Active Rain December 14, 2009

Questions? Email is Best

If this isn’t protocol already, it should be. If you are an agent with a buyer interested in a listing, by far the best way to get their questions answered is to email the listing agent. There are many reasons to do this, not the least of which is that you’ll get answers in writing, but why would you ever feel that you’ll get a more accurate answer from a harried, preoccupied agent in the car en route to an appointment who clicks you through on call waiting than emailing them than having someone get you answers in writing, straight from the file? 

Some of these calls catch me at an awful time, and, with 35-50 listings to service and a brokerage to run, if I don’t have a file in front of me in the car, I’m going to ask you to email me. If I got 2-3 questions on every listing today, that would be 70-150 requested answers with my liability hanging in the balance each time. I don’t like those odds, and I don’t want to be inaccurate either. Do I get that many questions a day? No, frankly. But 20-30 questions? You bet. 

Consider the advantages:

  • You get the answer in writing;
  • You don’t get answers piecemeal;
  • Email is permanent and is a paper trail of you doing your client’s due diligence;
  • Email doesn’t forget;
  • Email covers your rear end. 
If I can answer you right away, I happily will. But all too often, one quick question turns into three, and we often have to confer with our seller client anyway. It isn’t for my convenience only. It is for your benefit also. I simply don’t have the age of the roof or name of the electrician memorized for all my listings. We are in a cooperative industry, so let’s cooperate. 
If you are a buyer, you should want your agent to get answers in writing! You never know when you’ll need them. 

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