I'm curious as to what types of problems agents bring to you as their broker to get involved with. I'm not referring to new agents, routine forms and how to coordinate a transaction, but to agents who supposedly know the basics. What types of problems are they running into and dropping on your lap?

Here I have a good one. I had an agent get a buyer to sign a contract on a property. He took the buyers check and gave it to escrow luckily. The buyer then left the country. The agent then left the country.

The Seller then sold the property FSBO using a different title company. I got a call two years later from the escrow company the buyer was back in the country and looking for his deposit money back. I then got continuous calls, door knocks and letters from this buyer who wanted his money back. To this day I think escrow still has that check.

Here are a couple simple ones:

Mr. Broker: I have a Full Price Offer on Mrs. F.'s House and now she says she's changed her mind and doesn't want to sell. How do I get paid ?

Mr. Broker: Bob built a house on the wrong lot. I sold him Lot #22 and he went and had a foundation poured and started building a $200,000 house on Lot #24. Boy, is he angry ! He's coming down to see YOU !

Mr. Broker: Dr. D's Septic System isn't quite where I told him it was. Well, I guessed okay where the Tank was; but the Leach Field is actually on the Neighbor's property. Sorry!

Mr. Broker: You know when I did that New Listing over in Orleans ? I guess I forgot to include the Village Taxes along with the Town Taxes. Buyer M. just got the Tax Bill(s) and wants to know how YOU are going to handle the extra $1700 ? He sounds a little upset.

Mr. Broker: When I took that listing for Mrs. Cass last year, I used her square footage instead of measuring. Now the Buyer is saying he was shorted 800 Sq Ft. What should WE do about that ?

Mr. Broker: Everytime I send someone up to look at that raw land on Dexter Mountain, the Neighbor comes out and starts discouraging Buyers by telling them about the Restrictive Covenants in the Deed for that Land. Now the Owner wants ME to go up and tell the Neighbor to shut up ! I told the Client that YOU would do that !

Here is one.

Purchase agreement gets signed. Washer and drier are not listed as included in the purchase agreement but they are listed that way in the MLS listing.

When the buyers move in, washer and drier are not there.

Buyer calls agent, agent calls broker, his broker calls me.

What was nuts about this one was the listing agent reminded the buyers agent that the washer and drier were not in the purchase agreement and suggested he let the buyers know that. We had email records of the discussion. The buyers agent ended up looking like a moron (but you can bet the buyers clients were never told about the email conversation!).

These are all helpful posts. I hope we can keep this thread going for awhile. I am just beginning to think about opening up an independent brokerage and am asking myself if I have enough smarts and moxey to handle these kinds of problems. Some of Vermont007's examples have me visualizing angry people with steam blasting out of their heads. Yikes.

How about some more real world examples folks? I'll bet some of you have come across things that I cannot even imagine.

My broker associate called me yesterday. His girlfriend made an offer to close on a REO on the 28th. Oops she has to work can't do the closing on that day. Bank won't change the closing date to the day after or later. Won't give back earnest money (they are correct. My broker associate isn't correct).

My answer or question? Why did you schedule the closing for a time she had to work? Get her a POA with someone if she can't do it. Easy as that. *sigh*

And he was just mad the seller wouldn't change the closing date or give back the earnest money. Why should they. His girlfriend and he should have figured their closing date out 30 days ago.

Frankly, hearing some examples are good for giggles, but what it really comes down to is your attitude.

If you can stay calm, cool and collected and keep your wits about you when someone is screaming about something, you are going to do fine.

The bottom line is that folks go into the screaming and yelling mode count on that to intimidate folks into giving them what they want. Not terribly unlike a 3 year old at the supermarket.

Your first step is to simply not commit to an action right then in the heat of being yelled at. Ask them for the details of the issue and let them know you will call them back in X hours with your decision.

That way you can evaluate what is going on and talk to other players in the situation. Be willing to say "No" when they demand a commitment one way or another right then. It is harder to learn than it sounds, and I have known TONS of experienced agents and brokers who let this kind of thing rattle them.

