Home Seller REGRETS: TikTok Rants About BAD AGENTS

In this day and age, it is not uncommon to see someone airing their dirty laundry or ranting on Reddit or TikTok or any other social media site. And when it comes to the world of real estate, yeah, there's no shortage of stories at all. So I thought I'd take a few TikTok videos that were nightmare home seller content and do some reactions to those videos and then dig in to see if they actually had legitimate rants or maybe they're just looking for views. And then along the way, give you a few tips to maybe avoid your own rant or nightmare story so that you can save some headaches along the way. So let's dig right in. I'm really excited about this. Let's dig right into the first one. I'm frustrated and I want you to share in my frustrations. So bear with me. If you're wondering what it's like to sell your home, here is my biggest frustration. I'm going to do a quick kind of like walkthrough so you can see what my house looks like. This is what it looks like during a showing, right? This is, this is, this is, this is it during a showing. Okay. We'll walk back here a little bit so you can see the dining room, kitchen. All right. Got one kid's room here, another kid's room here. Me personally, I think that it looks good and I take pride in how clean my house is relatively often considering I have two kids and a dog. But this is what it looks like and I still get this. And I don't understand what they're talking about. Look at the dust on the fan. There isn't any. Look at the tucked in corner of this sheet. Like, is it something about like my items? Do they think that it's like cluttered? Because do they know that all this stuff will be gone if they buy the house? And also it feels real boomer-esque to be like, house could use a real good cleaning. Also side note, the officer that showed up yesterday when my mailbox was hit, my bricked in mailbox, if you didn't know, was hit by a vehicle and destroyed. The officer that showed up thought I was the guy who did it. Didn't think that I, that it was possible for me to own this house. And what's up with that? Anyway, just a few things that if you're trying to sell your home or you are thinking about selling your home, here's what you should know. You very quickly lose the feeling that it is your home. You have showings constantly and all it is, is people coming through your house and judging you on everything. Okay. So obviously his agent did not have a conversation with him that kind of went like this. Before your house even hits the market, when you're getting ready, before you put the for sale sign in, before you sign the listing contract, before it goes out to the masses on the interwebs, you have to make a mind adjustment. You have to make a mental adjustment. You have to mentally move out of your house. It is not your home anymore. It's not. It's a product. It's a commodity. It's a house on the market. You have to make that adjustment first and foremost, because that will help you adjust your mindset and be welcoming to feedback. Now, feedback is tough. Having negative feedback, that's like telling you, somebody telling you your baby's ugly. Nobody wants to hear that. It is tough. It is not easy. However, it's going to happen because guess what? Not everybody's going to love your home. And you know what? We don't need to. You don't need to have everybody love your home. You need one person, one person. That's it. A hundred percent. Now, those auto reply showings, where someone sets a showing, it automatically sends the feedback. The feedback automatically goes to the seller. That's a blessing and a curse. I've used those systems in the past. And oftentimes what will happen depends on the seller. If you are sensitive to that feedback, tell your agent you don't want to receive it. Have the feedback filter through the agent and let the agent know, you know what? If they don't like it, you know what? If they have particular comments on it, I really don't want to hear about it. Tell them. Absolutely tell them. However, the reality of it is, is everyone is going to be different. Everybody's going to be different. This poor guy was not prepared for that, unfortunately. And part of putting your house on the market is having that adjustment so that when people do make that feedback, when people are scheduling showings and last minute, really, truly, they don't care about you. They don't care. They don't look at that house as a home, someone's home. They look at it as, this is a house that is going to be my home. My standards, my cleaning standards, the way I live, they do not care about you. So what can you do? Have that conversation with your agent. Make sure that you're on the same page. Make sure that you make that mental shift. It'll save you a ton of headache. Every once in a while, Selling Later members send me like these horror stories about things that happen with agents. And to preface, there are really good agents out there and there are crappy ones. So here's a crappy one. This lady has a historical home in Virginia on waterfront property and an agent knocked on her door and said, I have a buyer that might be interested in buying your home if you're interested in selling. And they weren't really interested, but they kind of were. So they talked to her and the agent went on to proceed to tell them how their home needs so much work and they really are going to have to list it low. Made them so depressed. Made them feel like they weren't going to get anything for their home. But then the agent mentioned she has a buyer, so you don't even need to list it. But guess what? The home seller did some research and thankfully found this out before they signed papers with this agent. The buyer was the agent's husband who flips historical homes. So do your due diligence if someone's knocking on your door saying they have a buyer. Please be smart about it. Okay. This is great advice. 