Last night are 8:30 PM I got a call from the Weichert Lead Network telling me I was about to get a call from a lead. I was convinced I had my phone on vacation and wouldn't be available to take the Weichert Lead Network calls but I guess somewhere along the line of deciding to put my phone on vacation and putting it on vacation I forgot.
When I got the person on the line I scrambled to pull up the listing they had looked at that had caused them to call in in the first place. In talking with them this felt like a good one. Much better than the other lead network calls I had gotten where the person is either under a fake name or it is a message for me to call them and they never answer the phone.
This was a real live human being I was talking to and when I set up the appointment they didn't argue or disagree. They said they would be in my office at 11:00 AM the next day to go over that property and others like it. The one small problem was that the property they wanted to see was under contract. Of course I figured this was a home buyer and they wanted to buy a home, and no matter where they went or who they talked to that property would be under contract.
People in general don't like bait and switch tactics, but as I do not control the product those kinds of tactics are impossible. I figured the average person would be able to understand this and would appreciate the work I did to find similar properties to show them. Small problem with that line of thinking is that think of the average human being and half the population is worse than that.
Still they had an appointment set up and were coming in to meet with me. I have confidence in myself and figure that once I get them in the office and talk to them about their needs everything will work itself out. The first indication I got that there was going to be a problem was when I got a call around 10:30 telling me they were going to be a little late. I figured this was fine and they would show up around 11:15 or 11:30.
That was misguided of me as they were more than a little late and showed up around 12:30. The next thing that was a little off was that the woman I had talked to looked much more like a girl and had brought her aunt and what looked like her little sister with her. I decided to proceed and figured the Weichert Finance manager in our office would take care of those qualification issues.
The conference room happened to be booked and I had a bit of trouble finding a place to talk to them. I couldn't find a place to sit down and had to stand. I got less than a page into the buyers consultation before she started pushing me to just show her the listing she had called about. No what I should have done is to defer this question until the end and just say we will get to it, but I didn't and it is a lesson learned.
I went ahead and broke the news to her that the one she wanted to see was under contract. She asked if she could see it anyway and I said no she really couldn't, but that I had pulled 9 very similar listings and we could see any of them that she wanted. She of course didn't want to see them without seeing more pictures which to me is odd, because seeing something with eyeballs beats pictures any day.
She refused though saying that her aunt had to be somewhere else. I mentioned I could e-mail the listings to here but that I wanted a signed buyers agency agreement. She said she wouldn't sign anything and I went over the form with her explaining that it more obligates me than it does her as she can end it at anytime. I also told her we could date it for 24 hours so that I could e-mail the listings to her.
She finally just said she only wanted to see that one house and didn't care about anything else. I asked if she had any motivation in moving and why would she meet with a Realtor if she didn't want to buy a home. She repeated she just wanted to see that home and I wished her well with that and sent her on her way.
If someone is admittedly opposed to the idea of working with me then it is my suspicion that that isn't a person I want to work with. I still find it odd that buyers don't want to sign an agreement that gives them representation that they otherwise wouldn't get. At least one good thing came out of all this. I ended up getting my car washed in anticipation of having strange people in it.
I learn something new in real estate everyday
so you don't have to
David Huzzard
www.SuperNoVaRealty.com
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