As a licensed real estate broker and professional Realtor® with an operating brokerage here in Nashville TN, I have experienced my fair share of marginal agents in my time. Truth is, it seems to have gotten exceptionally bad here recently with the Nashville housing market exploding as Freddie Mac ranked us #1 in the nation last month. It seems with this real estate boom, everyone and their granny is coming out of the wood work to help you buy and sell a home for the promise of fast, easy money. Unfortunately, the majority of the agents here in Nashville are either ignorant, immoral or just plain stupid. These marginal agents account for such a great number of practicing agents that they have a very negative impact on the consumer perspective of our industry and essentially myself.
The really sad part of this never ending nightmare is that I am not the only one who sees this problem and yet, nothing is getting done about it. Even NAR the National Association of Realtors, which is this country’s largest real estate trade group put out a report a couple years ago where they admitted to the fact that…..
“The real estate industry is saddled with a large number of part-time, untrained, unethical and or incompetent agents. This knowledge gap threatens the credibility of the industry”…NAR DANGER Report
….so, as you can see, you don’t have to take my word for it. This industry is broken and when your largest trade group, representing over 1 million individuals and over 14,000 local associations comes out and says things like the quote above, bet your bottom dollar, “Houston, we have a problem.”
Just this week, I had a very interesting email conversation that you might find insightful, take a gander below for yourself…..
From: John Doe, Buyer’s Agent
>> Sent: Friday, August 26, 2016 12:09 AM
>> To: JGonzalez@LHRLLC.com
>> Subject: 574 Joyce Ln
>>
>> I have been trying to contact you regarding the listing at 574 Joyce
>> ln. I have a client that would like to make an offer on this. I need
>> lead base paint discl and property cond. discl. as soon as you can get
>> it to me. I have a cash buyer and we are ready to roll.
From: Jesse Gonzalez, Seller’s Agent,
On Aug 26, 2016, at 8:01 AM,
>> Thanks for reaching out however, this is the first correspondence I
>> have from you. Not sure why but, the first none the less.
>>
>> As for disclosures, they can always be found in the multimedia section
>> of the MLS. If they aren't I apologize however, I did check the MLS
>> this morning after receiving your email and they appear to be there.
>>
>> Some friendly advice: When in a market like Nashville, where Freddie
>> Mac has ranked us #1 in the country and properties can be sold in
>> hours of them hitting the market, it's not in your clients best
>> interest for you to wait on communication, forms, or anything else for
>> that matter before you send their offer in. Just so you know, there
>> are no statutory or common laws, rule or procedures that would ever
>> prevent you from submitting a client's offer immediately. Not to
>> mention, even if there had been, you can always make your clients
>> offer contingent on those forms, rules or procedures being completed.
>> The lesson here is, never....absolutely never delay in sending in your
>> clients offer...for any reason. To do so could be argued that you
>> didn't represent your clients best interest and at the very least could be
> argued as negligent.
>>
>> With all that being said, attached are the disclosures as requested.
From: John Doe, Buyer’s Agent
> Sent: Friday, August 26, 2016 9:53 AM
> To: Jesse D. Gonzalez Jr <JGonzalez@LHRLLC.com>
> Subject: Re: 574 Joyce Ln
>
> Thank you for your intended guidance but as an experienced and highly
> trained ***** agent I am choosing to represent my buyer in a professional
> manner and we wanted to gather all the facts before making an offer. Thank
> you for emailing me the disclosures and will be sending an offer your way
> shortly. Thank you and look forward to working with you.
From: Jesse Gonzalez, Seller’s Agent,
> On Aug 26, 2016, at 10:30 AM, Jesse D. Gonzalez Jr <JGonzalez@LHRLLC.com> wrote:
>
> Ok....well, that's good to know however, I wonder what your client would say
> if in the name of "professionalism" and being a "*****" agent you lost the
> opportunity to get their bid in on the home. Not to mention, by doing
> so....it could be reasonably argued you were acting negligently.
>
> None the less....good luck.
Here’s the lesson that Mr. Professional Buyer’s Agent Extraordinaire “John Doe” seemed not to grasp. As a licensed agent, we have a fiduciary duty to our clients. Specifically, that means, we exercise the highest standard of care when representing their interest. It was in this buyer’s interest to get his offer to the seller as quickly as possible however, the buyer’s own agent threw up a road block in the name of his brokerage and professionalism. This road block demonstrates a serious lack of competency as to his fiduciary / legal requirements to present his clients best interest by submitting his buyer’s offer immediately. It’s important to note, his duty to get that offer to the seller immediately, supersedes any and all self-imposed or brokerage imposed internal processes, procedures or for that matter, expectations. I argue that the agent is actually negligent in his duty and opened his client to unnecessary risk this his clients offer would not have been seen and for that matter considered due to the fact that in the meantime, the seller could have been presented a competing offer and essentially make a decision and therefore, his offer would have been…at the very least, held as backup, if not flat out rejected.
Here's the sad part to all this, I am positive the buyer has no clue what his agent wasn’t doing for him and thinks he’s working with the best agent in town…..what a joke.