110% great advice. I talk a lot on this channel about the 20% agent versus the 80% agent. In my personal opinion, I think that in the real estate industry, about 80% of the agents are, they're just not worth what you're paying them. They don't deliver the level of professionalism that you are entitled to. And to be honest, usually it's the 80% agents out there door knocking. So it kind of puts off a red flag. A hundred percent. Here's the thing. If someone shows up to your house and they're knocking on the door and they say you have a buyer for your house, number one, please, please, please don't ever let them in your house. Do not let them in. You want to vet them out. How do you even know they're a real estate agent? You want to make sure you vet them out and find something out about these people before you let them in. Number one. Number two, if they say that they have an offer for you, don't even think about entertaining that offer until you get at least three valuations on your house. So great. Say you do let them in because they look trustworthy and you had a weak moment, whatever. You're fine. You get an offer. Great. Don't do anything with it until you get two other agents in there to tell you what their valuations are, because could they be taking advantage of you? Of course. A hundred percent. And then the other thing is find out who the buyer is. And that particular home seller was smart. And it was a good thing because when you find out who the buyer is, and that's not hard to do. Most home sellers do it nowadays. Google the buyers, find out who they are. Because the real estate agent should and is obligated to disclose something like that. News alert. Unscrupulous agents. They're out there. They're not going to volunteer that information. So you got to get it on your own. So don't let them in. Get multiple valuations and please vet out the buyers because you need to know who you're dealing with. So why do I hate realtors so much? Let me give you a perfect example of what just happened. We listed a house at Fort Worth, Texas for $249,000 with $5,000 in concessions for a new fence. We got an offer for $256,000 and $7,500 in concessions. And we accepted. Executed contract. The very next day, the buyer's agent reaches out and says, I made a mistake on the price. I meant to write that up for $247,000 and $7,500 in concessions. Please tell your seller we apologize about my simple error in writing up that contract. You did this to get the property off the market and avoid multiple offers. And now you're trying to get us to come down to the price that your buyer actually wants. This is why I hate realtors. Okay. So this guy's valid. This is a very valid rant and why real estate agents have such a bad rap. Okay. So I want to break this down on this particular situation. So he put his house on the market with a credit for a fence. So we listed it at $249,000 with a $5,000 credit, which basically means $249,000 minus the $5,000, he's looking for $244,000. The buyer came along and made a $256,000 offer with a $7,500 credit. So if you take the $256,000 minus the $7,500 credit that they're asking that you give the buyer, that means you're putting $248,500 in your pocket, which is a $4,500 over asking offer. Okay, great. They both signed the agreement, which means they have a legally binding agreement at that point. Legally binding. Now this shady agent comes back and I'll be honest, I don't care if it was the buyers doing or the agents doing, it should never have happened. They should have avoided that contract. They should have got out of that contract instead of coming back and saying they forgot or they made a little mistake. You're insulting the intelligence of the seller by doing that. That is just, that's not acceptable at all. And then they came back with a new offer of $247,000 minus the $7,500 credit, which equals $239,500 in the seller's pocket. Yeah, no. No. So do I agree with what this guy is saying as far as the buyer-agent strategy? I kind of do. And I wouldn't put it past them. Now we don't know all the nuances of the story, but does it sound like that's happening? Were they trying to get their foot in the door, especially if there's multiple offers? Absolutely. However, if there was multiple offers, 100%, the rant is true, but if it happens the day after you sign the contract, you avoid the contract, go to the next buyer. End of story. Could you hold that buyer's feet to the fire and enforce that contract? You can, but it's going to be super difficult. It'll tie the property up in court. You'll have legal fees. It's just not worth the expense or the time. Most of the time, it's better just to let the guy go. Let the buyer go. See you later. Thanks for wasting my time. And move on to the next buyer. And if you had multiple offers and they did it right after, the day after they signed the offer, that means you haven't really lost any time. You go on to the next buyer. Super, super, super annoying, frustrating, irritating, unprofessional, but at least he can come back from it. And the guy didn't wait until it was a week or 10 days passed and then try to pull this nonsense. Okay. Story time. We have not been in our home for almost a month and the house has not sold. It's been like 50, 70 days. So we're right here. I don't want to show too much of it. So that is where I still own the home, you guys. He is renting it back from me and he's paying $1,000 a day because his financing has not went through. So we have moved and I'm dealing with this every single day. My realtor says he's never dealt with anything like this before. I sent my husband in there to get the rent money because it's super awkward because he can't figure out how to get it to us in either way. So I say his name. I'm not going to post anything about that because