June 28, 2008

HousingPANIC Hilarious Ramen-Eater Quote of the Day


"I've had to fire some clients because they didn't follow protocol or went around me. If they call the listing agent direct, or look up tax records and call the owner, it's unethical, and I won't work with an unethical client."

- Atlanta realtor
Allyson Roberts, having us believe that business is so good that she turns away suckers (oops, I mean 'clients'), and reminding us all why realtors are dinosaurs, June 2008

39 comments:

whitetower said...

"fire my clients"

Just another piece of evidence that the real estate industry lives in an upside-down world.

Anonymous said...

Customer is king?

Not with REALTORS!

Who works for who?

Anonymous said...

Since when is it unethical to look up public records and use them to your advantage?

Anonymous said...

She doesn't allow Zillow searches either right?

Anonymous said...

Funny - I fired my agent last year b/c she would not put in a offer b/c it was "too low"!

Anonymous said...

That cow barely fits in that Nissan.

Anonymous said...

She's ignorant and confused the word unethical with informed

Paul E. Math said...

We can't have homebuyers thinking for themselves and doing their own research, now can we? That would level the playing field and reduce the monopoly that realtors have had on information.

This poor bitch is going to get steam-rolled by the information age. I can't believe she's still in business, with an attitude like that.

Anonymous said...

FU Realtwhores!

Anonymous said...

Clear proof of trusting your client and playing an honest game.

Anonymous said...

Here's what happened to us. We found a very nice house and wanted to buy it. We were using a real estate agent who was a friend of my sister's (big, BIG mistake). We should have called the listing agent directly (who want's the entire 6%, NOT a 3% split with another realtor). We made a full-price, cash offer and the listing agent would not return our agent's calls!. We waited one week to find out what was happening. (Tip, always have your offer expire within 24 hours...be willing to walk away fast). After a few days of not hearing from the listing agent, our agent took our offer directly to the sellers...BIG mistake (actually unethical for her to go around the listing agent). So when the week was up the listing agent finally called our agent advising that the sellers had accepted someone else's offer..for $2,000 more. It was a big mess. It's ok though...they started a huge development surrounding the "lost" property...something my sister's friend knew nothing about. So, if you're looking for a house:
Call the listing agent directly,
Have your offers expire in 24 hours, don't use friends, if you do use an agent find one who knows the area (as in grew up there, and has been a realtor for at least 15 years) WAIT A MINUTE...Put this advise away...you'll not need it till 2013!! (or never)

Anonymous said...

Even talking to the other realtor is not so much "unethical" as it may violate the contract they force you to sign before they are willing to deal with you - you know the one that says you won't switch realtors for several months? What does that contract say about their level of trust of and respect for clients?

E said...

"unethical" ???

She's an idiot.

E said...

Contact info:

http://www.yourmaximumpotential.com/emailme.html

Anonymous said...

I'm a Toronto real estate agent, and so to say, on the other side of the barricade. But quite frankly I have to say that I don't want to be on one side with people like Allison. Either she was not thinking clearly or she's got some special ways of realtor practice but her words don't seem very thoughtful. I think that my clients are free to cross-reference and find out themselves everything they want to.

Anonymous said...

If she's mooching off the in laws for her vacation, I don't think she's in the position to fire anyone.

Anonymous said...

She sounds as dumb as Greg Swann

Anonymous said...

Dear Allyson Roberts,

F#CK YOU!

To help Marylanders or anyone interested in purchasing a home or property (after the crash) in Maryland I have created a free site full of data to circumvent all the disgusting sales tricks of the scum that ply your trade. I have empowered buyers with everything they need to know to get the best deal at your expense. Tax records, loan amounts on properties, everything.

Have a nice day!

http://homedebtors.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

What a retard...

Here's a hint, you can only "fire" someone if you are paying them...

Anonymous said...

what does she care? if they signed on with her as a buyers agent or sellers agent and she has an exclusive with them - then she gets paid if she even told the buyer about the listing - it might be hard to catch and/or prove but many realtors have a clause so that the seller has to pay the fee even up to 6 months after the listing expires if they were the ones that told them about the listing.

Anonymous said...

Main Entry:
ar·ro·gance Listen to the pronunciation of arrogance
Pronunciation:
\ˈer-ə-gən(t)s, ˈa-rə-\
Function:
noun
Date:
14th century

: an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions

Devestment said...

How on earth do you fire someone that YOU supposedly serve?

How do you fire someone you are incapable of hiring?

This whole scenario sounds convoluted, delusional, cruelly manipulative, and mildly sociopathic to me.

So let’s get this straight.

Her broker will have her (his errand girl) make me sign his stop loss disclosure paperwork at contract while she browbeats me for prudently investigating issues that could cost me.

I guess now that all the stupid people who took the bait in the sub prime frenzy are gone; she is meeting a different class of buyer.

She’ll need to get used to it, this is the tip of the iceberg.

I figure with Countrywide, the worst offender, just now getting hit with the first wave of lay offs, we have quite an unemployment pile up in store for us.

Enjoy your summer; soon the economy will be the number one public focus of choice as the media displays its candidates who will play the blame game and try to fix your broken finances.

I hope for your sake you have saved some worthless dollars because there are plenty of realtors to handle this market and more are coming from a layoff mortgage house near you.

I personally dislike most realtors.

Most of them I encounter have nothing in the way of service to offer me.

They are completely unable to make any connection with me or share any genuine ideas or honesty.

