I think one of the first things a REALTOR must learn is to be flexible with time and people, but also to set some limits and to expect the unexpected. There are days I might work 15 hours and others I might work 2. Most people are pretty understanding of the fact that they are not my only client. If someone called and wanted me to list their house, I would probably explain that I was out showing, but arrange an alternate time such as that evening. That would be one of the 15 hour days...

If you were my client I would take probably set aside an entire day or two for you exclusively. Prior to your arrival I would ask you narrow down the "must see" listings to about 7-10 or so plus the ones I felt should be seen. After that first morning or so we would probably need to "regroup" as I learned more about you, and you learned more about the market area. After spending a morning or a day with new buyers I really like to spend sometime sitting down at the computer and looking through the MLS with them. It helps us eliminate things and also can add some possibilities. From that I plan our second full day. If I had some other things to attend to, I would recommend the buyer drive around a bit to further eliminate homes or neighborhoods. For those first couple of days I try to really focus on them. After the first 2-3 days, I carve out daily time for them but usually not entire days--maybe a few hours. If they are here for a weekend I might map out some open houses for them to attend if I'm busy with other clients. My goal is to help them narrow down the possibilities. I would be very upfront with a client such as yourself if I have other things scheduled or other people to see. Most often people are pretty understanding of this and that would be my advice to you: understand that the agent may have some other things that have to be done at particular times, i.e. a closing to attend, and be willing to be flexible a bit.

Flexibility is not always an option and I once lost $20k in commission, because I was not available to show homes for 3 hours (showing another buyer at that time).
People can be very demanding of our time, as the example above proved, when my out of state buyer suddenly showed up without warning and wanted to look at houses (he hitched up with another agent instead).
In the early years my business was picking up, when I started to have over 25 closings a year, my wife got her license and in short order we were closing about 50 a year. Having an "assistant/partner" was very valuable in getting things done.
As business increases, most agents have more assistants, licensed and unlicensed. Our RE broker daughter works on a team of about 7-8 agents and they are one of the top RE/Max teams in the nation.
As a lot, I think agents try to be very flexible, but it does not always work out that way.
I have found in the last few years, that some successful agents are working more on an 8-5 schedule and can not be contacted, some I never even meet in person during a transaction. I guess I'm just of the old school in that regard.

Berniek - I figured those types of things happened where people come in at the last minute and expect you to drop everything.

I'm not a realtor, but I'm ashamed to say that I wasted several realtors' time when I was looking for my first house. I think as realtors, you should strongly advise your buyers to do "drive-bys" before making appointments to see the interior of houses. After a while I figured out this tactic. So many times we (realtor and I) would pull into a driveway or up to a house, and I'd know instantly whether I wanted to see more. Buyers can eliminate several houses this way. I think I redeemed myself this time around...DH and I saw only a handful of houses (after we'd driven by them, of course!) before finding our perfect house. One thing is for sure...realtors work their butts off and deserve what they get.

Not necessarily. Our house looks like a regular ranch from the front unless you pay attention to the sides when you're driving by. We have privacy on one side, the other has a chain link gate, but when the roses are in bloom, you might miss seeing the rest on that side. My dad's house looks like a 2 story colonial but it's not, it's really a ranch with standing room attic.

I agree with rose. The house we bought 9 years ago is a plain-jane 1960s ranch from the outside. But the kitchen and bathrooms had been updated with custom cabinets, new counters, tile, etc, and those rooms are what sold us.

To the OP, have you been looking at homes online in that area? I have a "subscription" to our local Re/Max site so they email me daily when new homes listed meet our criteria. The listings include the address in addition to photos & description, so we'll do a "drive-by" if we're interested. It's a great way to whittle down the choices! It's also a good way to find a neighborhood you like, and you might actually find a FSBO this way, as we have done a couple of times!

Linda posted in Groominggal's thread about acceptable notice for home showings that realtors plan their time and may have a buyer looking one day and may not have time in their day to book an appt 24 hours in advance because they have another client the next day.

Sparkels, this doesnt quite read the way I said it. I'd like to clarify: The comment was in regard to sellers asking for 24 hours notice. If a realtor is out with a client today, and they either drive by, or see something on the computer they want to see which has a "24 hour notice clause", chances are, that realtor is NOT with that same client the next day. So when people ask for 24 hours notice, chances are, they are loosing alot of showings unless this particular home was searched out in advance.

I didnt want people to think that agents can't make appointments 24 hours in advance because they are too busy with another client. If you know ahead of time you are going to be with a particular client,(which you most likely do) you can set up those 24 hour appts. The issue comes in to play when the house looks interesting while you are out with a client and they want to see it. With a 24 hour notice, it is not available to the very buyer that already likes what he sees.

terrig 2007 - I think as realtors, you should strongly advise your buyers to do "drive-bys" before making appointments to see the interior of houses.

