Realtor rant...
 

I'm selling a vacation home. I agreed to the full 6% commission against my better judgement. Anyway...

Realtor texted me last Wednesday asking if I would mind vacating the house next Saturday (Memorial weekend) so she could show the place to other realtors. Huge inconvenience, but I responded that it would be fine and I asked her what hours we should expect to be gone. No response for three days. Ugh.

I take care of pregnant women. For 9 months of care including 15 office visits and countless phone calls and delivering a baby that might come at 3 AM, I get paid about $2,000. And somehow I manage to return all of their phone calls within a few minutes.

I am an extremely low maintenance seller. I haven't contacted her once since I listed our home with her. My realtor will make $50,000 selling my place and can't be bothered answering my text? Really???

Terminate the contract.

Fixed it for ya...If I were in your position, I'm pretty sure I'd sit on the dang place until your contract with this realtor expires and find another one. But that's just me...:p

I agree with the above 2 posts!

Work 'em Moses!

I'm no expert on the real estate business, but I can't imagine a reason the house would need to be vacated in order for her to show it to "other realtors." That's the kind of request a realtor makes for showing to a prospective buyer.

If when she replies, she asks if you can be out Friday night and says she'll text you when she's done, she's probably planning to have a party there.

Just kidding... but the fact that she hasn't replied would nix it for me... I'd text her that you changed your mind and you don't want to do it.

And tell her that her lack of a reply is why you're cancelling.

Why do realtors universally suck so badly? Seriously. I don't know of any other "profession" that has such a low bar for expectations of professional conduct - particularly for the salaries that these people try to rationalize. I've dealt with at least a dozen over the years and they've all been scumbags to varying degrees.

-Lawyers($250-300/hr) who have answering machines and don't return multiple inquiry calls.
They can't even be bothered with 2 minutes of "no, sorry".

-Two major plumbing companies($150/hr) in a wealthy town who have answering machines made in the 1470's.
Or use inept answering services, staffed by third graders.
Only one calls back in response to flooding emergency, four days later.

As an ASE certified master mechanic I broke myself for $18/hr, and would do it all again.
(Except in a different field of course.)
There outta be a law...oh wait...

That person is no prefessional. That is a hobbyist.

They are actually among the busiest in the area. Go figure...

Moses, we had a terrible experience selling our home in Seattle. The house sold immediately because the market was hot, but the realtor was worthless. Really burned my shorts seeing how much she made off the sale.

REALTY seems to be the profession of choice for every late '30s, early '40s liberal arts major with no actual career direction or professional passion I know.

I'm selling my house, and my realtor isn't like that -- I've texted her at 9:30 pm, 7:30am - whenever - and she will get back to me quickly. I've texted her around both of those times asking if I can call her - and she says no problem. She always gets back to me when I ask her to follow up via email text or phone. She's even answered my call during a showing!

Not all real estate agents are bad - but they are very few and far between. I guess I got lucky...

-Z-man.

When I bought my present home, I was pre-approved for a price of $580,000. I had ONLY the cash to cover a down payment, so I asked my realtor to not show me any properties listing for more that that price. He showed me a house that I fell in love with. Until he mentioned it was listed for $880,000. I told him to write an offer for $580,000. He refused.

A week later I walked up to the house and made my offer in person to the homeowner. Turns out they owned several houses outright and were still making a nice profit at $580,000. They accepted my offer.

The realtor who refused to write the offer? He got full commission.

Actually...we may be the only country in the world where entire industries are morphed out of absolute bull-****...

FIRE her...get an attorney to handle the sale of your property.

In Ohio, what that realtor did would cost them their license.

Yeah! go from one person who doesn't deserve your money to another.

A good realtor is worth their weight in gold, but there are A LOT of crappy ones out there. When we sold our last house, at the bottom of the RE market, our first realtor was a hindrance to selling. You can dig up my threads about this and the resulting lawsuit. When we switched realtors (after a year flailing on the market), we instantly went from 1 showing every other month to 4 showings a week. As we worked on pricing and presentation (based largely on feedback she sent us from showings), that went up to up to 4 showings a day for a few days until it sold.

Moses, in your case, it sounds like the realtor wants to throw a party at your place, and there is a good chance that the party has nothing to do with selling it.

I've heard of a lot of shady realtor scams over the years. A friend of mine thinks his realtor purposefully suppressed showings (but can't prove it), only to let the house languish on the market, and when he was desperate, came in with a way-below-market lowball offer. Fortunately, he listened to us (his friends), listed with another realtor, and was suddenly getting showings until it sold after a couple of months. (And it sold for many multiples of the lowball offer.)

Write a brief addendum to the Realtor 2-year contract:
"This addendum supersedes all other clauses. (sign)

Realtor shall maintain the highest standards of communication, the highest standards of secrecy of the realtor's stated position(buyer/seller/dual agent), and shall convey all pertinent information to the buyer/seller at the earliest convenience. (sign)

Failure to fulfill any or all of the above contract shall be at the liability of the Realtor agent and/or the representing agency. (sign)
Additionally, knowingly concealment of disclosure of potential property or information from the buyer/seller shall be at the liability of the Realtor agent and/or the representing agency. (sign)

Failure to fufill the terms of this contract shall be at the sole discretion of the buyer/seller, and shall be be enforceable without notice at any time. (sign)"

She is going to have a party at your house. If you are going to vacate it for her, set up video surveillance of the property that goes to a remote DVR.

If this can be done without penalty, absolutely.
California is more progressive

That was my first thought reading the OP.