Today’s rant is all about Toronto Realtors – not the many great ones who conduct their business with integrity and professionalism. But the Other Ones. Most fall into one of the following categories:
The Angry, Bitter Realtor
She’s been in the business too long. She complains about her clients, she complains about evening showings, she complains about weekend offers. She reminisces about ‘the good old days’ when this fancy Interweb-thing didn’t interfere with her business. Trying to reach her? Call the paging service.
The Nickel-and Dime Realtor
This one is easy to spot – he’s the one charging the agent who finds a buyer for his listing (the “co-operating agent,” otherwise known as The Other Guy) $50 for the marketing that HE did to sell HIS client’s property. Really? You want me to pay for your marketing? (And all you spent was $50?!)
The Greedy Realtor
This one is usually listing a property ‘exclusively’ (i.e. not on MLS), which means that the only buyers are likely to come through…you guessed it–HIM. They are so desperate to make double their commission by finding the Buyer AND representing the Seller that they discourage their Sellers from letting the market decide how much their property is worth–through exposure on MLS. At open houses, they are more concerned with finding new clients for themselves than actually selling the house they are open-housing.
The Questionable-Ethics Realtor
This one always seem to walk like the line between right and wrong. They see grey when the rules are clearly black or white. They represent both a buyer AND their seller in a bidding war – and their buyer somehow always wins. They use reverse-411 look-up to stalk Sellers whose listings have expired. Dates not right? Missing some signatures? Relax, don’t worry about it! (It’s not like this is a legally binding transaction worth hundreds of thousands of dollars or anything…) Basically a walking lawsuit-in-waiting.
The Know-it-All
They have attitude – and usually don’t have the knowledge or experience to back it up. They BS the answers to important questions. A tone of condescension is so natural it’s like a permanent accent. The belief that a snazzzy car and innapropriately expensive suit somehow replaces competence and cordiality. Also commonly known as “douchebags.”
The Lazy Realtor
They don’t bother to take photos for their listings. Or they take them on their phone. (check out some examples of our favourites here). They don’t seem to think sellng a house is important enough to exert themselves–e.g. On day 3 of a new listing they still haven’t bothered to put up the lockbox so that potential buyers can see it. They don’t bother marking the lockbox so you can actually find it. They can’t be bothered to stay up past 10pm to deal with an offer (true story). Oh, and you can’t find their cell phone number anywhere.
The I’m-too-Busy for You Realtor
You know this one from their business card – they are probably holding a cell phone in their picture (‘I’m so busy I don’t even have time to pose for this photo!’). They don’t return phone calls; they are too busy to call their client and tell them you have an offer for them; they incessantly talk about how busy they are (yet they don’t seem to sell a lot of houses). “I’m doing you a favour just by answering your call. You have now grown tiresome. Go away.” Busy doesn’t mean you’re a super agent – it probably just means you have bad time management skills.
The Out-of-Town Realtor
Usually the buyer’s parents’ friend who has his real estate license and works somewhere in the suburbs. He asks a hundred questions he should know the answers to: “Is Queen Street near public transportation?” He doesn’t know the market and wastes everybody’s time with an offer 30K below asking on the third day on the market…and actually thinks he has a hope in hell of you letting your Sellers accept it.
Thankfully, there are thousands of great Toronto Realtors out there – and when we come up against the Other Ones, well it just makes good blog material.
As always, our opinions are in no way representative of Bosley Real Estate Ltd, Brokerage-in fact they might not appreciate this blog at all 🙂