dude, I don't know what I know is don't ever let anyone move into your house before you see the cash. Listen to me. I'm a smart girl. I'm a smart girl. It was tricky, tricky, tricky. So many moving parts and I was trying to be nice. This is something that I've talked about. I've talked about this in other videos. Huge, huge red flag. Super, super important. It is not uncommon and this is actually harder than you might think. You might think logically, well no, you never let somebody move into your house early. Like that doesn't make any sense. However, if you have a really nice buyer and a really nice buyer's agent and everything's moving along smoothly and you sympathize with the buyer, maybe they have a family and kids and a tough situation or maybe they're relocating or maybe they're selling a house and they're being forced out of their property. They've got to find a place to live. Whatever the story, you will sympathize. You want to sympathize. You want to be helpful and you're doing it out of the right intentions. You say, if they want to move in, it's only for a day. We're going to close on Friday and can we move? The moving trucks are coming on Thursday and you say, sure. Never, never, never, ever, ever let someone move into your house early. Never. Please don't do it. It doesn't matter if you're collecting rent. It doesn't matter if you have a signed agreement. Once those people move in, you've lost control of the situation because situations do change. Even on a cash buyer, even if the mortgage has been issued and maybe there's a small issue with the title or maybe there's a delay with the bank or delay with the title company or attorney. It seems pretty simple. It'll be solved and no problem. Once those people move their stuff in, once they move into the property, they very quickly become tenants. If you charge them, okay, there's a difference. You can have early occupancy and then you can have a tenant. Early occupancy in certain states, if you're not collecting money, now they're just moving in as not as a tenant quite yet. They're just occupying the home. Early occupancy and then it's easier to get them out. The minute you start charging them, the minute you start collecting money, they become tenants. In certain states, I know in Massachusetts where I'm at, it is tough. The state favors the tenant and it is very expensive and costly. It's costly to the damage potential of the property and to your wallet in terms of time and expenses and court costs to try to get them out because you just don't know. You really, really don't know when it's going to end. So please don't let, don't ever, ever, ever let a buyer move in. And on that note, don't let them move their stuff in. And I've talked about this as well. Even if you have a garage and the garage is empty and you want to help these folks because they have some bigger items or they're having their appliances delivered or they're having new furniture delivered, oh gosh, the delivery company is going to deliver earlier than expected. Not your problem. This is a business transaction. This is a business transaction. At the end of the day, you really need to put yourself in the mindset that this, no matter how nice the buyers are and as much as you sympathize with them, you want to help them, this is a business transaction at the end of the day and that will help protect you. Because even allowing them to move their stuff in, God forbid something were to happen to any of that stuff. If you were to have a fire or even if there isn't anything done to the property, to their, to their items, and then you go to the, they have the final walkthrough and they sign a waiver or whatever the circumstance might be. And they, at the closing say, Hey, listen, you damaged my TV. I know it's been sitting in the garage, but there was a scratch on it that wasn't there before. How are you going to prove it? How are you going to prove it? It's just not a good idea. Don't let anybody in your house. Please don't let anyone come in your house before the deed is no longer in your name and you've got the cash in hand. Now, sometimes you may have good intentions, but you're being advised by an agent that maybe doesn't have good intentions. Maybe the agent is being swayed by the other agent and really just wants to get the deal done. And they say, you know what, Mr. and Mrs. Seller, it's okay. I know the buyer agent and I very trustworthy. And they push you to try to get you to agree to this particular circumstance. Well, that is absolutely at the end of the day, an 80% agent and having an 80% agent, knowing the difference between 80% agent and a 20% agent is, I can't overstate how crucial that is. And how do you know you interview multiple agents? And like I've mentioned before, you always want to interview more than one agent. Now, sometimes you'll get a referral from a friend or someone that you trust. And that's great. Maybe you'll see someone that, you know, you'll see an ad or someone that you know in the town that is, you know, a top producer, someone that has a good reputation. That's great. But having another option, a third option from a different source may not be a bad idea. Now, that is something that I provide as a service that I provide because I've been in doing this business for so long, over 28 years in the business. And I put together a list of all the 20% agents because my personal vetting process on these agents, when I refer a business to an agent, I want to make sure that it's going to another 20% agent. So I put together a list of the top 200 agents in the country that I regularly deal with, that I do business with. And I'm willing to share that with you and it doesn't cost you anything. So if you're interested, you click the link in the description below via short form, I'll get in touch with you. I've got a bunch of questions that I'll need to ask