We would love to be able to tell our sellers there will never be any problems while their home is being shown.  But experience tells us that just isn't always true.  All we can do is try to prepare the sellers for the possibility that something might go wrong and hope for the best. 

If I had my way, any agent with two showing complaints would lose their keypad privileges for a period of time ... maybe 6 months.  They would only be able to enter a home in attendance with another agent in good standing with the MLS.  I'll bet once that happened to a couple of agents, the word would get around fast.  Agents would check, then double check to make sure all the doors were securely locked before they left a home.   

I am embarrassed for our profession to see such careless treatment of people's homes.  That lack of professionalism reflects on our industry as a whole, including me.  I have started chronicling problems we have had with agents just to show the general public what we see on our side. 

Agent Showing Problems

April 28th, 2008 - Note from one of our sellers ... "The agent who showed our house Sunday not only did not reset the alarm but left one of the doors standing open.  Fortunately we came back home right after they left".

February 2008 - All four of the following instances occurred on my listings within a 30 day period during !

• An agent with another company entered one of our vacant homes, then failed to lock the front door when they left.  The high winds we have been having this week blew the door open.  If the seller, now living in another home, had not returned to retrieve an item, the home might have stayed that way for days, or at least the next showing.  That would have been an open invitation to theft or vandalism.  We read the lockbox which showed the agent had opened the front door only hours before the seller arrived. 

• An agent with another company showed the wrong home and set off the alarm in our listing.  The seller had to leave work, drive across town to disarm the alarm, then return to work.  The seller was very upset, and I don't blame him.  I am mystified how an agent can show the wrong home, but I was extremely upset the agent never had the courtesy to personally call me to explain what happened.  I had to hear it from the seller.  The agent then tried to minimize the impact of what he had done by telling me "agents set off alarms all the time".  That was not what I was in the mood to hear!

• One of my seller's called me right after a showing and told me they had seen an agent back up the driveway, flatten a brick column with carriage light, get out of her car to check the damage, and then continue to back up and drive away.  The column was completely  flattened.  I waited for a day to see if the agent would call me.  When I didn't hear from her I called her and asked about the column.  She told me the column was down when she got there.  When I told her what the seller had seen, she said she did remember stopping as she was backing up the driveway but only "to check her low tire pressure".  The agent sent a check to the seller immediately after the seller filed a police report.

• An agent with another company tampered with the thermostat in a home owned by an out of state seller.  Their electric bill was 600% higher this month than the month before.  We know it was an agent because no-one else had access to the home.  We still don't know who did it, but we are looking into which agents accessed the home during that time.

The Agent Who never shows up for The appointment

The showing service calls the seller to confirm a showing at their home sometime between noon and 2:00 the next day.  The seller works hard to have the home ready for the showing, leaves for two hours, and comes back.  They realize no-one showed up because a door was left just so when they left and it was still that way when they returned.  The seller is angry and needs to vent, so they call the listing agent.  When we call the agent,  the story is always the same ... they called to cancel the appointment but the showing service has no record of it. 

A quick note here on agent protocol ... It is completely understandable when an agent is backed up showing listings, runs out of time, and just cannot show the last homes on the list.  It happens all the time.  You never know how long a buyer will want to stay in each home, so all the agent can do is their best with the timing. 

There have been times I was with buyers who were scheduled to look at a certain home.  We drove up to the home and the buyer told me "keep driving".  They did not like the look of the home, or maybe even what was around it.  I am darn sure not going to force that buyer to go in and look at that home, but I will call the showing service immediately and let them know we had to cancel.  (That's exactly why it is so important for your home to have a nice presence from the street).  Anyway, that's the least I can do after asking the seller to vacate the premises for our showing.  And when I receive a request for feedback, I will be honest with the agent and let them know exactly what happened and what the comments were from my buyer.

All I ask is the agent call the showing service to explain what happened so the seller can be notified.  It's not only the polite thing to do, it might help to take the sting out of the seller vacating their home for two hours for nothing.

Agents Who Don't Provide feedback after a Showing

After every showing, the showing service will send two e-mails to the buyer agent who showed the home.  We also send an e-mail to the agent ourselves if we don't get any feedback.  And finally, we will even try to contact the agent by phone if all else fails. 

It takes all of two minutes to respond to an e-mail with feedback on a listing.  The good Realtors will always respond with feedback and the poor ones won't.  It's  as simple as that.  I used to ask agents why they didn't respond to our requests for feedback.  Most of the time, their response was my buyer (or I) "I didn't have anything to say about it". 

It seems like common sense when a buyer agent asks a seller to vacate their home for a couple of hours for a showing, they would be more than happy to provide some feedback after the showing ... either positive or negative.  While most agents (I would say 70%) will take the time to provide feedback after a showing, there are way too many agents who are just not going to expend one ounce of energy to do anything unless there is something in it for them.  That 30% just represent a segment of our profession we will never be able to reach.  They just don't "get it" and probably never will. 

