Hello, I’m an experienced Realtor and you’re an idiot…

Did you ever hit one of those long-term Realtors who thinks that everyone else in real estate is an idiot because they don’t all do it the way he/she does? It’s particularly maddening when they are also the type that starts most sentences with “I’m not going to let my buyer(seller) do that… or maybe I won’t even show my buyer (seller) your ridiculous offer, unless… or maybe I would never let my buyer (seller) use that type of mortgage company, I’m going to require them to get pre-approved by…


Some of the Realtors that I’ve hit lately, especially in the short sale market have been condescending to the point of being just plain rude. It’s certainly true that I don’t know everything about short sales, but I do think I know right from wrong and how to advise my clients to do what’s right – for them. Perhaps that is the issue; it may not be “right” for these old timers’s clients, at least not in their minds.

This is really a form of bullying, which many Realtors use as what they believe is a negotiating tactic. It’s as tiresome as the agent who whines their way through a litany of issues large and small that they have with the property that you represent as preparation for some low-ball offer that they may have advised their client to thrown in. Both waste time and both are really ego-driven attempts at misdirection to see if they can get the other side to blink or tire out and capitulate.

I’ve even had one of these prima donnas dress me down in front of her client because I didn’t have my client offer the best home warranty for her client – not the one that she always offers her clients. HELLO. I represented the other side, honey. I did the best I could for my client. You saw the warranty well ahead of closing, why didn’t you advise your client to upgrade it, if it wasn’t what you would have offered.

I guess it’s all just human nature. There will always be people in any profession who see it as a zero sum game – in order for them to win, you have to lose. I hope that I try to play the game such that everybody can feel like they won.

I’ve only been at it for 10 years, so I guess that old school agent with 20-30 years in the business will always see me as an idiot who doesn’t know what he’s doing or who is doing it wrong. So, I smile and try to stay calm and let them rant and rage and vent until they’ve run out of steam…and they always run out of steam, because once the hot air is gone, so is the steam. There. See, I feel better already.