Working With Sacramento Realtors Who Are Not Full-Time Agents

Communicating can be difficult when working with Sacramento Realtors who are part-time.

Before you end up working with Sacramento Realtors who are not full-time agents without your knowledge, you can fix that by asking your agent if she is part-time. We have more than 5,000 Realtors in the Sacramento Valley, and not all of them are full-time. I don’t think there are any agents who begrudge another person the opportunity to supplement her income, but some of the problems inherent with being a part-time agent can be very challenging for a full-time agent to deal with. If full-time agents struggle with this kind of relationship, what does that say about their clients?

This also brings up the question of whether a part-time agent should disclose that status to the full-time agent. I’m sure many will say as long as they can do the required job, it doesn’t make any difference. But doing the required job means answering your cellphone and responding to urgent matters on a daily basis. It means communicating with the other side in a timely manner. It means taking care of your client as if you were full-time.

I’m not picking on part-time agents because this is also true of many full-time agents. A little known fact is an agent can work full-time in Sacramento real estate and sell only 3 or 4 houses a year, like about 90% of the agents in our Sacramento MLS. I am not making this up. I ran the stats in MLS. What are they doing the rest of the time when they are not working? I don’t know, I guess family things, perhaps gardening, volunteering at other jobs, pursuing personal interests that are not real estate related. Many are retirement age.

The public has this image of working with Sacramento Realtors who are full-time. To the public, full-time means agents should be available when the client needs them. That agents should work regular hours. It doesn’t mean an agent needs to be available at 10 PM but one should at least answer her phone during the day and / or respond to communications.

When you are working with Sacramento Realtors like the Elizabeth Weintraub Team, our goal is to ensure your needs are met and we stay on top of the transaction because we are all full-time Realtors. We work at minimum 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. We will do the part-time agent’s job, if necessary, to the extent we are allowed under the Realtor Code of Ethics. We also help new agents, when the need arises. We don’t discriminate. But maybe, just maybe their clients should.