What's ANNOYING About Agents?

I had a great session today at my firm where we talked about the common questions that buyers and sellers will have for an agent and how to prepare for those questions- particularly if you are a newly registered or somewhat inexperienced agent (hey, we all start somewhere, right?).

I asked a question to some of the more experienced agents in the room.

Basically my thoughts were that the types of questions that someone would ask during a listing appointment are probably not the same criteria they use AFTER the fact to determine if they had a good experience or not.

Think about it- if someone is raving or venting about their real estate rep... are they saying

"They are amazing because they have access to MLS!"

or

"Use my guy, he had a sign in front of my property with his number on it so people could inquire"

Um... no. Let's get real. We all list on MLS (unless there is a reason not to). We all market properties as much as we can, in a lot of the same ways. We all have cell phones, we will all do up the offers, negotiate and protect your interests (at least I sure hope so).

No, when you hear someone raving (or ranting) about someone in this business the top three reasons are:

1 Communication.

Like any relationship- communication is the fundamental building block everything else is balanced on. If your agent doesn't communicate the way YOU want, and in a straightforward way.. the relationship isn't going to be good. We had a healthy debate about how to communicate with clients. Conventional wisdom says as much face to face and over the phone as possible. I love that Idea... but lets get real. I work with a lot of younger people. Our phone confuses us when it rings because we aren't used to the sound. At least until we have a really solid relationship and unless you are driving and have bluetooth- status quo is to text.

One way to annoy a millennial is to insist on face to face or phone meetings when they really just want to email or text. (I'm not talking about meetings to sign offers or news like "your closing is delayed" BTW. By that point- you're in a solid enough relationship that a call won't seem out of the blue).

The great thing about communication for an inexperienced rep? We don't have any bad habits to break. I don't have a billion distracting emails. I have a handful of amazing clients and I'm SUPER available for them. (But not annoyingly so!)

2 Overpromising and Under-Delivering.

Want to ruin your credibility fast? This is how you do it. And it's sadly common. Promising you can get a house for x$ less than list. Or that you will get multiple offers on their property. We can talk strategy and goals- but there are too many variables in real estate and all I can promise are things that are the direct result of MY actions.

3 Lack of Accountability.

People hire professionals for a reason. There are a LOT of options in real estate right now, and in all that noise when someone decides to work with me, ultimately I am accountable for the results. Blaming the market, another agent, the homeowner, or the weather doesn't make anyone want to work with you. You need to be the master of controlling all those variables and getting results. It's what we DO.

What do you think? Did I miss any of your "real estate agent" pet peeves?