The Other Agent

Still sleepy eyed, with a cup of coffee in hand, you turn your computer on to check the happenings on Facebook and see if anyone responded to your pictures and posts from the holiday dinner, yesterday. You spend about half an hour scrolling through, pour a second cup of coffee, and check what’s happening on Twitter, spend about ten minutes there and then decide to check your emails. Spam, (delete), spam, (delete), spam, (delete), best sales this weekend at… you spend ten minutes there and decide to delete that email, then one from Zillow appears. It’s a lead, (they all suck), you open it up and there is the contact information with email and phone number of someone in Louisville, Kentucky, inquiring about a listing, (not yours), from an agent you do not like to work with. Your mind goes back to the last transactions you worked with them; they never returned phone calls or emails, only text an answer, sometime later or sly-dialed to your voice mail to leave a message. They didn’t follow through, they actually lied about having done something and you had to drop everything at the last minute to save the closing and then, they didn’t show up to the closing, either time. You poured yourself another cup of coffee and prepared your email, with your company’s listings of homes equivalent to what they inquired about, with a final lie; the home you inquired about is pending. I look forward to working with you in your home buying decision. Please contact me when you would like to view these wonderful homes; sincerely… You push send, go back to Facebook and spend another twenty minutes responding to comments when the thought of that other agent crosses your mind, I hate working with them and then your phone rings. You look at the number, don’t recognize the area code and swipe them into voice mail. You head to the bathroom to shower and prepare for shopping and the long weekend. Thirty minutes later you notice the blue light flashing on your phone from an incoming message. You listen to the voice mail, it was the buyer from Louisville, they were coming into town tomorrow and would like to see some homes. Oh great, you have tickets to the big game tomorrow, you had plans to tailgate with your spouse and friends and didn’t want to spend time with a couple of tire kickers. You waited an hour and sly dialed them and left a message; I’m booked the entire day tomorrow, what time would you like to meet on Sunday, I’ll pick you up at your motel and we can spend the day together, sincerely… 

You headed out shopping when your phone rang again, this time you realized it was the person from Louisville, so you answered. They would be arriving around 10:30 the next day, would rent a car and drive pass the homes you suggested. You promised them you would do another search when you got back to your computer, for additional homes, as you were on an appointment with another customer, (you lied). Great, see you Sunday, looking forward meeting you, sincerely… 

You spend the rest of the day shopping, receive a call from a friend to meet for dinner, have several glasses of wine and make it home around 10:00, when you remembered to look up some more homes for the people coming in from Louisville. You pulled up the listings on MLS, checked off the top six in the price range the people from Louisville were looking at and emailed them.

The next day was great, you met your friends near the stadium, started eating and drinking around 10:00 and you didn’t hear your phone ring around 10:45 or didn’t pay attention to the blue light flashing as you took pictures of your adventures and posted them on Facebook. It was after 4:00 when your phone rang again and you realized you had had too much to drink to be talking with customers, so you swiped them into your voice mail. The game was great, your team won in a close game and you didn’t return home to well after midnight.

Still sleepy eyed, with a cup of coffee in hand, you turn your computer on to check the happenings on Facebook and see if anyone responded to your pictures and posts from the tailgating, yesterday. You spend about half an hour scrolling through, pour a second cup of coffee, and check what’s happening on Twitter, spend about ten minutes there and then you decide to check your emails. Spam, (delete), spam, (delete), spam, (delete), it was almost 10:30 when you remembered you promised the people from Louisville, you would pick them up and show them the houses and you noticed the blue light flashing on your phone. The first message was the folks arriving at the airport and asked if you had sent the other listings you were talking about. You went to your email and saw they were still in draft, you fixed the email address and sent it. The next message was the people from Louisville, sitting in front of your listing, they are really interested and want to see this one first thing in the morning; you were about to double-side a deal, on a great listing. The last message sunk your whole morning; we never received the other listings, we drove by the first home we inquired about, called the listing agent, it wasn’t pending and he showed it to us. We wrote an offer and it was accepted immediately, thank you for your time and we look forward to moving to your community, sincerely…

You can now sit back and relax, your day is wide open, and you can do whatever you want; scroll back through Facebook, Twitter and look at all the fun you had, yesterday. You also get to think about that other agent and feel sorry for the buyers who will be working with such a loser. Now the thought crosses you mind, you’re now that other agent, customers talk about.  

You spend about another half hour scrolling through, pour a third cup of coffee, and check what’s happening on Twitter, spend about ten minutes there and then you decide to check your emails again. Spam, (delete), spam, (delete), spam, (delete), best sales this weekend at… you spend ten minutes there and decide to delete that email; just another day in that “other agents lifestyle”.