel is now working but the hot water flow fluctuates and, since it was 5 PM at Rheem, the tech claimed it was a plumbing issue not a tank issue and hung up.

I opened my mail last night to discover that Citibank has approved me for a special loan that I did not apply for. Plus, buried in its 12 pages, I see it plans to charge me an annual $50 fee for this Custom Credit Line I did not apply for nor authorize. I called customer service, some yo-yo in another state, who said I must have wandered into a branch office by mistake and opened the loan in error when I haven’t been to Citibank. Incompetency. Probably violates banking laws, too.

Given the above string of incompetencies that seem to unfold daily, you can see that I don’t mind tracking down another agent’s lender and sending the contracts she should have sent. Because it’s all around us. However, I can assure you, a client will never say these sorts of things about my services as a Sacramento Realtor.

Types of Sacramento Mortgage Lenders Who Don’t Give a Crap

Mortgage Lenders SacramentoThere are many reasons to use a local mortgage broker when buying a home in Sacramento, but there are sometimes more reasons to rely on a person who is paid on commission over a person who is paid a salary. Yeah. It makes sense. I’m not saying every salaried person hates their job, but enough do that they often develop lackadaisical attitudes. A person paid on commission cannot afford a “who gives a crap” attitude or she’ll end up standing in the soup lines.

It’s probably not even a conscious thing. These guys don’t go into the bank to work with a screw-you mentality, and they probably don’t actually plan to mess up a home buyer’s closing, but dollars to doughnuts they are not emotionally invested in anybody’s time to move. They’re not the guys sitting on packed boxes, twiddling thumbs and staring at their silent iPhones. They’re the people for whom the lunch hour is but minutes away and there’s a new place down the street they’ve been meaning to go to try the tacos. They punch out and go.

Meanwhile, calls go to voice mail or the lender’s voicemail box is full. Emails go unanswered. When the lenders do respond, it’s to say the file is still in underwriting, and they let it go at that, feeling they have fully explained the quandary about why the buyers can’t move into their new home over the weekend. Where did they put that appraisal? It was right there on their desktop a moment ago. Oh, look, here’s a YouTube video of a cat chasing chicken treats.

It’s not just banks that employ these types of people on their payroll, credit unions are guilty of this, too. The employees are just doing a job to the best of their ability. I think it’s the Peter Principle on display. Perhaps they’ve risen to their own level of incompetence.

Of course, there are commissioned individuals who develop poor work ethics, too. I’m not saying all people on commission are motivated, but if I would have to choose between a banking institution or a local mortgage broker, I’m going with the Sacramento mortgage broker whose personal reputation is on the line and whose track record speaks volumes. They all have access pretty much to the same bag o’ money. Why not pick one who gives a crap?

 

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