I have a listing that a cooperating Realtor called me about over a week ago. He asked if I had any offers, and when I told him “no,” he informed me that he had an interested Buyer that was leaving for vacation – he asked me to jot down his name & number and let him know if I had any offers come in during the week. He felt certain she would write an offer upon return.
I get a call Saturday morning from a gentleman with an out-of-state area code. He asked me numerous questions about this particular listing, in addition to questions about home purchases in general – I assumed he got my phone number off of a web site. I answered his questions as thoroughly as possible. After spending fifteen minutes on the phone with him, he put me on speaker phone to include his girlfriend who was actually interested in the property. After a few minutes speaking to the two of them, it became evident that this was the Buyer this other Realtor had already called me about.
I explained to the Buyer that she would need to contact her Realtor to write a contract, but her boyfriend wouldn’t hear of it. He was a part-time Realtor that “hadn’t really done much work” for them, and they wanted me to show them my listing again and write the contract. I really did try to explain procurring cause to them, but they were both irritated that they had somehow obligated themselves to use this other Realtor — and they had signed no paperwork.
So, I asked the Buyer if she would call the Realtor who showed my property to her and discuss it with him.
She text-messaged him and told him she would prefer to work with a female Realtor. ??
Of course, after receiving this text-message, the Realtor with procurring cause called me to find out what the hell happened. His Buyer was not returning his calls at all.
Neither of us can really figure out what happened – we both think that the boyfriend needed to assert some type of “control” in the midst of his girlfriend’s transaction. Thankfully the cooperating Realtor was very gracious and agreed to a 50% referral fee if I wrote the contract.
I didn’t want to lose this Buyer, as the neighbor’s barking dogs have run away several prospective Buyers. But, no commission is worth losing the respect of a cooperating Realtor, much less the reprocussions from a legal or ethical complaint.
Yet another reminder to spend time with our Buyers up front to explain how we work, how we get paid, and get that Buyer Broker Service agreement signed.
