Buyers that Don’t Want to Work with a Real Estate Agent

“Why buy the cow if you are getting the milk free?”  Have you noticed you are getting less buyer calls in the last few years requesting your services as a buyers agents.  It is not IDX nor is it the changing real estate markets that is causing this!  Have you noticed your buyer showings have reduced greatly, and even though you are showing the buyers what they want…they are not committing to work with you, and there is a reluctance to sign buyer agency agreements?  Why is that?

The real estate industry has made it that way. It is sheer stupidity!  MLS listings on-line now display addresses, maps to the property, tax information, MLS #’s, links to mortgage officers, calculators, what the home is worth, schools etc!  So why would they need you for anything other than opening the door?  They don’t!  Too much displayed data only benefits the listing broker, agent, and home seller only, not the buyer’s agent!  It does not help the buyers agents to earn a living with an IDX or broker reciprocity site that offers up all the information that a buyer is looking for free! It makes no sense at all!  Once buyers have all the information they need they will go directly to the listing agent and negotiate a deal for themselves.  Oh they may call you to fill in some small bits of information they do not have, but they will not use you to close the deal.  Their regular agent may be at work, out showing others or just unavailable.   In other words, as an industry we have gotten so dumb, the potential clients are making the decisions on the free information found online.  The sad thing in that most our business do not understand the nature of the Internet, how to close a real estate sales, or how to convert leads.

Buyer’s that will not commit to working with you are very easy to identify.  All you have to do is ask them a few questions in a professional manner…  if they are elusive or they do not want to answer …then don’t bother. If they are annoyed at the questions, or only will meet you at the property…or if they usually just want to look at one property – those are just a few of the signs. 

Before you waste your time with useless buyers calls – ask them a few questions first:

1. If a buyer calls in from your website and only wants to view only one property.
2. They ask for availability on a particular listing.
3. They do not want to waste your time and only need the address to drive by.
4. They cannot find the MLS # or the listing agents contact information.
5. They want to know is the listing is still available or active.
6. State your policy is to give out the addresses and detailed information to your signed clients.
7. Ask the caller, have they seen similar homes with their agent?
8. Only meet prospects at real estate office.
9. If your phone call keeps being interrupted – yep it’s other agents.
10. Ask qualifying questions, in a lease…until when, do you have to sell your home first, have you been pre-qualified, by whom?