It happens occasionally, and I expect it to happen a bit more perhaps with the slowing local housing market. I was 'fired' or replaced as a listing agent yesterday for a property I have been marketing since last summer.
Last year I had many other out of the normal activities that caused me to lose some focus on my business at hand (helping buyers and sellers transfer property from one party to another). It is not a valid excuse for some of the business that I took on, but my decision making wasn't the very best at times last year.
I took on a client that happened to walk in during my assigned 'floor duty' (floor duty is where I cover the office for any walk in or call in unrepresented potential clients). They had an older home on the side of a hill overlooking the city and an incredible view of the Hualapai Mountains. They came to me with about a week before they were to head to another state for the summer months. Their home was listed with another broker and their agreement had expired.
When it came time to discuss the asking price I did manage to get the clients to reduce their already high asking price to a different level of a high asking price. The clients were nice people and I did show them all the available comparisons of recently sold homes in the price range they demanded. All of those comparisons were for newer homes with many upgrades and more modern features. I showed the clients what they would be competing against at the price they wanted for the home and it was much the same as the sold comparison list.
Looking back I had no business taking on these clients, but they seemed in a rush to simply have their property on the market before they headed out of town. All of their belongings were packed up and they were going to leave shortly after signing all the listing docs. I did track the showings that were made, and there were probably about 4 a month. When I followed up with the other agents that showed the property the feedback was always the price was way too high according to their buying clients and that those clients settled on a newer property with more modern features at lower prices even.
To make matters worse, when the winter season came my clients left the state they lived in for the summer and headed to a warmer climate... and never gave me any contact information so I had no way to get in touch with them.
Yesterday, finally, they showed up at my office and demanded the keys to their home and let me know that they would be hiring another broker that would support an even higher asking price.
It finally felt good to be fired for a change.
These sellers have unrealistic expectations even with all the factual data that I had shared with them while I was in contact with them.
Allen Butler over at Bloodhound has a funny article about some of today's sellers. I thought the timing of his article was dandy with my recent events with my former clients. Mr. Butlers article should be a Carnival of Real Estate winner next week.
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