5 Types Of Difficult Agents And How To Handle Them

As with any industry where people are hired for their services, agents comes in all shapes and sizes. And as you hire your first agent, you probably don’t have a handy list of best agents that you love working with. It could be even worst if your agent is someone you hired based on a referral from a friend. You have never worked with him and hired him based on a referral from someone who might not have even hired him from his services.

If you have yet to hire anyone to represent you, great. You can now look out for warning signs that you could be hiring a difficult agent. If you are already tied down to someone you wished you had not hired at all, the best you can do is to manage the situation or just wait it out until the agreement expires.

There are many types of agents with varying characteristics that can make you tear out your hair. If you are bald, you might even wish you grow some hair just so you can tear them out. Here 5 of the most common ones and how to handle them.

The Expert

This is the type of agent that “knows everything” and have no space for discussion because they are real estate immortals. Questioning them is just an admission on your part that you are clueless. They may or may not have a lot of deals under their belt to attain this godlike “status”. The important part is that they are well-versed with what is happening in the industry.

Even when you know that he is wrong and attempts to bring your point across, your inputs will be written off for being a rookie mistake. Don’t you just loathe these instances? Especially when you are the one who is paying him to insult you?

The simple way to neutralize Mr Expert is to let him go about his routine of knowing everything like the back of his hand. You are going to lose out not because you don’t know your stuff. But because you do not have a personal need to feel that you are right by bashing others down.

If you allow them to keep talking, you will often find that they will start contradicting themselves. And they will ease themselves out when they realise they have revealed themselves as less knowledgeable than they really are. Do resist the sweet temptation of getting into a debate. You will just be fanning the fire within.

The Sceptic

It can be very tiring to have a sceptic working for you. He is the type who is always suspecting whether you will indeed buy or sell. You start wondering why you have to prove yourself who has a commitment to buy to someone you hire. Also be wary that this could be a sales tactic putting pressure on you to deal.

Mr sceptic is always suspicious of whether you are just wasting his time. Treating you with disrespect and giving you lesser attention than you deserve. For example, you might find your agent starting to miss your calls without calling back after you have passed on a couple of deals. Because you did not close, your agent starts neglecting you.

To reignite that passion to serve from a sceptic, you need to communicate that you are a genuine client who is looking at buying or selling. He needs to know that he is not wasting his time on a procrastinator. For example, you can easily show your authenticity as a buy by getting an in principle loan approval from a bank. Surely only someone who is serious would be doing that. On hindsight, you probably shouldn’t have hired him as he is just looking for quick deals.

The Superstar

A superstar starts thinking that he is the main person of focus in the client-agent relationship. So much so that he start making decisions for you as if he is the one who is buying. For example, he could insist bringing you to a viewing that does not meet your criteria at all. He thinks that that is a great house for you and makes the initiative without concern of your criteria for a new home.

Instead of leading you towards what you want, he is telling you what you want. Maybe being an adult is not enough to convince him that you are someone who has your own mind and perfectly capable of making your own decisions. Sometimes these things happen because he could potentially reap better rewards by marketing certain listings on the table.

A superstar is a tough nut to crack. If you are locked into a contract with one, harming the relationship is certainly not a good long term decision. The best thing you can do is to go dark for a while. Let him reflect on why you have suddenly been too busy to view more listings. He will get the message after a period of self-reflection. Taking a step back in this instance is your step forward.

The Lap Dog

This is the type of agent that tries too much to appease everybody. Even your opponents. He not only listens to everyone, but also acts on them. You start wondering why you hired him in the first place as you can appease everyone else like he is if you choose to. And instead of paying for him to serve you, you are in effect, paying for him to serve everybody. What an ironic situation to be in.

In most cases, you would probably prefer a shark of an agent to represent you. So it can really be a disappointment when you realise that you agent is the complete opposite of one. And in weird situations, he could be unknowingly working against you.

To make this work, you need to take on the role of the assertive to compel him to do what you expect of him. If you find resistance, you can support your assertiveness with facts and numbers.

The Mysterious

This is a tough one to accept. He keeps quiet all the time without adding any value. You really cannot see why you should be paying him. He leaves it to you to sort out the details with other sellers or buyers and only starts talking when the important discussions are over. His job is to get as much advantages as possible for your end of the deal. But his actions resemble that of a lazy koala who is clinging onto you as if his job is solely to collect his commissions.

The only way to deal with a mysterious agent is to explicitly request him to contribute. They could be the most knowledgeable of agents. Just that they could be a little bit of an introvert. So when you invite them to contribute, there is a possibility that what they contribute would be gold.

As you can see, just because you are paying an agent for his services does not mean that you will be served. Sometimes, when you run into weird agents with their own personality traits, you might have to take action to induce them into contributing what they are supposed to contribute. You wouldn’t be faulted to start thinking why on earth you are paying others when you are actually serving yourself.

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