I met a new neighbor the other day and she was telling me how she sold her home in Florida. She was very upset with her agent because her agent was not bringing buyers to view her home. This woman said, “She kept sending other agents out to see the house.” She thought the agent was pushing her job off on other people.

I am sure most people know that when they list their house, their agent is not going to be the one bringing all the buyers to see their home. This post is for those who really do not understand how the listing agent works.

Let me start by saying, I wish I had a buyer for every home I listed so I never had to advertise, list in the multiple listing servers nor share the commission with another agent. While working with both sides is double the work it is a lot easier to do all the work on one listing.

Should you decide to sell your home and you also decide to use the services of a Realtor or Real Estate Agent, be assured other agents will visit your home with buyers. Besides the preliminary work–preparing a CMA (Comparative Market Analysis) to determine a list price, gathering all the information for the MLS systems, preparing the listing agreement, scheduling pictures, marketing. . . the agent is thinking of all his/her buyers who might be interested in that particular property. This agent is probably already working with several other sellers and several buyers.

Once the home is listed the agent will have all the paperwork sent in to the mls systems to advertise, make flyers, put a lockbox on the door, put a sign up and start calling, emailing, e-blasting the listing to all friends and associates. The agent will be monitoring all activity to determine that the home had been priced right and to decide if the marketing needs modifying. The agent also may be planning an agent luncheon and/or open house. Some agents will send weekly reports showing the activity.

I just wanted to bring this to your attention if you did not know how this worked. I begin to post some typical duties of the real estate agent.

What an honor to have the national president of the board of realtors speak at the GAR conference. 

NAR President, Steve Brown spoke at GAR

Sorry, I missed posting Thursday and Friday. Thursday I spend the entire day at the old subdivision with my partner. I called technical support for GAMLS and managed to get my listings uploaded. Diana meanwhile was working on the builders program and trying to get things straightened out on those contracts. Then one of the buyers for that subdivision came in to discuss their house. Their house is supposed to be closing next week and it is not ready. They spent about 1 1/2 – 2 hours sitting there discussing the same things over and over–while I wished they would just leave so we could get things done. Repeating a problem over and over does not make things better. I know, I have been doing that this entire week. Another buyer had called Diana saying her house had the wrong color siding and the wrong color paint inside. We drove down to check. Sorry miss buyer but the siding is the color you chose and the inside has not been painted yet. The color you are seeing is primer. And that is why you let the builder finish before you have a fit.

Yesterday, I had the entire day off. Spent the morning getting caught up on some much needed housework and then went into Atlanta to hang out with my kids.

Today is my day off but I will be showing homes at 11:00. If they want to write a contract I will get that done but then I am heading into Atlanta again. 

What a wonderful day it started out to be!! I met my trainer first thing in the morning then headed off to a 9:00 closing. I had never met this buyer’s family, omg what beautiful little girls. The oldest one, 3, wanted my partner to get her some candy. When she couldn’t produce it this little girl gave her the evil eye for about 20 minutes. It was so funny. She would not smile and could not take her eyes off of my partner.

I had to hang out for a little while for the attorney to cut checks and then head up to Cummings GA to give my old broker the check and pick up our checks. When that was done I headed to our old subdivision to enter my outside listings into the multiple listing servers. FMLS worked just fine, GAMLS was another story. After 2 hours I gave up and headed home. When I got home I was determined to get it done. Needless to say another hour later and I had to give it up before I threw something.

My husband called to tell me he would be late–not something I wanted to hear. A few minutes later he called to see if I could pick him up from work so we could go out to dinner in Atlanta. You don’t have to ask me twice, and Indian food–another favorite. He really made my night. I feel so much better. I know if I had stayed home I would have continued to frustrate myself. Now I am full, happy and ready to start tomorrow.

Today I moved my license to a new broker. Not because I made this big decision by interviewing different brokers to see what they offered. Not because I was looking for change. The only reason I made this move was to secure my position with the builders I represent. I would never had made the move I did without careful consideration and without protecting my interests. Unfortunately the builders don’t think about what it means to the realtor. I believe the builders have no clue what it means to us.

I am not complaining about the move. It is something I had thought about several times, but I had to stay with the company the builders’ chose or move on to another builder or give up on builders entirely. I think if I could do things all over I would give up builders for good. Don’t get me wrong, I like selling new homes and I really think the builders are building a great product with great prices. The problem is, builders ask agents to represent them and sell their homes. Then they ask for our expertise–but they never like what we have to say so they look for someone who will tell them what they want to hear.

Here’s what the builders don’t know. When I move my license from one broker to another, I have to sign a contact with the new broker which isn’t the “deal” I was hoping to sign. Commission splits change, procedures change, how I get paid changes. But here is the worst part. The old broker does not have to pay me for anything under contract at the time of my departure. Hmmmm. I have 9 contracts with the builders and 7 outside sales. Do you realize how much money is on the table? Did the builder ask me? No!!! Luckily for me the broker is not holding back my commissions. I will still get paid. However, this move is costing me the price of one commission because I will have to pay a franchise fee on all my outside sales now that I am with another company. Can you imagine walking away from $1200. just because someone else made a decision to change companies? Do you think I want to leave all that money behind? Oh no. I’m doing it because the subdivision I am selling in right now is selling so fast I believe I can make about 50 times that over the next 6 months. That does not include my outside sales. So, it’s leave $1200. on the table but make 50 times that or keep the $1200. but lose the 50 times that. I work for money. I’m staying with the money.

My new broker seems very nice–I’ll let you know if she isn’t. She isn’t the broker I would have chose but who knows, it may all work out yet.