Is Your Real Estate Agent a Problem Solver—or Just an Order Taker?

All right, I know I should be doing this, but I'm Bentine and this is my therapy. I am reminded why a lot of people do not like and get frustrated with realtors, including myself.

The good realtors are problem solvers. They anticipate issues. Uh they are able to look at situations and understand what the problem is and problem solve. so both parties can come to an agreement. They are good at communicating with the other realtor so we can um fix any issue that's coming up. That's what we do. We're problem solvers. A lot of realtors are order takers. They show a house, they make an offer, and then they're done. There is no problem solving uh ability or communication, and they just hope everybody gets the job done. And if the [ __ ] hits the fan, they hope someone else fix it. Well, last week, end of last week, my clients were put into that scenario. I have clients. I'm selling their house. They're moving out of state to help take care of their elderly parents. They have already found another house. We already have our close dates on both houses. Everything's good. An inspection is done. Uh after the inspection, they send us a request for repair, which is normal. We agree to it. no issues. Uh during that process, they send an additional person to inspect the roof because there's additional concerns, which is perfectly fine. That's early in October. Not one thing is said, no issues, nothing. We're getting ready to close escrow and I'm trying to find out what's going on and they're not communicating with me. And in my business, if you don't communicate, that's not a good thing. We then get a communication that they want in essence a new roof. Now, mind you, the roof good condition, tile, no leaks, never got any proof that the roof wasn't good at all. No, look, it's leaking here or leaking there. Nothing. Every time I call the realtor, what's going on? The response is always the same. I don't know. Let me ask. What frustrates me is I see the emotional toll it takes on my clients when things don't go as planned. Buying a house is already next to death and divorce. The most emotional time of your life and then you're moving out of state to take care of your parents and then now you have to delay everything and it cost us two weeks. I have no issues with someone not wanting the house because of potential future issues, but communicate that early on. it would save us two weeks and my clients were unwilling to meet him halfway and that wasn't good enough. So, moral of the story is this,

make sure whoever represents you, they're problem solvers and they have and usually that comes with years of experience. Um,

if you are going through these third-party websites where you just click on a house and you call the number on there and you have no relationship with them and they don't ask you any questions and they just open the door for you and you make an offer, maybe that's not the realtor you want.

Because when there's a problem, and there always is a problem, you have to be able to resolve it.

There you go. I don't feel any better, by the way.