Imagine that you are meeting a prospective client for the first time. You set everything up, leave early to meet them, have the address in the GPS, and set out. For some reason, however, the GPS fails you. An urban street ends due to a new pedestrian walkway. A new townhouse community stands in the way of a left turn. Perhaps the GPS doesn’t have the exact address. Somewhere between panic and concern, you look at the listing sheet for a cross street or other directions, and you see one discouraging word: Mapquest. At best, you are late. In some cases, you blow an opportunity to pick up a buyer. I’ve had cases where I call a buyer to tell them I am 2 minutes away and am told they don’t like the location and will be moving on. *click*
The practice of replacing directions to a property with the phrase “mapquest” has reached epidemic proportions in some parts of New York. When you consider what procuring a listing entails, it boggles my mind why an agent would do this, considering that it can sabatoge the mutual effort to get a buyer into the home. People don’t even print out directions anymore since GPS systems have come into play. Moreover, with the boom in development this past decade, even in mature areas, map information can be unreliable.
I have blacked out certain parts to protect the guilty, but this ia fairly typical in some parts of New York: “Penalizing” buyer agents with no offer of a commission, outdated open house information, and that damnable mapquest instead of directions or a cross street. This agent should be ashamed.
Here’s another rocket scientist’s work of salemanship:
If you are the listing agent, you need to look out for your clients and ensure that cooperating agents know the cross street at the very least. Act like the fiduciary that you are.
Search the MLS like an agent here. New York’s Premier Short Sale REALTOR. Read my short sale bog here. See the New York Photo blog here. J. Philip Serves Briarcliff Manor, Ossining, the River Towns, Westchester County, and the bedroom counties of New York City.