Agents That Set Their Own Showings

I always cringe when I see a listing where I have to set the appointment through the listing agent.  I am prepared to have to leave a voice mail and wonder if the agent will get to setting the appointment.  It makes it difficult when you're trying to set up multiple showings and preparing a route to take.  So many times by the time the agent calls back it's a day or two after we wanted to show the property.

I called an office early yesterday to set an appointment for today.  This particular office was closed on Sunday.  OK, some offices are not open on Sunday so I wasn't surprised.

I called again at 9:00 this morning and had to leave another message.  I showed the other 3 homes I had set for this morning and when I got in my car I noticed I had a voice mail.  I checked (this was now around 11:30 a.m.) and I got apologies and a request to call back if I still wanted to show the listing.

My buyer had left but I was able to catch her and we ended up viewing the home.  The interesting thing was that one of the apologies I received from this office was the fact that they didn't open until 11:00 this morning.  So this was obviously a very small indpendent office (I've never heard of it before) that was closed on Sunday and didn't open until 11:00 in the morning?  I wonder if they're open on Saturday.  Do they just open whenever they feel like it?  Can't you listen to your answering machine or voice mail without having to be in the office (if there was an actual office - I didn't bother checking).  And I don't care if they run a virtual office - have someone answer the phones during normal working hours.

What angers me so much is that I feel their seller clients aren't being given good service.  With the glut of inventory on the market today a seller shouldn't have to miss out on showings.  I've seen it time and again where if a buyer can't get into a property when first planned they don't always come back at a later date.

My buyer found a house she loved today.  We are seeing a few more homes tomorrow but I think she'll be ready to write unless she prefers one of tomorrow's showings. 

I personally feel if agents work in an office where they have to set their own appointments they should pay for appointment setting services.  I'll never forgot the one house I never got into after multiple phone requests.  We finally gave up but I can only imagine what my buyers thought when I kept telling them that the agent wasn't returning my calls regarding seeing the home.

Sellers - if you're not getting any showings and you have it set up where your listing agent sets the appointments directly through you, you might need to start asking some questions.  Can you get in touch with your agent easily?  Do they return your calls in a timely fashion?  If not, you might be missing valuable showings.

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