The Texting Epidemic in Real Estate and Securing The Buyer’s Agent Commission

 

Transcript:

I want to talk about two topics today. One is how to confirm your commission when you’re a buyer’s agent making an offer the other is about the growing epidemic in real estate of text messages.  I’ll start there because I think text messaging and real estate has gotten out of control text messages should be short concise and informative so if you talk to another agent and you’re going to meet that other agent somewhere you might send a follow-up text message hey I’ll meet you at such-and-such address at this time or maybe you’ve arrived somewhere where you’re meeting someone and you arrive before that other person so you might text them I’m here for your running late and you want to let the person that it’s already where you’re meeting know that you’re running late so you might send a message saying hey I’m running 10 minutes behind these are normal tax in a real estate setting your informing someone you’re not expecting right back a book to you in response it’s just letting them know where you’re at if you’ve gotten their what time it’s confirming something you may have talked about on the phone in a way it’s effectively sending an email but to a more accessible device which is the phone so it’s going to be red sooner and it to be much shorter than a normal email mean a text message is essentially a cell phone telegram what I’m seeing more of that I find irritating is agents that are negotiating home sales were talking about the sale of an asset worth hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars being negotiated through text which I don’t think is an appropriate forum for such an important negotiation and if you look at it from the perspective of what’s your listing agent if you couldn’t offer and the offers filled out poorly and it’s missing the accompanying documents such as proof of funds or pre-qualification letter how serious do you take that offer and if you entertain offers from buyers that can’t meet those simple professional guidelines like having a complete offer well the quality of buyer that you’re going to work with diminishes so you see the same thing with text message negotiations can you really negotiate well when you’re limited to so few words through a text mean how insincere is that and also think of the person that would try to respond and name all the factors involved in such a Monumental decision and how limited are in their response I mean certainly email is much better because you can ride out hair wraps and paragraphs and paragraphs of factors to consider it’s it’s documented properly but moreover real estate is about a more personalized experience and in negotiation face-to-face is always the best because it’s more serious people have their they have to be more sincere they can’t just hide behind text they have to look the other person in the eye and negotiate and a good negotiator knows how to deliver messages with sincerity so that they can make a case and soften what would be otherwise aggressive terms soften the blow so that their client is better represented so this goes with sending an offer hey if you’re an agent and you’re sending an offer and that offer has terms that are very favorable to your buyer then are you going to send an ice-cold offer with kind of shocking terms to the seller and listing agent without a phone call because I think that a phone call should accompany any offer so that you can personalize the offer and say hey look this is how we came to our offer amount this is what we like to do we really care we really respect the seller and then you have this conversation that softens the the shock that comes with looking at a purchase price that may not be as idealistic for the seller is the seller had hoped that goes with negotiating repairs request for repairs form or asking for a seller credit or any sort of negotiations involved if you send just the document through email and say hey here’s our request for repairs let us know and it has a huge laundry list of repairs to the seller to do or some large number of a seller credit the buyer wants well it’s going to be a splash of ice cold water in the face that cellar but if that document is is accompanied with a phone call by the agent sing it look we put a lot of thought into this and we talked to some professionals and this is how we came to our conclusion then the other agents can understand that look this isn’t just someone trying to lowball being sincere this is someone that that cares it’s a considerate person and they have some justification in terms of where they’re coming from and it allows Minds to meet better in a negotiation and certainly face-to-face is best phone conversation after that email below that and text message has to be the worst because if you’re asking for some sort of serious decision or you’re proposing something large like a purchase price or something that translates to a lot of money or a lot of work how can you really expect the bat the best response from the recipient of that text message just like you or the person riding a text may have a lot of factors involved how they arrived at a certain number or whatever they’re trying to negotiate will the person on the other end they put a lot of consideration into their position so how can that be properly conveyed through text message again these are telegrams through a cell phone how can you really talk about all the terms involved and educate the other party as to all the factors being used to make that decision because it’s educating the other party as to what your motivation is and how you came to your your conclusion on a matter that’s how parties will meet and make a deal so text message just takes all of that away in my opinion it to way for agents to hide because they it’s easier as we know for people to make snarky comments or act very bold and writing or online or somewhere where they don’t have to actually show up as a human and talk to someone look them in the eye and