Some Real Estate Agents Aren’t Worth The Drama

After spending more than a decade in residential real estate sales, I can say for certain that some real estate agents aren’t worth the drama in a brokerage.  I’ve written about real estate agents being jerks to their clients, but they can really be miserable in a real estate brokerage.  Here are some of the more annoying things I’ve seen real estate agents do during their time in real estate brokerages I’ve been a part of.

1. Complaining about brokerage leads Some real estate agents go to work for a real estate brokerage completely for the leads.  These real estate agents can’t generate leads on their own, so it’s up to the brokerage to give them leads.  Whenever they get one of the broker generated leads, they do nothing but complain about the quality.

2. Complaining about the number of brokerage supplied leads There are something like 8,000 real estate agents in the St. Louis area.  Oftentimes, you can’t meet 10 random people who don’t know someone who is a real estate agent.  I’ve witnessed real estate agents complaining about the number of leads they get from their real estate broker immediately after complaining about the quality of the real estate lead provided.  What is a broker to do?  They can’t win if they give the agent a lead, and they can’t win if they don’t.  That gets old, quick.

3. Always threatening to move to another brokerage I worked in one office where one of the real estate agents was going to leave every week.  They would always make conditions and then say that they were going to leave.  Something like this, “If you don’t pay me x right now, I am out the door.”  The weird thing is that they never left, and they never got paid x more.  If there are 8,000 real estate agents, there has to be at least 3,000 brokerages.  The threat of agents leaving all the time doesn’t do much for morale.  Sometimes, the grass really isn’t greener on the other side.

4. Trying to take listings the broker supplied with a lead It’s really odd to watch a broker give a real estate agent a lead, have the agent go to the appointment, watch the agent leave for another real estate brokerage, and then act like the listing they have don’t have anything to do with the real estate broker.

5. Agents who might be bipolar So some agents seem to have trouble regulating their emotions. This is true especially when things are good and bad.  When the  real estate agent has a lot of deals going, they are so fun to be around.  Then, when things start to go south, they lash out at everyone in the office.  This is in addition to the regular day when one minute they are laughing and the next they are crying.  It makes it impossible to know how to approach them.

6. Not making any effort to be collegial When you are in a large real estate brokerage, there are going to be lots of different personalities.  There’s no reason to be looking for a fight in your own brokerage though.  It’s hard enough to be in real estate sales, being a jerk to your colleagues is just unnecessary.  Usually, when these types of agents leave, they talk about how they didn’t feel like they were a part of the group.  They never made an effort.

I actually started Deerwood Realty because myself and a couple of other agents were fed up with silly drama at work.  We wanted to sell real estate, not bitch about the temperature of the office coffee.  As long as I have the opportunity to run Deerwood Realty, we won’t be dealing with agents that have these bad qualities.  No matter how much revenue they bring in, some real estate agents aren’t worth the drama.  I’m sure some of you agents have had awful dealings with real estate agents in St. Louis in your own office, tell me about them in the comments.