to make sure I can, you know, send you to connect you with the right agent. And then you'll know that you'll be dealing with at least one of the three will be a 20% agent. Selling a house is no joke. No joke. Especially when you're a mom of three kids, a single mom of three kids, age seven, four, and a baby, a nine month old. I mean, getting the house like ready for pictures to go on the market alone was like, well, you guys saw, like I was painting the garage. I painted windows. I did landscaping. I mulched, I power washed the whole house. And then there was the inside. I packed up and shipped off like half of our stuff in this house because we have three kids. It's like amassed to a crazy amount of stuff that we just had to get out of here. That sounds like we're hoarders. We're not hoarders. It's just, you know, you want it to be like a clean slate. So after all that, after getting the house on the market, then you have the showings and you are a single mom of three kids. Okay. I have felt like the worst mom because I've just been on edge about messes. Like I'm not, we're not messy by any means, but the smallest messes have been causing me anxiety because we've had to keep the house absolutely spotless for showings. And they're so last minute. One time my realtor called me and she's like, I sent the people to the wrong house. I am so sorry. Got some people mixed up. They're going to be at your house in 15 minutes, 15 minutes. I wanted to remind my realtor. I didn't, but I wanted to be like, hello, single mom of a seven, four and nine month old. And that has happened so many times, so many times it's been like a half hour or less notice for showings. And today on this blessed holiday weekend, we were up past midnight last night. I drugged the kids in after a party. We were at, we dropped all of our shenanigans, swimsuits, towels, everything we took to this party. I finally get the baby. I mean, the baby was up at six in the morning. I get the baby down for a nap at 10 o'clock. My phone rings. It's my realtor. I decline it because I'm like, okay, I just need whatever. I don't know what it is. This house is already like we're pending. We're in the pending process. Okay. They're doing the appraisals. They're doing the, whatever we have a buyer. So I'm like, it's probably just an update on that. I decline it. I get the girls settled. I'm like, girls, great. Baby's down for a nap. We're going to have quiet time. I think I'm going to get a nap. I'm finally going to get a nap. It's been a long holiday week. The baby's always up at six in the morning. We go to these parties all week. And then we're up at six in the morning. I'm going to get a nap today. Wrong. She texts me. They want to come measure the basement and a half hour and a half hour. They want to come measure the basement. I say this morning, it's not going to work. I just got the baby down for a nap. Can they come this afternoon? She's like, no, nope. The realtor is leaving on a trip. I'm at 1230. She's going to the airport. She's leaving on a trip at 1230. So they need to come now. She wants to wrap up this deal. Now they need to measure the basement to wrap up the deal. Okay. Okay. Okay. It looks like crap. It looks like crap. And that's just how it's going to be. The yard hasn't been mowed because we've been gone all week. Um, everything's a mess. I'm a mess. Look at me. Look at me. Anyways, I'm going to wake my baby up, get the girls up, get out of the house so they can come to the house again. I never want to sell a house again. I want my life back. Oh my God. I had flashbacks from when my kids were little. And I remember those days of when they were babies. And I can't even imagine. I can't even imagine. Okay. Let's break this down. Rant. Totally valid. Totally valid. Uh, the very first thing that you need to do, very favorite, very first thing they need to do when you're talking to your agent is establishing what your showings will look like. They're not going to be the same. And yes, absolutely. The more flexibility you have when you have buyers coming through, and if the market's a tight market, you want to be as flexible as you possibly can, but you've got to fix, you've got to put together a schedule and availability schedule that works for you. Now, if you are retired and you're home all the time and you can leave on a dime, great. A hundred percent. But if you get three little kids, it is not going to work. It's not going to work. You've got to sit down with your agent. You've got to communicate to them. First thing, you've got to have an understanding. You need to set the expectations so that the agent knows what to expect and you know what to expect. You can set that showing schedule, however you want. You can be totally available. A hundred percent. No show, you know, 15 minute, 20 minute availability, you know, call time, no problem. Or you can be on the other end, where showings are only Fridays between one and three. As long as you understand, and that's the agent's job, is to explain to you how one versus the other is going to impact how quickly your house is going to sell. The name of the game is to have that home, that house, it's not a home, it's a house, available to as many people as possible. But you've got to take into consideration, they have to take into consideration, what your personal situation is. And you've got to establish that up front. Now, on the whole lines, her story about when it was under, you know, was pending, and they need to get in for basement measurements, and 15 minutes, and the agent's going out of country, I call BS. I call BS on the agent's side. What I would want you to do, if you were her, would be to say, yeah, no, I don't care. Like, we're under contract. The contract actually stipulates, should stipulate, how many times the seller is allowed in the property. And it should stipulate within