Buyers Advice
By Jim Palmer Jr.

A broker recently responded to an angry buyer who had left a text message late on a Friday, prior to a holiday weekend.  They had sent that hopeful text into cyberspace, expressing interest in making an offer on one of the broker’s listings.  The listing broker had planned to be camping on that long weekend, so didn’t respond to his plethora of waiting messages until the following Tuesday.  When the broker explained the reason for the delayed response the impatient and irritated buyer’s retort was, “You could have at least replied to my text!”  The broker then explained that he had about 100 other messages to respond to and that he would have had to just keep working nonstop instead of taking time off, in order to respond to all who thought they deserved his time and attention. 

The irony of that particular circumstance was that a different buyer faced the exact same circumstances, but chose to call their buyer broker instead of contacting the listing broker.  Their broker wrote an offer for them and had the offer delivered and waiting for the listing broker when he returned back to work.  They had the advantage over the other buyer who “didn’t want to bother” their own broker and had instead allowed their frustration with the listing broker to fester unnecessarily. 

Of course there are those who read this who think real estate brokers should understand that their occupation requires them to work 24/7 and that they should never expect to have uninterrupted days off.  After all, “that is the occupation they chose!”  If you are one of those thinkers, then you probably want to pay attention to this advice.  Find a buyer broker to work for you who is willing to work 24/7 or has a team who can cover that expectation.  Don’t wait for the listing broker to call you back, or better yet, don’t even make that call to the listing broker.  They have gone to great lengths to provide complete data for your broker to decipher and to use in crafting your offer.  If the listing broker didn’t answer all the questions you might have, then your buyer broker can do additional research or create contingencies to allow that research after an offer is accepted. 

After all, in most cases, sellers have consented to pay the buyer’s broker a large portion of the total commission.  Don’t you think it’s fair that the buyer’s broker should earn that reward?