Showing homes requires time and preparation…

My lil desk...

I thought I would write and tell a bit about what a day is like when I am working with buyers. I guess, like anything else in life, we all have our ways of doing things. Same goes for Realtors, we all have a method we like to use in order to keep ourselves organized, at least we all should. Those that dont, that would be chaotic! I can be pretty anal attentive about things, I like to stay pretty organized with business, although my wife probably looks at this desk I am sitting at and wonder how I can call it organized! It is, trust me, I know where everything is! Anyhow… So I am sure everyone just thinks we all can go walking into any home that has a sign stuck out in front of it, no problem… Not the case… not at all, which is what can be frustrating for an agent. I always try and be up front with my buyer’s. I try and explain that they can’t just call me up and 15 minutes later we can go see a home. Not in most cases anyway, it isnt that simple. So, here’s how it should happen…

Scheduling the Showings

So, you are a buyer, you go and get on the nifty Houston Association of Realtors website, known as HAR and you pick out the homes that you like and would appreciate seeing. I usually ask that buyer’s send me a list of MLS #’s for the corresponding properties they would like to see. This enables me to go into our back-end search engine, plug those MLS #’s in and that will guide me directly to a list of those homes the buyer would like to see. Now you will get to see why it isnt so simple… I then take the MLS print outs, usually, no more than 5-6 in a day per buyer, and I look at the Key Map Page and Grid for each property. This allows me to go to the Key Map and place the properties in an order that is best for routing. After placing the homes in the best order, I then have to set up the appointments which are usually done through a “showing service” or the office of the listing agent. I ask that buyer’s give me adequate time to prepare for showings… Why? Because it takes time to organize the routing and then the appointments for the showings have to be made. We do not know which homes are vacant or which are occupied. If the home is vacant, we can usually set the appointment immediately, if the home is occupied, we can run into several issues. Occupied homes usually require that the appointment is approved by the home’s occupant. In this case, the person setting the appointment must contact the occupant and get approval, at which point the person setting the appointment then calls me back to advise. Also, many times, an occupied home can require at least an hours notice or even 24 hours

Youve heard of Man's Best Friend... How bout Realtor's Best Friend?

notice for a showing. Bet ya werent aware of that! This is why I try to politely ask my buyer’s for a 24 hour window to get out and see homes. Sometimes this cant happen and it is understandable, we just see the homes available. We usually have about an hours window to see each home which is no big deal for the first couple of homes, but after that, the schedule can get all messed up! Then, another obstacle is an accompanied showing. This is where the seller wants his agent or a colleague to accompany showings at their home in which case, an exact time is usually required. Setting the appointments and coordinating the right amount of time in between is the trickiest part of the process, for me at least. There are so many variables to deal with… traffic, weather, etc…

Now the fun part begins…

Once the appointments are set, I notify my clients and I give them an outline of the showing schedule via email and we set up a place to meet. Before we meet, I place all the addresses in my trusty GPS and I go drive the route and make sure it flows nicely, again, this if time allows. If not, I just wing it and no one seems to care much anyway. That is just more of my anal retentiveness! : ) The rest is just gravy and actually pretty fun… I like to meet my buyer’s somewhere and then I like for them to ride with me. Sometimes this cant work out but I prefer this. It gives me a chance to hear their thoughts and their individual wants, desires and needs… The needs are the most important thing to catch on to of course. It also just gives us time to get to know each other… We then repeat as necessary until the perfect home is found…