They are either clueless about what I want or they show me bad deals to try and get me to buy the only one they have listed.

On the other hand, it can be very helpful to have someone sharp on your side. Those rare people are worth the money and get my support.

Anonymous said...

I never understood why anyone that would want to buy a house or property would need a realtor. It always sounded like a big scam to me. I mean pay someone 6% just to say "here it is, you can do this!"?

That woman should be ironing shirts and standing in a kitchen making some poor bastard something to eat. Dingbat. Dunce.

These silly woman are going to be in for a big surprise when this whole American fantasy land all comes to an end.

-FutureShock-

Anonymous said...

Here's a hint, you can only "fire" someone if you are paying them...

------------------------------------

ha ha, reminds me of the seinfeld episode(s) where cramer is working at the company that didn't hire him

Anonymous said...

I never understood why anyone that would want to buy a house or property would need a realtor. It always sounded like a big scam to me. I mean pay someone 6% just to say "here it is, you can do this!"?

---------------------------------

oh, but they do so many useful difficult tasks like:

make a phone call to a home inspector
call to arrange for closing.
put a pretty for sale sign out front (actually, they call and have a handyman do that)
try to keep the brochure box on for sale sign full (usually fail at this task).




Actually, some are worth paying 3-4 percent for. I have never paid the standard 6 I negotiate it down. at 3-4 percent I can't justify time away from work, it is called division of labor, and yes I make some good coin so that 3-4 percent pencils out. It won't pencil out for everyone, so be it, i would sell it myself if it made financial sense to do so.

Time == money.

Anonymous said...

She definitely qualifys as one of the poster childs as to why realtors are so depised today.

Anonymous said...

check out here picture!

http://www.yourmaximumpotential.com/aboutme.html

Has to be 20 years ago though

Anonymous said...

"Now is a GREAT time to buy!"

Anonymous said...

Not defending the REALTOR, but "Fire clients" is a common term.

If you have a customer that is very demanding, especially of time, and never places meaningful orders -- you fire them AKA stop returning their calls.

If you have a customer who consistently late pays, disputes invoices, makes you're life hell - you look at how much money you make off them. If it isn't worth it -- you fire them AKA stop returning their calls and sue for back payment.

If you provide a service where you only get paid on closing you are doing all of the upfront work for free. If you think the client is going to ditch you after you've done all of the work, but before you get the commission -- you fire ASAP AKA stop doing any work, and you may consider suing for breech of contract, expenses, time, etc.

Again, I'm not defending the REALTOR.

Anonymous said...

You're making this shit up, Right?

Anonymous said...

Spoke with a gentlemen from Prudential about a short sale in CO; he "refused to show" the house on account of my not having buyers representation. After which he hung up the phone saying good luck saving 3% on your next house. Actually he was right - according to Zillow I saved over 20% on another short sale in the area, again sans buyers representation. I've debated shorting their stock ever since.

Anonymous said...

.


Hey Allyson, I believe F U just about covers it!

.

Anonymous said...

We fire clients all the time. Running a domain registration/hosting business. Every now and then we'll get that one customer who keeps calling us because their computer can't get on the "interweb" and we happen to be the only ones who answer the phone for tech support.

Anonymous said...

The bane of realtors is information, like carfax.com is the bane of used car salesmen. With carfax.com you can get a free account that's good for 25 searches so you can recon a used car lot, get the VIN numbers of come cars at night, then feed them in.

By throwing in the VIN numbers into carfax.com you can see the provenance of the cars. This makes things a lot easier when shopping for a used car. It turns out that my car had one previous owner in Florida (a no-salt state) and I found out later that the owner went to college. I found out the latter item because of how I like my car downright refrigerated with the A/C onboard. The person used to have in the back window the name of the college!

There is no bloody reason why a homebuyer shouldn't have information about the homes he or she is looking at. Realtors are worse than even used car salespeople. Since when being informed became "unethical"? Easy. Information shorts out THEIR unethical practices!

Carioca Canuck said...

She needs a nose job......badly.

Anonymous said...

All real estate related documents have always been available to anyone at the county courthouse, over the past 20 years to anyone who subscribes to lexis-nexis, and now with the internet and some State/local goverments putting all documents on line, to anyone with accesses to the internet.

Any realtor who does not look up all documents on the seller, in order to determine the seller's financial state (to get a better idea about how low they can realisticly bid), whether a bank has initiated foreclosure procedures, or whether they are behind in Condo or HOA doues should be charged with malpractice.

In some states, all real estate related documents are available to the public on line (scanned in as PDF scanned), including title information, mortgage documents which include terms and interest rates and liens by contractors, condos, HOAs, utitlies, creditors, ex-spouses and more.

Anonymous said...

She kind of has that "down syndrome" look.

I think it's the chicken eyes.

christiangustafson said...

Main Entry: dis·in·ter·me·di·a·tion
Pronunciation: \ˌdis-ˌin-tər-ˌmē-dē-ˈā-shən\
Function: noun
Date: 1967
1 : the diversion of savings from accounts with low fixed interest rates to direct investment in high-yielding instruments
2 : the elimination of an intermediary in a transaction between two parties
— dis·in·ter·me·di·ate \-ˈmē-dē-ˌāt\ verb

Anonymous said...

W.C. Varones @ June 28, 2008 1:10 PM

and

Anonymous @ June 28, 2008 5:11 PM

-----
Guys- please give everyone fair warning when you post websites.

Everyone else- The pictures are not safe for work or anywhere children can catch a glimpse.

ahhh my eyes...