Since I've started my own business I've had plenty of opportunities to listen to stories from other agents. I haven't experienced this one myself but I would definitely consider it a nightmare to be a part of. One real estate agent I know started working with a buyer by showing her homes. She was a single lady looking for a home. Nothing out of the ordinary about this lady except that the home search dragged on for about three months. The agent spent 3 months of finding homes, previewing them and showing them to this lady. After 12 weeks of driving this lady around, buying her dinner and showing her homes, she decided not to buy a house. She wanted to go on vacation instead.
Typically, an agent will only work with a handful of buyers at a time simply because of the amount of time each one demands. Agents don't have an unlimited number of buyers they work with. We work with a few who are ready to buy right now and give them our full attention while we maintain contact with other buyers who are waiting to make a purchase. To provide our full service to a client over a 3 month span requires a lot of time and effort which in this case was lost. When you are your own business as a real estate agent things like this can really take a toll - especially for a new agent.
It seems there is a lack of knowledge that mostly all residential real estate agents, whether they work for Century 21, Re/Max, or any other agency, are their own business. I've talked to agents who have been in the business a while and one of the reasons new agents drop out of the business is because something like this has happened. When you, the buyer, are working with an agent it is hard to picture them as a business but that's exactly what you're dealing with. For instance, imagine calling in a special order item from a company that takes weeks and months to build and cancelling it at the last minute. You could see how this can be a negative thing for the business. I'm not saying once you start talking to a real estate agent you have to buy a house. Just let them know from the beginning what your intentions are so they don't take a critical hit in the end.
