Full Service Foolishness

Once in band camp…no that is a different story.

Moving from real estate lead to closed real estate transaction can require us to do a lot of things we wouldn’t ordinarily do. We are all caregivers but when we take it too far we can get ourselves into a bind that doesn’t really work out for anyone.

One story about full service foolishness was the agent that when selling his first home he was willing to promise anything to get to the closing table. It was after all his first real estate sale.

“You need me to go pick up something at the store before I pick you up and drive you all over town? No problem”

“You need me to walk your dog so you can look at some properties online? No problem”

What the hell was I….err he thinking?

That is the worst thing that we can ever do. We need to remain a professional real estate agent but sometimes we forget the difference between good service and being a servant.

The truth is the real estate lead that came to this agent was one where the home buyer didn’t know what she wanted except for the fact that she wanted to be cared for and feel that someone out there was not just looking to sell her a home. These people are fine but a couple of boundaries are always a good idea.

The situation got so bad that the agent (me) actually agreed to move her after the closing on the house. As a person of their word I in fact moved the entire apartment in my car with no less than 5 trips to and from the apartment to the new house.  Then my broker took their 50% and some miscellaneous office charges and I realized that I would have made more money if I was just a mover.

The moral of the story is that people will treat us how we teach them to treat us and that is it. They don’t know how we feel or our time schedules or anything else as they are in home buying mode and in home buying mode the home buyers is thinking only about themselves, their needs and getting them met. There is nothing wrong with home buying mode but we need to be aware of it or we may as well buy a moving truck and turn in our license.