The market is so active that agents we've encountered seem to have lost the will to work at their trade anymore; they settle into their armchairs and wait for their clients to do the scouting around and report back.
This is our experience:
Early in the summer three of our family groups wanted to combine forces and buy a property with at least two houses in place.
This isn't impossible since there is a large old order Mennonite population in the area and they do just that--add another house for the next generation, or tack on for the older folks. Also there are triplexes, duplexes, semi-detached properties.
Here's the inducement for the agent--you sell two of our houses, get the commission on that and find us the property we want and get the commission on that.
We approached some agents and were confronted with a lot of head scratching and a mumble about seeing what's out there. You could almost see their eyes glaze over at the prospect of having to hustle.
We checked online and found a property worth checking out and contacted the agents but this place didn't fit the criteria so we waited for the agents to come up with something else.
And we're still waiting to hear back.
We've gone to open houses where the agent scarcely looks up from his reading, even though we poked him to check for life signs before explaining our needs.
What we want sounds like too much trouble and why should they bother when the market is so ripe right now?
From here on, we'll act as our own agents and we can't possibly do any worse.
1 comment:
Alas, it's the exact opposite here. Perhaps I could send a few hungry agents up your way? ;-)
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