<p>My husband and I own a rental home. The house was our former home that we held onto and rented out for the last 4 yrs. The first 3 yrs were awesome in terms of the tenants. When they moved out a yr ago ,we rented to a family . Long story short, it ended badly and my husband and I are considering putting the property up for sale .We are tired of dealing with it and I for one would love to be out of the landlord business.
We really liked our realtor that sold us our current home and decided that he would be the one we would like to use should we make this decision.
The problem is this :
We have very good friends that are a husband / wife team working for a realtor in our area. They both lost their jobs in other industries and are not having a lot of action because there isnât a lot of homes selling these days
Also , the realtor they work caters to second home , investment buyers in the beach town adjacent to our townâŠnot the " go to" realtor for people looking for a primary residence.
I donât want to hurt their feelings or cause a rift , but I donât want them to represent us in the event we do put the home on the market.</p>
<p>Does anyone have any experience with such a dilemma ?</p>
<p>Yes, and chose not to have friends represent usâŠthey werenât happy,but since it is a business proposition,we chose not to do personal business with friendsâŠwe do the same with friends that are accountants,lawyers etcâŠif everything goes 100% uneventful, everyone is happyâŠwhen things go bad,or problems arise,(which they always seem to do), friendships are tested,and feelings are hurtâŠ</p>
<p>I agree with qdogpa. I havenât been in the exact situation but completely understand the situation.</p>
<p>Reasons not to work with your friends in this sale:
It could strain your friendship.
You have a previous relationship with another realtor.
This type of sale is not their area of specialty.</p>
<p>I would like to be out of the (commercial) landlord business, too, but think that it would be nearly impossible to get a decent price for the property in question. Iâm fairly certain we lost money on the last tenant! Good luck to you.</p>
<p>As a realtor, I completely appreciate your situation and Iâd suggest you use the person you think will best market your property and best negotiate on your behalf. My only suggestion would be to let your friends know what you are doing and why. You donât have to justify yourself, but if you are friends with the couple, give them the courtesy of not coming across your listed home on their own.</p>
<p>Also, donât ask them for any advice about selling your home. Not even about paint color. </p>
<p>I think it is fine not to use them and think your reasons are valid you just have to be careful that you donât take advantage. (Not that you would, but others might.)</p>
<p>I thought that we would let our friends know about our decisionâŠand hope that doesnât cause bad feelings.
I feel a bit bad because I know that networking is so important in this field , but I am trying to think business first</p>
<p>Iâm a âretiredâ realtor too and completely agree with rom828.</p>
<p>As a realtor, I totally respect friends who are loyal to the realtor with whom they worked previously. That is what I want and appreciate from my clients.</p>
<p>Even aside from that reason, I have had friends who chose me and it worked well. I have had friends who didnât choose me because they didnât want to mix friendship with business, and I understand that. I also have friends who I hope wouldnât choose me, because <em>I</em> wouldnât want to mix friendship with business in those particular cases - and I will tell them that I feel theyâll be better served by not mixing friendship with business and refer them to another top quality realtor. Fortunately, I havenât had the experience of being realtor to a friend and having it harm the friendship⊠but I can see how that can happen. </p>
<p>lje62, sometimes it hurts my feelings for a minute when someone doesnât choose me. But I get over it :).</p>
<p>We worked with a realtor friend once. She did her job too well. After selling the home the day it was listed, - insert a long story here- and at closing we had two buyers show up. We had to hire a lawyer, each set of buyers had a lawyer, and the realtor SAT IN HER CAR while we hashed it all out. No longer a friend, and I would never ever blur that line again.</p>
<p>Yes⊠thereâs got to be a v-e-r-r-y long story. ⊠Two buyers âshowed upâ at closing.</p>
<p>Werenât there offers ro review and sign? Earnest money deposits of a few to many thousands of $$? Inspections? Loan approvals? I cannot imagine having a home under contract for a period of time and having no clue that two different buyers thought they were the ones who had it under contract.</p>
<p>Find that story incredulousâŠwhat about home inspections? Bank appraisals? One should know when these are scheduled,and signing an offer is usually the normâŠperhaps too much responsibility was given to realtor?..</p>
<p>I would use the best realtor. I have been in this situation, and knew a number of women who were realtors and would have liked to have had the listing for my house. I knew it was money to them to even have the listing if someone else sold it, but I let the realtor who sold it to us in the first place have it, and he did a fabulous job in a down market. He is known to be a really good realtor. I do not think any of the others would have done as good a job. They also had the opportunity to find a buyer for the house since it was on MLS (and they would have gotten a commission) but I donât think they even tried at all. One was honest enough to say that she had no customers in the price range.</p>
<p>Btw, I always recommend the realtor who sold the house to us/sold it for us to anyone looking in the communities where he is an âexpertâ. He really is one of the best, and it is a big purchase.</p>
<p>Iâm going to vote with âthe tribeâ on this one. Pick a realtor youâve worked with previously. Tell your friends up front. It may cause a bit of angst on the front end, but could very likely preserve your friendship in the long run. I totally agree with lastminutemom. Do not so much as ask your friends advise about arranging furniture, the best time to sell, and donât even think of uttering a complaint of your realtor during the process. All these things fall under the normal category of friendship during the sale of a home. This is a unique situation and youâre going to want to be extra kind.</p>
<p>You are a good friend to think of a nice way to approach this. Too many people would either be too blunt, not thinking how it may hurt their friends feelings, or simply use their friend as a realtor knowing itâs not really what they want to do. Neither would turn out well.</p>
<p>We also have a friend who is a real estate agent. We chose NOT to use her. She wasnât happy, but I donât like mixing business with friendship (or relatives). She got over it.</p>
<p>Lots of good advice and confirming what I suspected.
Thank you all.
I am going to call our realtor and talk to him about renting and or sellingâŠeither y I do not want to be my own realtor , lawyer âŠkind of the same way I donât cut my own hair :D</p>
<p>Since it got some comments, Iâll try to give a short version of the events I mentioned earlier. We had a signed contract. The inspection revealed that our well needed to be replaced. The buyer had the option to either back out of the contract or agree to buy the house anyway because the contract was written so that we were limited to $500 in repairs needed from the inspection (we truly had no idea there was a single thing wrong with the house). Buyer 1 wanted the house badly and wanted to agree to pay for the well himself. His agent tried some sneaky businessâa well drilling company showed up to drill the new well with no signed agreement for Buyer 1 to pay so we sent them on their way. His agent was livid about that but would not allow him to sign the contract release. Meanwhile our former friend the realtor showed our house to another couple. They wanted it very badly as well. They offered us money to âbuy outâ Buyer 1. I think they thought if we gave back his earnest money, that of course we were not holding, that they could have the house.</p>
<p>We knew that was probably illegal. We had no contract with those people. Former friend the realtor advised us to hire a lawyer. We explained it all to him. Details would make your heads spin. So we went to the closing with our lawyer. Buyer 1 was there with his lawyer, Buyer 2 was there with theirs. We went into a room to begin and the other partyâs lawyer came in and said he believed we were committing some kind of illegal act and were selling to the wrong party. The other two lawyers shrugged and we proceeded to close.</p>
<p>Former friend realtor sat in her car. Buyer 2 was beyond livid, which I never understood because we had no contract with them. Our lawyer called the next day to say that they were demanding money from us for all the costs they put into the non purchase of our house (lawyer fees mostly). We declined to pay them anything. The former friend realtor hustled to find them a home since they had sold theirs when they thought they were buying ours. She forfeited her commission to them to pay for their pain and suffering.</p>