Cracking the Real Estate Code

I love working in this market.  We not only are selling homes and have a somewhat stable economy, but we also have about 700 agents, about 500 of which are full-time, and so that’s a nice number of agents to get along with and know.

On Sunday, I presented an offer to some clients.  The offer was written by an agent that was trained at the same company where I trained.  We learned the letter of the law, that’s for sure.  There is hardly a line on the contract that we don’t know backward and forward.

The deadline for the sellers’ answer was noon that day.  I told the sellers that the buyer’s agent and I trained at the same place and I know she had been taught to make the deadline time 5 pm, as I had.  The fact that the offer’s deadline was at noon meant to me that her client had another house in line to offer on if this one didn’t work out.  When the time line is accelerated, one can sometimes assume that the buyer is in a hurry to get everything settled as soon as possible, and to the buyer, they’re not buying what they love.  They’re buying what works for them.  The seller exclaimed, “It’s like a code!”

The more I think about it, the more I realize the seller was right.

Monday night I was leaving the office and waiting in my car to turn out of the parking lot onto the street.  Behind me was another agent in his car, waiting as well.  While waiting for the traffic to clear, another agent from our office pulled into the parking lot and completely ignored me and, I learned later, the agent behind me.  There was no nod of acknowledgment, no raise of the eyebrow, no tilt of the chin nor a wave of the hand.  Nothing!

That’s code, too, I thought.  The code is that fellow agents are just as much part of my clientele as people buying and selling houses are.  It’s knowing how other agents think and what they’re telling their clients that brings another level to this business.  It makes it so much better than just writing figures on a piece of paper and crossing my fingers that the offer will go through!