Bill Meyer shared an interesting story the other day at a team mastermind as a reminder the while the market is hot, and it’s easy for us to get mad at the buyers who won a property when we didn’t, or the sellers who didn’t consider our offer or allow our showing, or even the agent on the other side of a deal that didn’t live up to our expectations, than maybe we should practice having empathy. 

Empathy for; 

• The many buyers who lose out on a perfect home in multiple offers, 
• The sellers of a home who are overwhelmed by showing requests, bully offers, and multiple offers having to choose just one. 

• Even the co-operating agents handling a complicated offer process that even many years of experience never prepared them for. 

Bill’s clients saw a new property come out on the market one Tuesday morning, after a quick call to Bill he requested a showing time for the next day, Wednesday.   One of the conditions of the showings was that Bill fill out a COVID release form certifying that he and his buyers did not have, or have been in contact with, or are showing symptoms of COVID-19.  He filled it out and sent it to the listing agent. 

By Tuesday evening he had still not received confirmation of his showing so he called the agent and left a message, as well as calling the office and having them paged.  Dinner passed, the news hours came and went and still no word.  A few more voice messages and pages later the agent returned his call, they were unsure if they had received the COVID form, when Bill assured them he had sent it the confirmed the showing and let Bill know they had already received 2 offers but he could still show it. 

Naturally the property was sold that night, but Bill didn’t find out until his clients had seen the property and wanted to submit an offer of their own. 

While this story probably pales in comparison to some of the frustration’s buyers, sellers, and agents are experiencing in the market, they key here was the agent, while disorganized did nothing wrong.  Bill having the choice of being frustrated and angry understood that this agent struggled with the pace of the current market and pandemic requirements.  He had empathy for this agent, who had over 35 years of real estate experience, but was still overwhelmed by the experience. 

We all get upset when things don’t go our way, and if you’re in the real estate market these days it’s even easier to get upset.  Before making the phone call, take a deep breath and have some empathy for the person on the other end, they are probably stressed out by the situation too.