Why You Should Meet At the Office Better Service Safety

Fewer Problems and Unexpected Surprises

Most states, if not all, require some sort of disclosure to be made about agency and/or fair housing. Agency deals with who is being represented. The buyer has the right to know whether or not they can or are being represented. In most cases, to be fully represented, some sort of contract must be signed. Can a contract that obligates a buyer, maybe for as long as six months, be adequately explained in five minutes in front of a house. If the agent is just saying, “I need you to sign here,” they are abandoning their obligation to deal with all parties fairly and honestly, and if that buyer becomes a client, they may be abandoning their obligation to look out for the client’s best interest before the relationship even starts.

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This is also an opportunity to explain the entire process from beginning to end. Even if a buyer has purchased a house before, it is likely that a lot has changed since they made that purchase. What happens if you find the perfect house and the buyer doesn’t have money in his or her checking account to make a downpayment, or money to pay for the home inspection. The initial meeting is the ideal time to tell buyers when things are going to happen, when they will need money and how much and any other advance preparations the buyer will have to make in the sales process. The agent may also want to qualify the buyer to see what they can afford, or even arrange a meeting with a loan officer, so the buyer can be pre-approved. Why waste time looking at houses that the buyer can’t purchase?

Safety Concerns

One other issue that everyone should be concerned about is safety. No matter who you are in the transaction, you are probably meeting a total stranger for the first time. Where would be the best place to do that? Agents will say things like, “I heard kids in the background, so I thought it would be OK.” Do they think crooks turn honest when they have kids? It’s probably the kids that turned them to a life of crime (just kidding). Or it might be someone else’s child in the background. No sale or purchase is worth risking your safety over.

An agent in Georgia was recently kidnapped and murdered. While that doesn’t make the job as dangerous as driving a cab or working in a convenience store, it should encourage all parties to take some common sense precautions. The greatest precaution available is to meet in the agent’s place of business. That’s a risky move for a criminal, because there will be too many witnesses, and the criminal’s chance of getting caught would be much higher. Most criminals will move on to an easier target.