Real estate agents and ethics

I love real estate!
I like the challenges, the people and I especially like making people happy.
Unlike most agents, I represent all sides of real estate. Listings, sales and rentals. Uniquely, I cover the entire Tampa bay area too.
Today, I had my ethics questioned by another agent and I take ethics very personal.
Today's blog is inspired by that event.
It had to do with a rental.
Rentals don't pay much at all and that's why so many agents don't do them. "It's not worth their time". When I hear a real estate agent say this, it really pisses me off. What they are saying is their time is worth more than yours!
I see it as, you have a need, I have a solution. So they don't pay enough to cover the gas some of the time. Whatever! I accept them because, I enjoy the busyness they give me and the people I get to meet along the way. Many give referrals, which is the greatest thank you!
I am working with about 20 rental clients, 10 buyer clients and about 5 listings at all times. With all this going on at the same time, I occasionally find a home that more than one client likes. Today was one of them and is the basis for this blog post.

 
I have been working with a rental client for about 2 month's. We've seen many homes together over the last 8 weeks. I have them on an auto search, whereby they receive emails from me automatically by my MLS auto search system.
This client of mine saw a listing and did a drive-by. They called to say they liked it and wanted to take a look inside and will most likely put in an application.
I informed them that I had already had another client of mine just apply for it and unless their application is declined, that the property was already taken. They really loved the home anyway and I didn't want someone else to get it, since I had 2 interested parties.
So, I contacted the listing property manager and asked if they would email my second client an application as a back up, should the first client be declined. Gladly they emailed it.
After my client completed the application, they emailed it back to the rental agency. The receiving agent informed them that there was an application already on this property, but they had another home coming available that was similar but was not going to be on the MLS.
The reason an agency doesn't put a listing on the MLS is to save them from paying another agent the $25 to $200 finders fee for a rental.
So, I called the rental agency and asked why they were steering my client away from the property they wanted to a property that I would not be paid on. She said that I shouldn't have sent them the second client!
I explained I sent my second client to them as a back up to the first. So that one or the other received the rental that they both loved. She basically said, sorry about your loss!
I told the rental agency that I was going to inform my client that they are steering them to another property merely to save from paying me the finders fee.
Angrily, she replied that I was being unethical!
I was being unethical?
The bottom line is I want my client to find the perfect place to call home. A place they feel safe. And it is my responsibility as their agent to see that they get a great deal and that they are treated fairly and within the law. Getting paid is secondary and a consequence for achieving the primary goal.
An agency that chooses not to list the property on the MLS is doing the owners of the properties they represent an injustice. The MLS will produce a buyer almost instantly, saving the owners month's of the home sitting vacant and month's of dead end maintenance expenses and its self serving motivation is to save the property manager a few dollars at the property owners expense.
Shame on you!

If you are buying, selling or renting, I do that. Call or text me and I would love to help.
Curtis Rudolph Realtor
813.240.6054 cell/text
Realty Direct Tampa
www.CurtisRudolphRealtor.com
www.Facebook.com/SouthTampaLuxuryProperties