The sound of one hand clapping

I ran into something yesterday that reminded me of that old zen standard about one hand clapping. I ranted here earlier about the little, 2-person mom & pop operations that abound in this business - "Two Clowns and a Sign". Yesterday I hit the penultimate implementation of that concept - the single person shop. This was like LookMaI'mARealtor LLC, the broker out on their own; in this case, specializing in the vast foreclosure business that's out there these days.

It really doesn't take much to set up shop as a real estate company - a place separate from your home (could be a timeshare with other businesses) where you can meet the public, have mail delivered, maybe have a phone system and you need a brokers license - another requirement that is fairly easy to meet. The increase in foreclosure business has encouraged this practice, since the broker/owner needs to DO almost nothing. They get the place listed in the MLS and stick a sign up. Most of these operations do it for very little commission. That's how they curry favor with the banks and mortgage companies.

What I found amusing yesterday (actually very frustrating at the time) was trying to schedule a showing appointment through one of these little outfits. I got this important sounding message when I called the "office" - "All of our agents are busy assisting other clients, please leave a message ..." What a hoot. I may put that on my home office voicemail service. Once all of the agents stopped being busy with other clients, I got a call from The owner/broker/agent/chief cook and bottle washer. I eventually got the appointment and showed the house. Since it was a bank repo, it was in fairly rough shape, but my clients expected that and may still try to do something with it.

So, it you're out driving around looking for houses and see a sign with some strange sounding name for the listing real estate company; especially if it has LLC after the name, be prepared to deal with the sound of one hand clapping and one person trying to pass themselves off as a company. to get the service that you probably expect, go with an agent from a known company or franchise. They'll have to deal with the one hand clapping issues, not you.