That's definitely a good idea if the buyer knows the city. However, I don't think this would work for those people who are visiting a city on a short trip to find a home, especially if they have never been there before.

Now when I go to the TC's to look, I will take our car GPS with me and rent a car, so I could technically do that, but I probably wouldn't be able to go to many areas for fear of getting lost. However, it is a good way to go back to check out a neighbourhood if there was a house I was considering.

larzebub - Yep, I"ve been watching the TC's MLS for several months now to get a feel for the place and prices in the different areas. We're waiting for the feds to call my husband for his move to a different federal agency, so we're sort of in limbo right now. But at least it's given me time to research the market.

Linda- sorry for the confusion. Your post in the other thread prompted me to as about time management, but I didn't mean for it to sound that 24 hours notice could not be done, but rather to do an extension of the subject on how realtors manage their time.

Do you get many rejections from sellers in the circumstance you cited where you are out, you see the sign, you call the realtor and the seller says NO, now is not a good time?

Do you get many rejections from sellers in the circumstance you cited where you are out, you see the sign, you call the realtor and the seller says NO, now is not a good time?

Sparkels, yes occasionally the seller will say no. I usually try to stress to the listing agent that the buyers are in town only a day or two or whatever the circumstance and have to buy. That usually gets us in. If its a local buyer, most of the time we reschedule another time, but for the seller, the feeling of, "I have to see it now" from the buyer is gone.

I think the best agents are the ones that make you FEEL like their only client, even though they are actually really busy. When we were selling our house, our agent would always call us back within half an hour if we left him a message, always managed to make time for us, and responded promptly to our every request. A couple of times, he told us that he couldn't do something at a specific time because he was doing a walk-through or a showing, etc., but he would make sure that it got done. Talking to him always left us with the impression that we were his most important clients, even though he had lots of listings and our house was on the low end price-wise.

On the other hand, when we were looking to buy in a different town, we went on some showings with an agent who had been highly recommended by a friend. We got into her car, and before we could get to the first showing, she got a call to show a house that she had listed (not one that fit our needs). Apparently, the sellers were insisting that she be there for every showing.

She apologized profusely for the inconvenience, but as the house was only a few minutes away and we like looking at houses, we said it was fine. Having recently sold our own house and experiencing damage caused by thoughtless buyers and their indifferent agents, I definitely understood the seller's wishes!

We waited at the other house while she showed it to the prospective buyers. It didn't take long, and we were soon on our way to the first house on our list. However, while we were at our first showing, she got another call to show her listing, and told us that we would be going back. By this time, we were 20 minutes away! We were pretty annoyed, but we really wanted to see the other houses on our list that day, so we agreed to it again. The third time she got a call to show the same house, we told her just to bring us back to our car at her office. I don't know if she made a sale to anyone who saw her listing that day, but she definitely didn't make one to us!

Wow! I don't blame you for ditching that realtor! I would be furious too! What if you were in town only for one day and had to find a house? Way to make clients feel like they are not important when her listing obviously took precedence over you finding a house.

Did you tell her why you dumped her or did you just not call her back?

We ended up having to bully our agent into basically requiring local people do a driveby, including coming up the long driveway so they can actually see the house, before they make an appointment for a showing (we would of course make exceptions for a long-distance relocation situation where someone had to look at a dozen houses in one day, we're not total jerks, but so far that has not been an issue), because people have been so incredibly inconsiderate. We admit we were pretty stupid as first time buyers, we bought a good house in a not-so-good location - everything else in our budget was a total dump that we couldn't afford to fix up even to "functional" so we took the best we could get. But even though we're priced very low to compensate for the location, 80% of our appointments were people getting to the end of our driveway, from which you can't even SEE our cute Cape Cod, and saying "it's next to a restaurant and too close to the highway, it could be the Taj Mahal back there and I wouldn't give a crap, get me out of here". We lost count of the last-minute blow-offs and no-shows after a dozen in the first 10 days. The agents (both ours and theirs) have completely sucked at trying to convince people "just go in" - heck, most of the time they can't even get them up the flippin' driveway. Due to health issues the cleaning and scrambling for a showing can put a pretty big dent in a day for me, so pretty much the only thing to do is to try to cut down the appointments to people who can cope with the location issues.

"Did you tell her why you dumped her or did you just not call her back?"

We actually never called her again- and she didn't call us, either. I think she knew we weren't going to buy from her!