In my case, I turn it into a problem solving exercise. I let them vent and when they are done I suggest we now focus our attention on solving the problem.

However, you need to have standards. I will not permit others to abuse me verbally by using profanity. Also, if they cross a "lunatic line" in what they are saying, I will end the discussion. If it is on the phone, I give one warning. I let them know that if the abuse continues, I will hang up. I am happy to hear them out if they can maintain a minimum of respect, but otherwise not. My record so far? 6 hang-ups before they got the idea and we could work on a solution.

If they are in my office, I explain my position and if they continue, I ask them to leave. I have actually never had to go that far... folks grab on to rationality quicker in person it seems.

R

Well said. I'm on the go so much that being confronted by someone unruly due to an agent's actions is probably unlikely. Someone upset would have to cool off before I tried to reason through a problem with them to a solution.

As to the problems people posted above -- I still find them to be anecdotally informative. I don't know how much oversight and troubleshooting would be necessary if I brought agents in under my license. When I worked in other shops, I personally didn't have problems I coudn't handle and resolve on my own so I never bothered the broker in charge.

For those of you who manage a group of moderately experienced agents, let's say 10 agents for the sake of discussion, how much of your day is taken up with management issues? If you put in a 10-hour day, how much time is spent with agent issues needing your attention? An hour? Two? Four? More?

I had 7 agents in my office, all reasonably experienced, took very little time.

The worst was a horrifically mad husband going through a divorce. You know the story, wife put the house on the market without him knowing, agent never researched it, sign goes up and fireworks go off.

I did hear of a broker for a huge company who had an agent go missing with transactions in escrow and active listings. The story is they found him, in jail on murder charges. No idea if it is true but I like the story nonetheless....

i can tell you that i work with a fulltime assistand and 1 other agent. there has not been a problem that i have had to go to my broker wiht in the last 6 months... i sit in her office sometimes and we laugh and tell stories, but i am not there asking for help.... i call hte legal hotline or look up hte answer... many agents dont realize that most answers are pretty simple to figure out if you know the system thru and thru. i also have a fellow agent who comes to me and i come to him wiht questions. we learn a lot from one another.

my friend was going to open a shop, but the fees were so low where we are at that he decided against it for now. we are both going to be taking our brokers this winter.


if you give a man a fish you feed him a meal. if you teach a man to fish you feed him for life!

Yeah, lets address another point sort of lurking beneath the surface here.

The bottom line is you are hearing stories - and that is fine - but in my case, I don't have that many stories to tell of this type - despite having been licensed since 1988.

For the most part, you are going to find that managing a group of agents is less about these "people going crazy" scenarios and more about things like "I don't have enough directional signs", "How the hell do I fill out the listing agreement when the owner is a trust?", "I am getting botox injections on Thursday, can you cover a sign off for me?". Even those will be few and far between.

I think the key for a broker tho is being proactive. Your real work is going to be in putting into place practices where you go to your agents. Assess what is going on, provide input that avoids the panic moment in the first place. Now that I am "The Broker" and not just part of the Mentoring Team, etc. I know I am going to be spending more time being aware of the week to week status of my agent pool - when I get one! ;-)

R

Well I'm beginning to think that unusual problems are pretty rare.

My little list above is what stands out from over 16 years of having to deal with Broker "issues'. That's like only one exciting event every 1000 days ! Nothing much to lose sleep over.

But I remember them VERY WELL ! They were exciting when they came . . . . and never something that was planned for ! If they offered Continuing Education on how to solve every event that you haven't planned for, TAKE IT ! But this business is exciting enough to always be one step ahead in creating new problems that haven't been experienced by anyone else to build into a curriculum. It's all so boring UNTIL it's happening to YOU !

I think the worst problems are those that you don't get told about WHEN THEY OCCUR ! Those that have already started festering and growing out of control BEFORE you are brought into the picture. You can't provide a solution to a problem that hasn't been brought to your attention. Often, good Agents will try to solve a problem out of embarrassment.

If an Agent has a problem . . . . then I have a problem; and I truly want to know about it early.

lol.... ok... vermont007 makes a REALLY good point. They may be rare... but they DO make an impression!

