HOw Realtors Must Wear Different Hats While Selling a Home

A quick look at my "To-Do" list today made me realize the kinds of things that I do as a Realtor, that the general public do not see. My list goes like this: Item A: make sure the Evergreen Street house has an escrow open today. Item B: Inquire about the house on Benedict Drive Drive for my buyer. Item A: Follow up on the Probate Sale scheduled date and confirm my client will be there. Item A: Go by Trombas Avenue and pull the trash bins out... what? is this item on my A list? Yeap... if I do not put those cans out, my seller who lives 3 towns away will not be able to come back over the weekend to continue emptying the house. And yes, Item A the following day will read something like this: Item A: go by Trombas Avenue and get the garbage bins back on the side of the house, yes, it is important and is a priority. The odd thing about this is that at my own home, my wife does that chore!How 2 Plant Cats After more than 28 years as a Professional Realtor, I have watered lawns by hand, I have babysat a couple of 4 and 5 year old's in the backyard while the parents look at the house, because they were too hyper, I was afraid they will brake something inside the house. In another instance, I stood by the door rocking a sleeping baby in her crib while the parents tip-toe throughout the house. I have been called to a house by the neighbors at 11:00 PM to go to a vacant house that had the door wide open, the Realtor who showed the house that night did not close it properly and the wind threw the doors wide open, somebody had to go close it... my name and phone number is right there... on the For Sale Sign! One time a home seller asked me stop by McDonald's and bring her breakfast, we had an scheduled meeting with her and she did not have a car. I have had to go water the potted plants... With sellers out of town, I have had to go retrieve their mail and put it in a secure place because the house was still being shown to potential buyers by other agents. There is a new law in California, where every house has to have a Monoxide Detector installed and the appraiser looks for it, there will be a delay getting the appraisal if that $20 devise is not installed properly... I buy a contractor's box of monoxide detectors and carry them in the car along with an electric drill... and installed them myself. How can I ask an elderly seller to get someone to do this? it will cost them a lot more and it only takes me 3 minutes to install. Some of these things I do apparently have nothing to do with selling real estate, but representing the seller is a very delicate and serious business, once the seller gives me the keys of her house, I am responsible for it, for the safety and security of the house and its contents, their animals, their plants, even their mail and their garbage and recycling bins. This is on top of other more "standard" duties of meeting home inspectors and appraisers and repair people at the house. And then, there are those occasions where I wonder, why am I doing this? One time I went to show a house and the Realtor had not said anything about animals in the house, as I open the door, the dog run out! surprised all of us, the couple of buyers I was with jumped into the newly planted flower bed, the man actually fell in the bushes! luckily, the dog wanted to play and stayed close by, the 3 of us started corralling him, how do you call a dog whose name you don't know? we were in the middle of the street, arms open closing in... for about 20 minutes that is all we did, after hearing the commotion, a neighbor come out and help us put the dog in the backyard. Then I looked at the broken flowers and after dropping the the buyers back at the office, I went to Costco and bought some potted plants, come by the house and repaired the damage... I left a phone message to the listing agent, telling her what happened, she only call back to make sure I had replaced the flowers with the right ones... not a word about the dog. Recently, while doing a listing presentation, a home seller said: "... all you Realtors do is stick a For Sale sign in the lawn, show the house a couple of times and then get paid..." I thought about grabbing his neck and squeeze the life out of... then I thought, that is bad for my business, so I simply smiled and politely said. "There is a lot more involved in selling a house Mr Seller" and I left it at that. It wasn't worth it. I still love doing what I do and would not change it for anything else in the world!