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.