When you hire a real estate agent, are you sure they don’t have another job? Would you mind if they did?
The past two years have been challenging for agents to make ends meet. When times were good, a lot of people entered the business. If those agents didn’t develop the skills to manage their business, they may be having trouble now. Many have had to leave the business or take part-time jobs to help pay their bills. A few are even losing their own homes to foreclosure.
I recently heard that so far this year there was a 7% reduction to membership in the Columbus Board of Realtors®. The source of this information told me that they expect even more to get out of the business by the end of the year since our first invoice for 2009 dues was just received and half is payable the end of December. Our annual dues are just under $800.
Our job is a little like OB Dr’s … but without the big bucks. We’re “on call” 7 days a week, usually at least 12 hours a day. We work when clients do and when they don’t. We might get a phone call at 8:00 in the evening from another agent saying they’re faxing an offer. Then we must contact our client to review the offer with them. One year I even spent the better part of New Year’s Eve with my sellers going over an offer and writing up a counter offer.
When an agent has another job, they simply can’t be responsive to critical phone calls or managing the details of a home that’s in contract. When they’re at their other job they can’t receive or respond to faxes and may not be able to accept personal phone calls. If they do try to cram in a contract or counter offer in between jobs, they may be prone to making mistakes in the wording of the legal document. I’ve been on the receiving end of those, and they always require a counter offer from the seller to “clean up” the contract. The most frustrating aspect of being in-contract with such an agent is that it forces everyone else involved in the transaction to work around the schedule of the agent’s other job.
There ARE some agents who are supported by a spouse’s income, so they may “dabble” in real estate primarily working for family and friends. That’s a different scenario than having another job as they don’t have the time constraints.
If it’s important to you to have a full-time agent working for you, then be sure to ask if they have another job or think they may need to get one during the time they’re working for you. This is an issue that probably won’t go away anytime soon, as there are simply too many agents vying for the lower overall business that is available. Weeding out the less skilled, lower performing agents is viewed as positive for the industry. As with any industry, it’s Survival of the Fittest.
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Elaine Reese
614-825-8860Real Living HER
2 responses so far ↓
Ryan Hukill // November 10, 2008 at 9:23 am
Elaine, you’ve summed it up nicely. In my experience, working on the opposite side of part-time agents has always been ugly. Many mistakes are made in their representation of their clients, which can sometimes benefit my client. It’s frustrating though to work around their limited availability, waiting on return phone calls, etc. This is a fast-paced business and slow response time can often cause one to miss out on the house they want, even in this ‘down’ market.
Elaine Reese // November 10, 2008 at 9:44 am
Ryan, your third sentence is something that is too often the occurrence. I received a contract this past year with a MAJOR mistake. My clients were very tempted to sign the offer as it was, but the mistake was so major that the buyer would not have obtained financing and thus, the contract would eventually fail. Of course, shame on the buyer for not reading what they signed. They also should have caught the mistake.