Q. Edyn, I’m growing frustrated with my real estate agent. They will not listen to what I want them to do. I’m in sales also and I operate by “The customer is always right.” Why won’t my real estate agent do what I want?
-frustated by real estate agent
A. Dear frustrated by real estate agent,
First, you could just have a bad real estate agent. Every industry has good and bad. I’m going to believe that your real estate agent is good at what they do though and answer your question based on that perspective. You mention you are in sales so you compare what you do to what we do. Yes, we both deal with people in our jobs and yes, we both have customers. In the real estate industry though, we can’t operate by “the customer is always right.”
Let me explain. For example- On the buyer’s side, it is our job to advise, inform, consult and educate. However, we can’t bend rules and do whatever we want or you want. In real estate sales our product is another person’s home and it is legally another person’s home, until we close the deal.
In real estate sales we have to answer to the owners of the property, the other agent (co-broke), our Broker, and the Wisconsin Department of Regulation and Licensing. In real estate sales, we are accountable to many different people, sources, and entities- besides just our customer. We have to follow rules and laws, or we could lose our license to sell real estate. (This would be similar to a lawyer being disbarred.)
When a customer asks us to do something that is not in our norm of opertion procedures, we ask ourselves three questions,
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Is this legal?
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Is this ethical?
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Does it make financial and business sense?
If the answer is YES to all three, we do it. If there is a “no” to any of the questions we don’t do what the customer is asking and try to advise, inform, consult and educate the customer as to why. So frustrated by real estate agent ask your agent why they are not doing what you want and listen. You might actually be asking your real estate agent to break a law in which case I’m sure you understand why it can’t be done. Or maybe your real estate agent is just lazy. If your real estate agent is lazy, I’m sorry, I can’t help you with that.
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