Think twice before hiring friends as your realtor realtor, hiring, Think, twice

kelrich

Seems alot of LYK-ers are starting to hit the stage of their life to buy (or even sell) a property. At the same time, you will find there is always someone around you who are licensed realtors soliciting you for the business.

It might sound trivial but alot of us (including myself) often favor choosing realtors because of the friendship rather than competency. This is a huge risk because:

1) In many cases, they are inexperenced so they try to build up their portfolio by secure business from friends and families. This is not suggesting they are not going to get a job done, but an inexperienced professional often poses greater risk of not able to get the job done effectively and your business will be part of his/her learning curve.

2) The relationship between friends/business partners can be confusing. As a client, you might find it odd to bring up any concerns related to the realtor/friend's performance. As a realtor, he/she might hestitate to give you fair assessments, or on the other extreme, he/she might be taking the working relation too casual and at time abuse the friendship to cut themselves slacks. (personal experience: I was selling a family condo in downtown and the realtor took advantage of the "free" parking for non-work related activities).

In BC, if you are buyer, you are not paying the commission; if you are a seller, you are paying the commission which you are paying pretty much at industry standard rates. One can argue friends might give you more "discounts" or "rebate" of their commissions, there are lots of qualified realtors who are willing to give you such discounts. Moreover, if your place is not selling or getting a fair return, what's good to pay lower commissions? I am not saying all your friend realtors are not capable of getting a job done, but often we are blind sighted to select a realtor because of the connection and in the end, we are paying the price - I learned a painful lesson on this.

kelrich

That I agree too... I brought this up because I notice alot of topics about buying / selling homes now and I had pretty interesting (but painful experience) in this. I am not intended to throw my friend/realtor's name here but juts want to share the thoughts

kelrich

In fairness to my friend/realtor, the person did have the ambition to sell my property at the best price but did not have the experience and the personality. She was committed to the appointments but also she was relatively immature and get distracted. While she might be successful in the future, she is making mistakes at the price of her clients.

Its always a bugger when you are seeking for service (whether realty, insurance, etc)... there are always someone around you challenging you why you are not using their service. For some services, the work is pretty standard so there would be much consequence or room for anyone to screw up. However, things like realty (biggest investment for most of us), or health related... don't feel bad if you are not seeking friends' services.

kelrich

I ended up not extending the agreement with my friend after 6 months; granted the market is not hot for the past year or so for condos, my unit was the second longest active listing since 2010 and she blew one and only offer (see below). As it was my parents' property, I took a lot heat from my parents. Tofu: I had the same thought initially I hired my friend, she was "green" and she indicated she will commit to all the appointments and will do the best she can to follow up on all the leads. The problem is she doesn't have any resource and requires our support (for one, she got us paying $3K for hiring a staging company to decorate the place - which was a total waste and many realtors can arranged some furniture as props without such hefty investments from sellers ). She doesn't have anyone to support her or even have marketing strategies like websites or ads. I couldn't argue her passion with the job but like what I said, she doesn't have the resources. I am partly blamed for not doing my due diligence to determine whether her personality suits the role or her ability to handle the service (another e.g., we did had an offer come in; after she emailed us an offer around 6pm, we couldn't reach her by phone nor email for the instant 4 hours because she had silenced her phone watching a 4 hour movie). For some "mis-communication" issues, the buyer pull off the offer. Now I just sold the condo but its about 6% less than the previous offer back in Feb as I hired an experienced realtor who I don't know but specialized in that area.

Here is the part that you might ask: "how is your friendship with that realtor after"?

After I told her my family will not renew the listing with her (via email in semi-formal way), she offer a reduction of her commission (I refused as I don't see any advantage of doing this if I can't trust she can sell the place). After we met to have her return the key (she had been delayed the appointment 3 times which one of them due to her party), I had no longer talked to her (nor she is on MSN) for about 3 months. However, as soon as I posted on my MSN that the unit was sold, she started to surface on MSN asking me how I managed to sell it, why my parents are willing to reduce the price further, and she even asked me to provide her any marketing documents from the other realtor so she can "referred" to. In all, this becomes a business opportunity networking. I can't guarantee she will fail in this business down the road nor I won't conduct business with her forever, but the friendship is non-exist the moment she became my realtor and exposed her issues which I still shake my head everytime thinking about it.

This is a good discussion. Started as a topic about hiring a realtor which can be applied to other professional services. Though I probably open eda big can of worms about how catastrophic it can be to conduct business with friends, I do have some experience having friends/relatives for other services with very good results and which I recommended to my friends.

kelrich

Long time no see Kelrich...

Philip
pkphilip 發表於 2010-7-15 23:55

    LOL... yeah... Phil