As most of you all know, we've been house-hunting. I took the advice of a good neighbor friend and decided to ask a realtor to show me houses.
Well I couldn't have made a worse decision when I chose a realtor from the Jim Huff Realty Inc. company.
I asked this Huff realtor to show me such and such houses on a Friday. This was on a Tuesday. She agreed. Then that night she called and wanted to know if me and my husband could come into her office "to look at some possible listings and for her to get to know us better" before she started showing us houses. After all, she said she didn't want to waste our time showing us houses we weren't interested in.
Well, I know my husband. There was no way he was going to sit down and talk to anyone. He's very much a do-er. So, I thought I would get this preliminary stuff out of the way on Wednesday while he was working, so I agreed to meet with her.
Come into my lair said the spider to the fly.
The bait...
I entered her office at Jim Huff Realty Inc. on Cavalier in Florence KY, and we spent about 45 minutes looking at various listings and discussing me and my husband's preferences, school districts, our price range, etc. as she had promised.
And now for the switch....
Out of nowhere and like a slap in my face she whips out this "exclusive realtor" work contract. Ya Allah! Walla! She actually had the nerve to say to me that it was actually a waste of her time to start showing me houses unless I first signed this exclusive buyer contract and promise that I would only work with her. This contract stated that if I were to buy a house in the next months, I will promise to only buy it with her and she will get the 3% commission!
I couldn't believe it! I hadn't even seen one house with this woman, I had absolutely no idea what kind of work she could do, and she was demanding my loyalty to her!
This is demoralizing, demeaning, and a complete waste of me and my family's limited precious time! What does this realtor think I am, an idiot? And who does she think she is, a lawyer or something?
Lawyers perform exclusive services, and they are highly trained professionals, that require dedicated legal contracts etc. Doctors for example are also highly trained advanced professional individuals that perform exclusive services. We have a family lawyer, a family doctor, even a family veterinarian.... but a realtor is not on the same level as a Doctor or a Lawyer. She is not a highly trained professional with an advanced professional degree. She is merely a SALESMAN, nothing more, nothing less. She is the same as a car salesman, a furniture salesman, or the guy down the street at Buddy's Carpet Barn who sells carpets.
My parents, friends, neighbors, and clergyperson all would call me an insane fool if I signed an agreement with the salesman at Buddy's Carpet Barn promising him I'd buy some carpet from him, when he hasn't even shown me one bit of merchandise or found the right carpet in my price range!!!!!! So why should I do the same with this Huff realtor?
We are actually almost a week behind in our house hunting because of her stunt.We are currently renting and will soon go into a month-to-month fee because we will be staying past our lease period. We need to expedite the house buying process, not have ridiculous antics like this from SELFISH REALTORS like those at Jim Huff Realty Inc.
The realtor who did this to me told me that this is company policy. That means there is a serious problem with customer service and in the company vision of management at Jim Huff Realty Inc. The only conclusion I am able to make by such a selfish company policy is that this company doesn't want to help a potential home buyer; they only want to make phat cash for themselves and the buyer. That makes Jim Huff Realty Inc. by their very nature PREDATORY REALTORS when it comes to how they interact with potential buyers of homes.
Shame shame shame on you, Jim Huff Realty, Inc.!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I'm sorry you had such a bad experience with Huff - but I have to tell that we worked with a husband and wife team from Huff in Cincinnati, and LOVED THEM. This is after we switched from a nice but incompetent realtor from another company (I will refer to her as BLONDIE, and the lovely couple as LOVELY COUPLE from here on out).
Although we never had to sign a contract with BLONDIE, we spent several weeks working with her. We looked at several houses with BLONDIE, and at one point even made an offer on a house, which fell
through. After that experience, we fell back and regrouped, deciding that BLONDIE might hot actually be much of an agent.
Luckily, the LOVELY COUPLE, who also happened to be our landlords at the time, offered to help us. We looked at several different houses, got some very very wise advice about finances, plumbing, etc., and eventually placed on offer on our current home.
Here's the catch - the house we purchased had originally been shown to us by BLONDIE, though at the time, it was way out of our price range, and we weren't even considering it. But when the LOVELY COUPLE showed us the house, the price had dropped considerably, and they negotiated the heck out of it.
All was right in our world, thanks to LOVELY COUPLE from HUFF.
But then BLONDIE caught wind of the purchase and sued LOVELY COUPLE for the profit of the sale, and she actually won half of their profit, since she had spend ten minutes showing us the house.
I still feel rotten about the whole thing, and if anyone mention's BLONDIE's name as a potential agent, I will tell them to run like heck.
So I guess my point is: it's not just that one agent. They can be vicious anywhere! (But there are some wonderful people out there, too!)
What this realtor failed to explain properly is the law with regards to representation. IF... she showed you homes without the exlusive buyers representation form, then she would have been a "sub-agent" of every listing agent. This would be like telling all the details of your case to the apposing attny! She could have also explained that this type of contract can be written for 1-2 days and if your are happy with them, it can be extended.
You really need to educate yourself about real estate in the modern world. Your comments about the realtor not being a highly trained professional are humorous. Im a professional investor that makes well over 500k annualy buing and selling real estate and I would NEVER make a move without my realtor. Yes, he his paid well and yes he is a type of salesman, but he has saved me from making emotional decisions and has saved me tens of thousands of dollars in recent years.
Find a good, competant, full time, profesional realtor and stick with him/her. Or you can go it alone and then complain when you get burned... and you will get burn because you wont have someone in your corner looking our for you and not the seller and then when you cut and run, someone like me will come in and snatch the deal and moke a lot a of money... hmmm maybe I should just shut up... where did you say you were trying to buy?
Post a Comment