The real estate agents I have seen

Number one-

This guy showed me quite a few houses which were in bad condition and high price, then eventually one in good condition and not so high price. I almost decided to buy, but then told myself to hold. It turned out that the last one was his own property. He used this tactic to sell his own property at higher than market value all the time.

Number two-

This lady managed to let my friend buy a good house with a great price as she had relations with the builder. Then she insisted that my friend should sell this house through her. I talked with my friend and he agreed. Very soon my friend got a problem with her-

She agreed to take 2% (?) and let the buyer's agent to get 3%. Soon enough, my friend found that she only agreed to pay 2.5% to the buyer's agent so she could get 2.5%. She even asked me again to persuade my friend to continue working with her. I had to say no.

Number three-

This is an honest and decent guy. He sells multi-million dollar houses, but if you ask him to show you a foreclosure under $100K, he would still do so. He does not care those several thousand dollars, but the his fame. Many of my friends bought from him and only one of them complained.

By the same time, I also see many nasty buyers. Some let one agent show them the houses all the time. By the time they are buying the house, they use another agent and ask over half of the commission as kickbacks. These agent usually agree to that request as they did not put much work in.

One extreme: during the peak time of the gas price, one guy pretended to buy house and ask an agent to show him a couple of. By the end of the trip, he would ask to shop in a grocery store. He did that many times until several agents found it.

It is no wonder that people complain about agent because most people think they make "easy moeny". It is true for some of them. A professional agent sells his/her knowledge, sell his/her good judgement of the market, and can provide great advices which will not only help the client to to make sound decision, but also save them tens of thousands of dollars. The bad agents destroyed the fame of this profession. But the bottom line is that these agents cannot earn too much as the fame of an agent is more important in his/her career than anything else. This is why 10% of the agents makes 90% of the money in the market (not precise).

I am a brand new agent and trying my best to be a good one. But by the same time, I am not going to give any kick back because I do believe my knowledge, judgement, connection, and service worths the money.

There are quite a few people in this forum are, or will be, using my service and I would like to know their comments.