Dr B.
Just to counter your counterpoint, you proved my point. Here is what you said “my wife and I had a bunch of buyer’s agents blow smoke up our posteriors, including a member of my wife’s family who is a 20 year RE veteran. We couldn’t trust any of them, so I represented us through our first six months of serious shopping. There were some agents who didn’t want to have anything to do with me. Their loss. Others were cool with it and worked with me.”
The most important part was the last sentence but let translate. “Others were cool with it and wasted their time with me”. IN this business our time is all we have and if we dont use it wisely, we dont earn a living. We dont have anyone cutting us a check each friday, anyone asking us to pay a higher share of benefit costs, fund a share of pensions or paying us for sick/vacation days. Everyday we wake up knowing it is 100% on our shoulders to make it happen. Its not an easy life and I doubt very few if any of you would trade your current work situation with what we do and who we put up with.
CAR
Agreed there are good and bad agents but I know alot of good agents. One issue is that the agent always gets blamed when you dont get the deal or something else goes wrong. Sometimes it is their fault but very often its not but the easiest thing to do is blame it on the “stupid agent”. Of course people arent perfect. Some buyers who were pushed into things during the bubble got crushed. However, some buyers who were pushed into things during the early part of the bubble (i.e. 2002 and early 2003-which I know you consider well into the bubble) still are the beneficiaries of windfall profits. So through their stupidity some of the less than impressive agents pushed their clients into things that made them pretty well off.
Lastly, when I work with clients I explain to them that we are a team in this process. If the buyer is smart, has local knowledge and anything else to add it is awesome. Things turn out even better when we put all our assets, skills and experience together.