We are always grateful to those agents who provide us with feedback.  We always send them a thank-you note for taking the time to do so and needless to say, we always provide feedback after we show a home that isn't our listing.  We will give it some thought and hopefully we can help the listing agent in their communication with the seller.

The Agent Who Forgets To lock the doors

This happens all too often.  When we are showing homes to our buyers, we make it a point to always be the last person to walk out of the home so we can check the doors behind us.  With larger homes and multiple exterior doors, it is easy for a buyer to open a secondary door and forget to lock it.  If no-one is behind us as we are closing and locking the doors, we know they will be locked when the seller comes home. 

We have had agents leave the key in the front door and forget to put it back in the lockbox.  We have had pets escape because a door was left wide open even though the showing instructions tell the agents to watch for that.  Fortunately, we have never had a pet lost after a showing, but it could easily have happened and I wouldn't want to handle that call from an irate seller.   The showing instructions are clearly indicated with Centralized Showing Service for the agents to read, but apparently that is not enough. 

The Agent Who leaves all the lights on

This is a common grievance with sellers but in defense of the buyer agents, I can understand why it happens.  Often times, when a seller knows there is a showing, they will turn on all the lights in the morning before they leave for work.  When they come home, those same lights are probably still on.  The seller is upset because they think the buyer agent should have walked through the home and turned off every light.  But from the buyer agent's point of view, it can easily take 10-15 minutes to find all the light switches in a big, two story home.  And to keep on track with all of their other showings, they literally do not have the time to locate every switch in the home.

I have spent at least 5 minutes trying to find one light switch in a home, so I am not inclined to get upset with Realtors about lights.  But it should go without saying, if an agent does turn on a light, they should also turn it back off again when they leave the home.  The sellers have to look at it as the cost of selling their home and look at the positive side ... their home was shown.. 

Showing Service Problems

It's unfortunate when agents abuse their showing privileges, but Centralized Showing Service, which books showings for agents,  can also get it wrong.  The showing service notifies and receives approval from the seller for every showing (if the seller requests they be notified).  They will then send an e-mail to the listing agent stating a showing has been scheduled for one of their listings.  They will also send an e-mail to the agent who showed the home asking for feedback.  They keep all of this information on their database which we can access at any time.  This is how listing agents receive their feedback after a showing. 

About 90% of the time, this all works very well, but it is not perfect.  Here are some more examples of what can go wrong, and yes, all have happened to us on our listings ...

• The showing service could not reach the seller to schedule a showing.  The buyer agent becomes impatient and shows the home anyway without permission, even though our listings are set up so the seller must be notified personally.  Showing a home without permission is a clear violation of the MLS policies.  When I call the agent to find out why they entered the home without permission, without fail, they will say they received the approval from the showing service.  When I call the showing service, they deny ever giving the agent permission to show the home. 

• The showing service schedules the showing on the wrong time or even the wrong day and without proper seller notification.  The people in those call centers make mistakes too.  They are talking to the buyer agent who wants to see the home and at the same time typing the information into their database.  It is easy to make a mistake.  How is the seller going to feel when someone knocks on their door at dinnertime for a showing they think is supposed to be for the next day?  After I wrote this article, I received the following e-mail ...

  • Hi Tom...

    Just read the great article up on your website and I wanted to share an anecdote that happened to me.  When we were selling our home in Plano, we had an agent who also showed the wrong home, which happened to be ours.  They were supposed to show a house up the street but I guess got confused about addresses.  I had no idea anyone was coming by (since we had nothing scheduled in terms of a showing that day) so I was just out of the shower and sitting at my dressing table in nothing but a towel when the agent and buyers strolled into the master bathroom!   Needless to say, everyone was embarrassed and I was angry, but what can you do except shrug it off as "one of those experiences"!

    Still enjoying your site...

     Kim ...

Theft and Vandalism

Thank goodness, we have never had any theft in any of our homes.  I attribute that to several things ... 

• We are in an area that just doesn't see that kind of activity. 

• We don't do open houses which are invitations to theft. 

• We tell our seller right up front when the listing agreement is being signed to place their small valuables away in a safety deposit box. 

• Luck.  It might happen to us someday, but so far, so good.

We sell large homes which are conducive to buyers easily separating themselves from their agent.  All of our homes are on state of the art lockboxes, so we will always know which agent entered the home, on what day and at what time, but unfortunately, that's about it. 

So What's The Answer?

Just accept the fact when your home is being shown, mistakes might happen either with the showing service or the agent.  Fortunately, they are almost always minor inconveniences.  If you go in with that attitude, you'll be OK.