Wait....Forget About The Rain??

Yesterday I was contacted by buyers who wanted to look at homes NOW, problem was they speak Vietnamese and I speak English. Their friend translated over the phone but was not going to be available to go with us to look at homes.

As my policy is to always have a Buyer Consultation prior to looking at homes, I explained the process to them and we agreed to look on Sunday. Honestly I thought they would hang up and find an agent available NOW and one who spoke Vietnamese. Nope, they called me (via their friend) last night with their MLS numbers of the three homes they wanted to see and to confirm our appointment for Sunday at 4pm.

Now the dilemma, I did not feel like I could do right by them when neither of us could understand the other. Not to mention the legalities of not being able to explain a Purchase & Sale Agreement. I sent an email to my market center looking for a Vietnamese speaking Broker, no responses. I looked in the KW White Pages and found 1 Broker, to far away. I sent an email to several Broker friends in the business, got one name from a colleague, who did not respond to my email or phone call. Finally I posted on Facebook what I needed.

A couple people responded that they knew people who spoke Vietnamese, but I really wanted to refer this client to another agent who spoke Vietnamese, I just thought that was in their best interest. Then Vicky Chrisner commented and reminded me about ActiveRain's referrals page! OMG how could I have forgotten about AR?? In addition Vicky posted a referral alert on Facebook to the Facebook world! (Thanks again Vicky, that was so nice of you!!).

Needless to say I posted on ActiveRain immediately and within a half hour I had 4 responses. Then by morning I had 5 more! Once again I was reminded of the power of the AR community! While several of the responses were to say sorry I don't speak Vietnamese, please call me next time, there were a couple good possibilities and I was given the ames of Brokers not on AR that might work.

Thank you Vicky for reminding me of a resource that was right there all along and got results quicker than any other resource! I did not end up going with an AR member, but you can guarantee I won't forget about the rain ever again!