Some Real Estate Agents Are Just Stupid

Transcript of a phone call that just took place in my office with a seller's agent representing a new exclusive property:

Jennifer (from my team): Hi, this is Jennifer Breu from Doug Heddings office at Prudential Douglas Elliman.  We noticed your new exclusive on your web page and our client would like to know what floor it is on.

Agent:  It will be ready for co-broke tomorrow.  For now the information you have will have to suffice. (It's listed as her exclusive on her website)

Jennifer:  You can't share with me what floor it is on?

Agent: I have someone on the other line, this will have to do...click

Most of my colleagues and I play nice but occasionally you stumble across an agent who has their head so far up their ___ that they lose touch of the service they are supposed to be providing their seller.  Do you think for one moment that her seller would approve of her unwillingness to disclose the apartment number to a prospective purchaser.  What's the point?  She's having an open house on Sunday and says the apartment info will be forthcoming tomorrow.  It takes less than 2 seconds to state an apartment number and for the life of me I can't fathom why an agent wouldn't share that info.  Perhaps she's just having a bad day but something tells me that this particular agent  is just generally uncooperative to the rest of us in the industry. 

So why in the world would a seller hire someone like this and pay them a hefty commission to be an obstacle to the sale of their property?  NO CLUE!

Written By:Noah On February 6, 2008 8:32 PM

does OLR or ROLEX have this info?

Written By:Douglas Heddings On February 6, 2008 8:36 PM

Not yet...she claims it will be in system tomorrow but it's on her web page now. It's simply ludicrous that she wouldn't share the apartment number.

Written By:Daytona Beach Condos For Sale On February 7, 2008 2:20 PM

This is what happens when you have two phones and try to answer both at the same time. Office staff should have taken the call if he was on the cell phone. But there is no excuse for him not saying excuse me I'm on the other line could you hold please.

Written By:Douglas Heddings On February 7, 2008 2:33 PM

How long does it take to say "14th floor?"

Written By:Ava On February 8, 2008 8:32 PM

Is she an 'OLDER' age broker? SOME ( not all) older broker who likes to pride themselves who has been in the industry for 20+ years are not very cooperative or they don't LISTEN to what the other person on the phone is asking.
But wait, they have 20+ years of experiences... making $38,000 a year. :)

575.

Written By:Nightwatch On February 18, 2008 4:29 PM

Every industry in every location has jerks. That's what makes life interesting…, and frustrating.

Written By:NewBuyerInNY On April 24, 2008 7:39 PM

I came across a similarly "stupid" seller's broker in our attempt to buy a house. She threatened our broker, yelled at her (!) and was generally a bully including saying she was going to tell (not recommend) to her clients to walk away from the deal and "they'll do as I tell them!" Whoa. Egomaniac alert!

Is there a governing body for brokers, that could be made aware of this type of misbehavior? If there isn't, there should be.