There is one part of my job that really gets to me sometimes and it's happened again. Recently I received two referrals for people from out of state that wanted to move here. Great! Love the business! Except it's not working out that way. Both of them seem to think I am here to be their tour guide for a couple of days.
Potential client #1 was a referral from a renter that I met last summer. She and I kind of hit it off, similar ages and interests, that sort of thing. We went to lunch a few times and could see a friendship potential. She is from Montana and has a friend that wants to buy a vacation home here and referred me. Love that. Except the friend is totally unrealistic. Thinks she can come and buy a brand new house with all the better upgrades in a gated community, over 2000 square feet for under $150,000. Yes you can get that here but only in communities that are on the outskirts of town and quite a distance away. I was supposed to be showing her houses on Tuesday and today but nothing I sent her was what she had in mind. She honestly expected me to just drive her around for two days, take them both to lunch, but never has come to terms with the fact that what she wants for the price she wants it is basically impossible. I finally had enough and told her that unless she changed her wish list there wasn't anything I could show her. You know what her response was? "That's okay, I didn't really want to buy a house anyway." Excuse me? I think there might have been steam coming out of my ears at that point. I will say her friend that referred me was so embarrassed she wanted to crawl under her chair.
Potential client #2 is arriving on Saturday from Wyoming. He is ready to retire and has a girlfriend here and wants to get out of the cold weather. He was referred by the VA Lender I work with a lot, so he should have been ready to go. He and I have been chatting back and forth quite a bit and I should have seen a red flag when he started to tell me to pull houses in a much higher range than what I was told he qualified for. I sent an email to the lender asking questions and so she starting digging deeper. Come to find out, he can't qualify for anything much and tells the lender to put the girlfriend on the loan. That usually will help a lot except for the fact that she had a foreclosure a year ago and can't qualify for anything either! So, once again, they were going to use me as a tour guide for the weekend. At least this time I found out ahead of time.
People, people, people. When you are honestly going to be moving to a new city, it is perfectly acceptable to contact a Realtor who will show you around different areas so you can get a good idea of where you want to live. If you are just there for a visit or vacation and need something to do, don't expect a Realtor to provide your entertainment. This is our business and typically we have other clients or things we can be dealing with besides playing tour guide. Be honest with whoever you contact. Tell them you are "thinking" about a move but aren't sure yet. Offer to pay for a tank of gas for their time if you aren't sure yet. If people are honest with me, I really wouldn't have a problem with it. It's the dishonest ones that drive me up the wall. But I guess that's true in most cases, isn't it?
Oh wow. How frustrating! Sometimes it just amazes me how inconsiderate people can be. Seriously.
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