Missed appointments, the impersonal nature of modern real estate transactions, scheduling struggles, and sellers lingering during showings are just a few of the common gripes from buyers and sellers, according to a recent article in The Washington Post. For example, one couple says they received a text message from their real estate agent saying that potential buyers wanted to view their home within a certain time frame. The couple made their house available, despite the hassle of the husband having to conduct a two-hour work call from his car and the wife having to keep the pets out of the house for two hours. But when the buyers never showed up, the sellers got angry and even more upset when the buyer’s agent never contacted them to apologize. 

“We contacted the buyers’ agent and her manager and never got an apology from either of them,” the couple says. “Our REALTOR® followed up as well and reported back the buyers’ agent had blamed the buyers for not being available because they have a baby and it’s hard to get out of the house. But that doesn’t explain why she didn’t contact us either time to let us know they wouldn’t be coming.” 

The couple also says that the “lack of personal touch” in real estate is irking them. “Even with your own REALTOR® almost everything is done by e-mail, including when it was time to renew our listing contract.”

Even finding an agreeable time to look at a property can be a logistical nightmare. “It’s surprising when sellers insist that buyers can come in only during limited hours or respond negatively to requests to visit a property,” Jami Harich, an agent with Avery Hess REALTORS® told the Washington Post. “They’ll say it isn’t a good time. But when your buyer wants to see multiple properties, they sometimes just skip the one that isn’t easy to see.”

To avoid this situation, it's important for sellers agents to really stress the importance of having a flexible schedule to their clients.

Some buyers say they are also not happy when sellers refuse to leave when they are trying to view a home. Eldad Moraru, a real estate pro with Long & Foster Real Estate in Bethesda, Md., says that is one of the biggest complaints he gets from buyers.

“The worst is sellers who follow the buyers around to show them features or talk about the place,” Moraru told The Washington Post. “Buyers feel as if they’re intruding and won’t even look at the house.” 

Moraru says that if sellers are present in the house when his buyers are looking he tries to engage them in conversation so the buyers have a chance to look around in quiet. Moraru says that sometimes listing agents don’t make it clear enough to home owners that it’s important to leave the home for listing appointment, but he also notes that he realizes sometimes home owners just don’t listen either. 

Source: “Home Buyers and Sellers Can Drive One Another Up the Wall,” The Washington Post (June 23, 2016)