Land of the brokers: communication evolution
As most of you know, I am a person of sound self-esteem. That’s why I don’t take it personally when I don’t get calls back from other agents.
I remember when everyone in real estate had an answering machine. Yes, I am a dinosaur. The days of busy signals evolved into the age of voicemail and call interrupt – I mean -- call waiting. By the early 1990s, most agents had cell phones, but still used an office land line for business calls.
In the days of yore, the norm was that some offices had paid staff that did all the scheduling; some had agents doing required hours on the phone scheduling for everyone. Sometime in the past few years, a majority of agents began to either use MA PASS or do their own scheduling. A few offices still do their scheduling from their front desk. They are few and far between.
With a large number of agents who schedule for themselves comes a new set of protocols. Since agents use cell phones as the place to call, my scheduling calls interrupt business as well as social time. This gave rise, initially, to comments like “I’m driving, can you call back and leave a voice mail with your contact information and the time?” The next generation of this is “please email me your contact information and the time.”
Now, some appointments are wholly made by email. That works fine unless my initial email lands in their junk folder… (It happens.)
Recent history: I wanted to show a two-family house on a Wednesday. I called on Monday. No call back. I tried again to show this property on the next Monday. Three calls later, I got the agent live. She’ll call back, she says. I email a follow-up the night before the scheduled showing. I get an email back that the tenants are not cooperating; it can’t be shown. Since then, the price has dropped. The agent never called back to see if my client still wants to see it. I had another agent who never called me back, ever. Her supervisor gave me the lockbox code after six calls to the agent, three emails to the agent, and two calls to the office. That property is, of course, empty and still for sale.
Beyond being a royal waste of my time, the true victims of this kind of behavior are the sellers. If the property isn’t being shown, it isn’t going to sell. Period. And, yes I do see more of this behavior in two and three family homes and low-end properties.
My questions are twofold:
1. Sellers, do you check to see how often your property is being shown? Do you know how your agent handles showings?
2. Has communication (particularly scheduling) changed in your business? Or is this a real estate agent thing?
