In the simplest of terms, brokers are re-wholesalers. Smaller growers, like Henry's, may do business through brokers as it limits their work and effort. The brokers do the purchasing and shipping and also offer a degree of security as to credit-worthiness when dealing with small customers in other parts of the country. Obviously, the broker extracts a fee for this service, which effectively bumps up the cost of the plants. Henry's is one of my local vendors and I can assure you it is a VERY small operation and not equipped to do business with a large number of customers scattered across the country. Heck, the GM even drives the delivery truck during the busy season!

I would suggest going to the auditor/recorder site for the properties you are interested in and see what information you can find out there first. If you get too much runaround with a broker, you can always contact the owner directly. We had an experience with a rotten agent that gave us the idea to do this. We went to an open house and liked it so well we contacted the listing agent to see it again. The listing agent was awful. We were stuck in traffic and called to tell her we were running late and would be there 10 minutes later than arranged. She threw this up in our face when we got there. Her husband was standing next to her and acted like we didn't exist. He was such a sourpuss he wouldn't even respond when we said hello. The agent was condescending. She waved her hands around and talked down to us like one might speak to a small child. When we asked her questions about the house she cut us off or would say loudly "Wow, I don't know the answer to that question." The last straw was when she tried to tell us she would be representing us as well as the seller. We smiled and said we already had representation and thanked her for showing us the house. Then we went home and sent a letter to the owner telling him we were interested in the house ONLY if we never had to deal with this person again. The owner responded and said he would have someone else from the office meet with us. This person was better. We made an offer, they accepted. The house failed inspection. We kept track of the listing and noticed a month later that the owner had switched realty companies. I'm sure there are more than a few owners who would not be pleased with how their properties are being represented. This is why it pays to find out as much about a property as possible before contacting the broker, etc. If I were selling and someone wanted the information you asked for, I'd provide it or give you a darn good reason why not.

There are going to be some REA's on here that don't like hearing this but here goes.... Realtor's and Brokers don't sell homes. They facilitate all the paperwork, process and people involved in a home sale. But in an internet-driven, mostly buyers market, the internet and the buyers use of same is driving more showings than is a Realtor or broker. If you aren't getting showings, its because of one or more of the following: -Your home is priced too high relative to competing homes/comparables in your market. Price drops, even minor ones, push you back to the top of the search engines as "changed" and signal potential buyers that you are motivated to sell. If you are NOT motivated to sell, then keep your price where you are and wait for a buyer with deeper pockets to come along. -Your home doesn't look good on the MLS and portal sites. Colors may be off, perhaps its empty and/or needs some staging, not enough pictures, too many pictures, low curb appeal...tons of reasons. See above...if you add/change pictures, it usually triggers a refresh in the MLS database and the sites will filter you back to the top as a changed listing, giving you temporary visibility again. -Ditto for MLS listing descriptions. While I personally don't read them first (I am looking at pictures and features like 3-car garage, bedrooms, baths, etc.) I have seen some that are outright deal killers. I saw one here just the other day that literally led off with this sentence. "Back on the market due to failure to perform by prospective buyers and no fault of the seller." C'mon, that just sounds like a childish agent/owners having some beef that the former buyers couldn't obtain financing and/or the appraisal came it below contract price. Stuff happens, be professional and if you put it in writing, it better be positive and genuine. Likewise, the text description shouldn't sound like the freaking Sham-Wow commercial guy or that's an equally bad turnoff. Accentuate the positives without screaming out every superlative you can squeeze into the 1000 character limit. You know the drill. -Your home may be absolutely great, but your lot/location is less desirable than your competition. I can't tell you the number of times I've decided AGAINST a showing on a home because I simply hit the "view on Google maps" button and noticed that the home backed up to a busy street, had little privacy between me and my neighbors, etc. It used to be that you really had to go visit a house to get a feel for its surroundings and this is simply not true any more. Doesn't matter to me how nice the home looks in pictures, if I can see my neighbors from my back deck, I'm not even going to consider it. Keep also in mind that with both Google street views and birds-eye satellite views of your home, it may be showing something less desirable than your perfectly-staged MLS pictures. For example, I once found a great home with a nice piece of property but noted that my neighbors on both sides of me had really poorly maintained yards. Big open areas of erosion, holes/ruts from something, etc. I passed on the property entirely. This was just visible from the Google maps views, not from the MLS pictures. I guarantee you that I'm not the only genius using this technique. I'd say that the reputation/demeanor of your broker/REA is the least of your concerns as they are the least of your influences to get a showing. The buyers most likely won't even interact with your REA until they submit an offer, and by that time, who cares what they think about the broker/agent? You are in offer stage if that happens. Today's home sellers need to recognize that the rules have changed. Buyers are more informed, and more empowered, to pick and choose what homes they want to see and less reliant on a broker/REA to make that decision for them. Doesn't mean REA's are worthless...quite the contrary. But it means they have far less influence on obtaining/pushing showings than they once had. This post was edited by Tony2Toes on Tue, Apr 2, 13 at 16:19

We chose not to offer on the house she showed us. Partly because we dont want have to deal with any more non-sense and partly because it would be settling on a house we didnt really feel head over heels about. Although, I do agree with those who said she wouldnt have any claim on the transaction. She's abandoned us and was never working in our best interest anyway. On a different note, youre right, I did say I didnt sign anything, but the law sheet I was given said the BA relationship existed with or without a contract. Is the absence of a contract why she might have not been the best to work with? On another note, we put in an offer yesterday on a home in a city 10 miles away for a price slightly above the one we lost. But they received three offers and ours was not chosen, but thats okay, the home had only been on the market two days and was seriously underpriced. And we did so through an agent, same company as the old one, but in a different office. There are several in the city and all have hundreds of brokers. I doubt if they know each other, but I have not told the new agent the name of the old one, simply that we were extremely unhappy with her. And the new agent is super professional, its like night and day! The bad agent never gave an excuse as to why she stalled. She asked me several times if I was sure I wanted to accept the final counter and I said yes, definitely! each time. I remember her saying something like well, I just wanted to make sure, and thinking it was odd that she would call a couple times a day and email asking the same kind of thing to which I always expressed my enthusiam for the house. She never said she had given our addendum sheet to them and I thought nothing about it, because we had come to an agreement with the seller and signed the paper. Then she called and said she had bad news and there had been another offer accepted. I was so shocked and upset that I didnt confront her. She had not even given them the sheet (for them to make the final acceptance) until after the other offer (a diffence of three days or so). My only guess is that she was too busy with whatever she does in life to even bother with her "clients." I never called to confront her, because I didnt think it would help. It wouldnt get us the house. I wouldnt call up her office either, for the same reason. I'll just take my business elsewhere. Thanks for everyone's responses!