R

One issue I see is the conflict between wanting agents to put in some effort to analyze problems to come up with solutions before they drag you into them -- and the risk that the problem may be worse by the time you hear about it, because the agent waited too long to realize they didn't know how to solve the problem.

I only know what I know. In other words, I have no idea how many other problems were kept secret from me and were somehow resolved. Ignorance is Bliss ! People, including Agents, have to be allowed to GROW; have to be allowed to think for themselves. So to get things done, you can't become a Control Freak who needs to know every dinky detail about every listing and every transaction or else he can't sleep at night lying awake thinking about a missing signature or that "AS IS" in some contract should read "IF YOU ONLY KNEW". Vicarious Responsibility means YOU are responsible for everything; but you can't allow it to make you miserable worrying about everything.

There's another active thread this week questioning what Brokers actually do to earn their keep. In a perfect world, it will always look like they do nothing. But this isn't a perfect world. I just hope that if Agents detect that when a new situation is ariseing that they thought was on terra firma turns out to be in quick sand, that they recognize it and call for help.

Management in Real Estate is like management anywhere else; EXCEPT that we are dealing with many more personalities on what is often a very transient basis and involving what is often their most valuable asset, and we are helping them to make some of the most signficant decisions in their lives. When they make bad decisions, they always remember how instrumental we were. When things go right, they say "We did this ourselves !"

In this setting, how can we help but make occasional mistakes and ruffle a few feathers ? Without those it would be pretty boring ! I'm so glad that I haven't had to deal with the same problem TWICE. Maybe I was just better prepared when the same situation arose a second time.

Oh well, to finish that quote from above "I don't know what I don't know". Such simple words; but they explain a lot. It takes a long time to digest them.

PS: More exciting things happen elsewhere than here in the backwaters of Vermont. This is a really quiet place ! I think that's why I'm here . . . . and not there !

As an agent speaking I have to drop the deposit issues on the Brokers Desk.

3 years ago I had a buyer wanting to buy a condo. He (the buyer) was a real A$$ anyways. So I got him a really good deal on the condo, we went into escrow. 2 days before closing I did a follow up with the Title Co and lender it was all set to go. 1 day before closing I called the buyer, he was excited. The day of closing I get a call from the Lender asking why the deal was dead? I called the buyer and he said he changed his mind, no other excuses given. I told him he would likely not get his EM Deposit back, I could only ask.

The seller will not release it, the buyer will not negotiate. It was really taking up to much of my time as a Salesperson, so I turned it over to the Broker. As far as I know that money still is sitting in the trust account.

One client goes to 10 property consultants for his requirement assuming that he would either get a better deal or a faster response. Which only makes things difficult for the broking fraternity and in turn the client himself. Also, not many brokers ask their clients to register the requirement with them, as is followed by all the IP's & also internationally bringing the broking rates to standardized forms.

Perhaps not directly on point, but maybe a key factor worth considering is risk reduction, by developing, establishing and monitoring company policy and procedures, utilizing checklist, etc. and recognizing that on occasion, smart people do stupid things.

Locally: We have mandatory Error & Omission Insurance which, if read carefully, contains many exclusions whereby the insurance company will not defend the insured or pay for any related costs, as follows:



The insurance company requires immediate notification of a potential claim, or they will deny coverage. Further, once notified their attorney’s direct the insured to henceforth, refer all matters and persons as may be related to the potential claim be referred to them.

The broker-in-charge of the daily operation of the brokerage firm acts as a “compliance officer” in that they review and ensure that their brokerage firms risk reduction practices and policies are followed and maintained by all licensees.

To encourage a licensee’s compliance, the brokerage firm incorporates an indemnity clause within their Independent Contractors Agreement indemnifying the brokerage firm.



Important Notice: This information is provided as basic educational information by the author and is not a substitute for the advice of an expert and/or the advice of a lawyer. There is NO representation as to legality, accuracy, correctness of the herein information and the reader is strongly urged to consult a lawyer in the relevant jurisdiction to ensure accuracy before acting on this information

I'm an independant broker amd I love it! I think the correct words are "preventive maintenance">