have that Human Experience and really be considerate and type something but hard to look someone in the eye in person and an act so so bold or one-sided so again as an agent I would say if another agent approached you with a text message I would not engage them just like if you get an offer that’s incomplete I would say look this is what we require for an offer you have professional boundaries that you must set you have a certain sort of perimeter that you must set in order to act on a professional basis so if I get an offer that is incomplete I might tell the buyer’s agent look your offers missing a pre-qual letter or it’s missing a proof of funds or the proof of funds as it does not match the buyer on the offer please resubmit so that I can present your offer to my seller cuz if you just take some sloppy offer hurt your seller there than you’re now the slob know being a slob is contagious and if you allow it if you adopt the bad etiquette of another agent well now you’re representing that to your client and because you haven’t said a professional boundary and same goes with a counter offer often you know a professional agent will typically say if if when negotiating terms verbally so let’s give me a quick example there’s a counter offer that’s been made and from what to the seller counters the buyer okay well agents might talk back and forth and and when the buyer’s agent says would yourself would the seller be open to this would you guys be open to whatever the term might be the proper response from the listing agent or from the other agent should be the seller will happily consider it just put it in writing put on a counter and I’ll be happy to present it because talk is cheap as the old saying goes put it on a document let’s do this professionally let’s do this the right way for the benefit of our parties and everyone involved and that goes for text messages same idea put it in writing let’s let’s look call me if someone texts text me with something that I just simply don’t think it’s appropriate for text message I just call them because take me to understand that then answer that I need to give this complex and multifaceted it’s a disservice to that person cuz I can’t give them a proper response to text and add to disservice to me because they’re trying to downplay the importance of an otherwise complex question should be address of your phone call so don’t get caught up in this hole text trend of trying to take everything every form of communication and and reduce it down to a short text message text has a time and a place that’s not in negotiating real estate so I would think of in your words a way to set a professional boundary when it comes to text messages and I would enforce that when agents text you in agents will understand too that you as the agent that setting that boundary that it’s inappropriate text certain things and that it needs to be moved to a phone conversation or an email or however you want to do it they’ll understand that you you can be pushed around that you are a professional and you have perimeters and place to conduct your business and you don’t compromise and it sets the bar higher. There you go on the text messages moving over to the other topic so often there are problems that arise when a listing agent changes the commission offered to the buyer’s agent and so everyone’s going off what’s listed in the MLS and then will I still see theirs are cooperating broker compensation amount 3% or two and a half percent and that can be changed just as easy as anyone can log in and edit the MLS now sometimes I get a phone call that the agent that wrote the offer remembers the listing show 3% a month ago but now it shows 2% right when the offer got submitted and that it was changed so there’s a simple way to avoid confusion when it comes to the buyer’s agent commission because it’s happened this happens all the time sometimes agents listing agents don’t even mean to change the commission sometimes they do sometimes they’re being nefarious but none of that matters if the buyer’s agent does the proper steps to when they write an offer to ensure that they’re getting the commission that was offered so my suggestion is every offer should include a cooperating broker compensation Form that’s a car for CBC it’s a simple one-page document that basically certifies in writing what’s being offered to the buyer’s agent there’s even a box you can check confirming what was publicized on the MLS if there is a bonus in addition to the cooperating broker percentage you can add that on there as well but this address is the compensation in the beginning when the offer submitted because otherwise if the CBC form isn’t included with the offer then the buyer’s agent is relying on the seller’s agent to inform an escrow what that amount is and then escrow will drop instructions to pay the the cooperating broker that amount and that’s often when there’s a problem that’s when it gets flagged usually the buyer’s agent sees in the middle of escrow that the wrong amount is on there and then they checked the MLS in the MLS doesn’t show the number that the buyer’s agent saw before and if they don’t have proof then it’s pretty tough so the best thing to do is always have an MLS print out of any property that you make an offer on because that’s going to serve as evidence that’s essentially a time-stamped sheet of evidence showing that the listing agent offer a certain amount as compensation but if you include that CBC form of your offer then the listing agents going to be signing off and there’s really no disputing with a cooperating broker compensation is that point because it’s in writing it agreed to by the parties so just remember in conclusion to include a CBC form cooperating broker compensation Form with your offers to one page for music included when you send over to the listing agent so that it shows in writing that there’s no understanding what’s being paid to the buyer’s broker and will end their thanks for listening and I hope you found this podcast informative.