REO AGENTS are ^%$&-#&%^&*@, &%^%$%-&*%@&!%, $@%$!#@s

O.K. maybe not all of them. There is an agent in my office who does a lot of bank owned transactions and she's upright, honest and helpful. I can think of two or three others around the Western Wayne, Oakland County area of Southeast mi that are the same way.

Isn't that sad? Only a handful of agents who do work for the banks are actually solid, honest agents. The rest are, in my opinion, well....read the title again.

Someone may be upset by this post. If you are, you can reply with a disagreement as long as it's a cogent argument against my points. If you flame me, I'll just figure you're part of the problem and I cut too close.

Some may ask why I'm posting this for all to see as opposed to members only. It's just that I feel that clients and the public in general should know how these agents are treating other agents. If agents are being treated unfairly so are the clients they work with.

As you may be able to tell, I've been burned a few times over the last few weeks. Here's the senario. It may sound familiar.

A client calls to see a home that came on the market that day. We get in that day. I call the agent with an offer that day. Low and behold he already has three offers, all cash. He tells me there's no reason to put in another offer. Then I ask if these offers were asking or above. One of the offers is close to asking, he replies. I then say we're coming in over asking and I hear the panic in his voice. "Hurry and get it in because the other offers have already been submitted!"

I send the offer in but it suddenly is PENDING in the system. When I call the listing agent, he has an offer 1,000.00 higher than ours, so we're out. Later when the sold report comes up, sure enough, it's the lisitng agents buyer who had a conveniently higher offer than ours. No highest and best, no call to compete.

I don't know about other states but this is a very common around the Detroit area. And it needs to end.

Does it seem strange to anyone that most REO agents are the lowest of the dregs of our business? Someone who wasn't even in Real Estate 2 years ago and won't be when the market turns around? Or someone who was a marginal agent for years and suddenly gets in with a bank?

My broker recently attended the Michigan Association of Realtors (MAR)convention and you may be surprised at the number one item that MAR was concerned with. No it wasn't the economy. It was the sudden and profound drop in professionalism in our business. MAR and NAR are aware of the problem but what are they doing about it.

My next entry will discuss who's to blame for this and, hopefully, what we can do about it.