Agents, PLEASE return your calls!

After a long lull, some of my buyer clients are getting back in the game. What I've found to be fairly consistent in the last few weeks is that a lot of you are not answering your phone. Worse, you are not returning calls the same day. Some of my buyers are very limited in the time they can devote to buying and there are questions we need answered asap. Perhaps a more complete MLS listing would alleviate some of the questions, but that's a topic for another post I suppose.

You are the agent of the seller, and your responsibility is to represent that seller to the best of your ability. I would think that answering calls (or at least returning calls) from prospective buyers (or their agents) to be an important part of that.

This morning one of my buyer clients calls me and says he wants to buy either one of two houses he's decided on, but has questions about each. I call both agents and neither one answers. I leave messages. I call again a few hours later. I leave messages. Now my buyer calls me and says he wants to make a decision at 10 am tomorrow when I meet with him. I suppose whichever agent calls first will get the offer. I know some of you will suggest calling the broker, but as I write this it's after 10pm on a Friday night--How likely am I to reach a broker before 10am tomorrow morning? This is just one of several examples recently.

If we're in the car at 7pm and we drive by your listing and you haven't provided complete showing information on the MLS, or the lockbox is set to stop working at 7pm on a vacant home, or I can't get a hold of you to get some answers--You just lost a sale if my client wants to move on.

So please, start taking or returning calls the same day. I understand we all have lives outside of our job, but as a listing agent I think buyer's agents are gifts from heaven, especially in this market. As a buyer's agent, I just want someone to answer the phone!!!