reasonable notice. You're not required to let them in 15 minutes notice to measure the basement. Why in the world, unless there's some stipulation in the contract, as a specific line item in the contract, that that's part of the deal. But I suspect that's not the case. I suspect that the agent probably got a last minute call, and the buyer said, hey, I'd like to get in at some point in time. And the agent said, well, I'm going out of the country. I'm going out of town. Can you do it now? You know what, that's not your problem. If the agent's leaving, they should have somebody covering for them, first off, so that that person who's covering can meet that buyer agent. Okay. A hundred percent. But regardless, that's not your problem. That is not your problem. That's an 80% agent putting their own needs in front of yours. Not going to work. Absolutely. Hey guys. So I didn't expect my last video to blow up and everybody be so interested in what happened. So here's a part two about selling our house. So we listed our house, and our house has been listed for several months, and we've actually only had one person come and view it. First, they were there for an hour and a half on a Friday, and then they requested a three-hour showing on Saturday. Obviously, we allowed it. Everything happened, and then they were asking us strange questions, and everybody, like I mentioned in the last video about the ice. The reason I said it's a weird question is because they were like, why is there no new ice cubes? I'm like, did you really count the ice cubes on Friday not to know that there was any new ice cubes on Saturday? I just thought it was kind of a funny, crazy question to ask. And obviously, in that three hours, they probably did go through all of my stuff, and I don't know what you could do for a As far as a pre-inspection, I'm not sure. Possibly. We figured they were putting in an offer. We were told Friday that they really loved the house, and they were going to put in an offer. But since Saturday and since that viewing, we have not heard anything. No contact at all, no responses from anything. Our realtor won't or can't get a hold of theirs. So nothing, complete radio silence since that viewing on Saturday. Yes, the ice maker works in our fridge. All of our appliances are brand new. We bought our house as a foreclosure two years ago and completely remodeled it and put all new appliances and everything in. So everything works. It's a very pretty house. It has four acres, four bedrooms, three bathrooms. As far as to why we haven't had any viewings, I'm really not sure. We do live in a very small town. Very, very small town. Maybe that's why because we are about an hour and a half from an actual city. Maybe that's why. I'm not really sure. Just the market's not as great down here as it is in like the city or whatever. As far as cameras and stuff in our house, I don't think so. I think everything was fine. Maybe they just wanted a three-hour viewing to really make sure this is a good option for them. They probably did walk the property. We do have a small pond on the property as well. Other than that, I'm not really sure. I just know that we haven't had any other viewings and that was it. And nothing's bad happened to us yet. So you guys saying stuff has creeped me out a little bit about the cameras and watching my house and scoping me out because I do have four kids, three girls, and a boy. So that would be kind of creepy if something did happen, but I think we're in the clear and I think everything is going to work out fine. And we're not in a hurry to sell our house. By any means, if our house doesn't sell, it's not a big deal. We do love our house. We were just thinking that we were going to start traveling or buying another house to fix up and resell again. So that's why we're buying our house. So we're not in a big hurry. Okay, there is a lot to unpack here. So first off, I'm going to talk about the three-hour showing. There is no way a showing lasts three hours. The only way that that showing is a three-hour showing is if it's a pre-inspection showing, where a buyer actually has a home inspection before they make an offer, which is actually not uncommon, especially when there are multiple offers, which it doesn't sound like this is the case. But if there are multiple offers and it's a high demand property, oftentimes a buyer will have an inspection prior to making an offer so they can make an offer without an inspection contingency. I don't know why that would be because it doesn't sound like the offers are coming in, you know, in buckets. The competition is very low. That being said, if the intention was to have a pre-inspection appointment, that needs to be disclosed to the listing agent 100%. If you receive a request from your agent, your listing agent, and they say that this buyer wants to do a three-hour showing, a typical showing is about 20-30 minutes. I mean, maybe an hour, depending on the size of the house, if they are doing a second showing or there's a ton of interest and they really are just talking with their agent and walking through and talking strategy or whatnot. Three hours? No, there's not a single showing that should be three hours. Never, never, please don't agree blindly to a three-hour showing. It's unnecessary and it's without a pre-inspection and if it's a pre-inspection, you need to know that as well. You may say no. I mean, if they're going to do an inspection, they can do it after the fact when they actually make an offer, but you need to know that up front. So that's going to wrap it up for the TikTok reactions. I think there's a lot of lessons to be learned and a lot of things that you need to watch out for, but if you want some more real estate red flags to look out for, you're going to want to check out these videos. I'm Jen Sylvester and I'm here to help you be a savvy home seller.