Perfecting Communication Skills in Sacramento Real Estate Involves the Truth

Sometimes agent communication skills are akin to crickets.

Everybody in the world has their own way of perfecting communication skills. For some, it involves sticking their head in the sand and hoping someday it will all go away. Avoidance isn’t the best solution in most situations. Certainly not in Sacramento real estate, which is whipping by at a fast pace today. For myself, I try to include a bit of humor when I’m working on my communication skills. The trouble with that, though, is not everybody shares the same sense of humor.

A buyer called yesterday to say he was obtaining a preapproval letter to get a $100,000 loan. I asked how much was he putting down? $300,000? Well, that got a big laugh, but unfortunately, it’s also pretty close to reality.

Trying to interpret how a response will be received is the first key to good communication skills. I’ve counseled agents who were really upset, mad, to the boiling point, furious, and I suggest they type an email, detailing all the reasons why they are angry. Then, delete everything but the smallest of words and the shortest of sentences. Be as clear as possible by stating the facts and then ask for a resolution. Don’t deter from the truth. Not only will this diffuse the emotions, but it will bring the real problem into focus.

The second key is don’t try to change other people. Because you can’t, nor should you. When a buyer’s agent, for example, does not return paperwork or otherwise ignores communications, it’s a tricky situation when I find myself as the listing agent having to explain to the seller that the other side has not responded to our requests. Sellers seem to think we listing agents can club those guys over the head, but it doesn’t really work that way. Further, not every agent responds in a professional manner in this industry.

Agents also tend to turn to a bazillion excuses as to why they let their business slip through the cracks: emotional issues, health issues, deaths in the family, vacations . . . all those things the rest of us call getting through life. Or, they use the California motto: Dude, I flaked.

They want to be cut some slack. I can understand that. But I also have a responsibility to my sellers to keep the parties in contract, and you have no idea how many contracts expire because buyer’s agents do not return documents. My third suggestion is to always stick to the facts. I look at this way, it’s the email I will produce in court.

I feel in some ways I should share my expectations of other agents at the beginning of transactions to please respond to emails, voicemails and text messages. That would go over like a lead balloon. They would find it insulting because they don’t believe they are lacking communication skills. Still, it’s a struggle when agents vanish in the middle of a transaction. But this is the way real estate works with about half of the population. When you close as many transactions as I do, you see all sides of Sacramento real estate. I take responsibility for my own communication skills, and I keep the interests of my sellers forefront. But the truth is while we can’t always choose the agents we to into escrow with, we can choose our own responses.

I would not want anybody to say Elizabeth Weintraub wasn’t direct and truthful or failed to respond. Well, one agent objected to an email last week. I pointed out the number of times I tried to contact her. Making a joke, I called her response: crickets. She did not “appreciate” the word “crickets” and while it is true there was no singing or chirping involved, there was also no response. Besides, to be completely correct, the sound you hear from crickets is called stridulation, created by rubbing their top and bottom wings together (not their legs, like some people believe).