Real estate these days is, in a word, nuts. And in this increasingly heated market, one of the number one things I hear is, “you must be loving this market!” Actually, you’d be surprised. When most people think about a hot market, they consider its effects on buyers — stress, anxiety, the roller coaster of multiple offers and bidding wars. But what about the folks on the other side of the deal? I’m going to let you in on a little secret — real estate agents don’t necessarily love a heated market either. Here’s why.

Manners are the First to Go

Real talk — finding a house right now is harder and more labor intensive than it’s been in forty years. And given the technological advances we enjoy in this industry, that’s saying something. Agents are writing five, six, seven offers — or more! — for their buyers and losing. When the offers you write aren’t being accepted, guess who buyers tend to blame? It’s easy to point fingers at an agent, particularly when you’re a buyer who desperately wants a house, but a little perspective can be invaluable. Let’s look at the reality of the current market:

• Cash is king. If you need financing to buy, your offer has less of a chance against cash buyers.
• Some listing agents are so besieged with offers that they fail to return every call from buyer’s agents, leaving them looking foolish and out of the loop to their clients.
• The imbalanced market is as stressful to agents as it is to buyers, meaning many of us are working longer and harder than ever, dropping everything to get a client in before someone else swoops in and takes it off the market.  

Here’s the thing – not everything can be blamed on an incompetent agent. I’ve written before about finding an agent you trust. If you’re working with someone you trust and things just aren’t going your way, know that it’s as upsetting to your agent as it is to you. You and your agent share the same goal, and you should be working with someone that you know has your best interests at heart. If not, that’s reason enough to find someone who does.

The Takeaway

There are a lot of excellent agents out there who truly do put their clients’ needs above their own.  They lose sleep if something they think they should have seen or might have been able to troubleshoot happens – and something always happens, in every deal. Great agents do a lot of work you may not see to troubleshoot issues before they arise, deal with often rude or ghosting other parties, and genuinely are looking for lifetime clients. Not everything can be foreseen and we are often expected to be mind readers, lawyers, policy makers, on top of every nuance in every homeowner’s association and town, and to answer our phone and texts at 10pm or 5am (which I regularly do). It’s not possible to be everything to everyone. But having a great agent by your side as a partner to your own experience and expertise, well, I wouldn’t buy a property myself without a good one.