Sleazy Agent Ahead: Proceed with Caution

Not a day goes by that I don’t hear “Well so and so said that if I don’t buy now I will never get another deal like this!”. Or my personal favorite is when I get a phone call from an agent saying “Well I want to hurry up and get this person into a house because my cell phone bill is past due.” Pressure, pressure, pressure! Worst of all, by a sleazy real estate agent who is supposed to be protecting my clients! (See “I want to Change the World – have I finally lost it?”)

Yeah…if an agent says that to me, odds are that’s the LAST thing they will ever say to me because I will refuse to do business with them again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that real estate agents should not make a living, quite the opposite actually. I’m saying a sleazy agent should not make a living in real estate. However, as a lender I have to keep the best interests of my clients in mind.

Hmm…you tell me, why would a dishonest and sleazy salesman not be making money? No matter what the reason is, it’s wrong for anybody to pressure anybody else into something. Did we not learn this in junior high school? Peer pressure is bad!

People, buying a home is the most important investment in the life of the average American after education. It has to be approached as such. I think too many of us in the real estate business have become jaded because we deal with home buyers all the time. I try my best to remember that what you’re going through is super stressful and anxiety prone. I might be dealing with 10 home buyers a day, but each home buyer is dealing with that one huge task of buying a home.

I wonder if I’m making sense…meaning I have 10 people on average who are making the biggest decision of their lives, yet even then I tend to forget what they’re going through.

Anyway, back to the point I was making. If your lender, real estate agent, or Great Aunt Martha is trying to pressure you into buying right now because you will never be able to afford a home again simply tell them they are WRONG. Then give them a link to my website so I can explain it to them.

You see, interest rates fluctuate daily and they are very important, but not THAT important. When you look at the price of homes, for reasons too complicated to get into right now, they are usually correlated with interest rates (it’s a supply/demand thing). Higher interest rates usually cause home prices to dip and vice versa.

Of course there are many other factors such as location, crime rate, school quality, etc that affect home prices.

Case and point: only do something when you’re comfortable. Learn about your options, research them until you’re an expert. Then, when you’re ready, pick up the phone and begin to interview your home buying team (See “Hiring a Real Estate Agent and Lender”).