Real estate agent ethics

By definition, I would say it couldn't be defamatory if she sent it only
to me. If she's calling all the other realtors in town and telling them
that I'm a whatever, then maybe, but I have no way of knowing that.

Posted by mm on February 28, 2008, 9:25 am

On Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:36:02 -0800, Smitty Two

>> She wrote this letter only to you? If so, forget about it,

>Yes, to me, although she cc'd my g.f. and promised to send a copy to

I guess I should have asked "She sent this letter only to you?"
That's what I meant. So even if she only commented on you, or only
addressed you, in the letter, that she sent it to your g.f. puts it in
my second category.

If the g.f. doesn't believe any of the bad stuff, or thinks it isn't
bad, which seems to be through or she wouldn't have showed it to the
other man, that means I guess thta you haven't sufffered much harm
(unless contrary to your gf's expectations, the man thought less of
you after reading the letter.

But regardless of what she and he actually thought after reading the
letter, it was iiuc clearly the agent's intention that the gf should
think less of you. And that's where the problem lies.

>the gentleman who referred me to her. (a promise that did not

>materialize, but the gentleman was horrified when my g.f. showed the

>letter to him later)

>> If she sent a copy to someone else, and harmed you in some way, please

>> give more details.

>> >

>> Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words addressed only to

>> you can't hurt you. What is it that happened that has you so

>> outrages?

>That is a very thoughtful question, and one I have deliberated on a bit

>already. More will no doubt be revealed. But, I will tell you that the

>letter was outrageous, (so why would I not be outraged?)

That doesn't help me understand. What is it that makes the letter
outrageeous?

> and 100%

>unprovoked. If I had an employee who spoke to one of my customers like

>that, I would fire the employee on the spot. Our society has grown rude,

>and we have grown accepting of rudeness. I guess I'd like to rail

>against that, effectively or not.

Well, regarding that story about telling off the two real estate
agents, I wasn't inclined to tell their boss.

But another story happened at the same time. The mortage company the
agents put me in touch with (probably for a kickback of some sort?)
and who I conveniently met with in their office, was terrible. He
started off by saying, "Look we're going to own this house for the
next 30 years, so this is what I want you to do." A) The mortgage
company doesn't own the house. It only has owns the mortgage. B)Not
so much for me (explanation omitted to save space) but for a lot of
people, especially those whose parents could never afford to buy their
own house, buying one's first house is one of the highlights of their
lives. He shouldn't be trying to take the thrill out of it.

And towards the end of the process, after giveing the opposite
impression for most of the time, he wouldn't give me the mortgage
until I had already moved and started work. He expected me to live
out of motel room, leaving my NYC apartment unoccupied for my landlord
to have his way with it, then go back to NYC and move over a weekend.
I borrowed the money from my brother instead and never took the
mortgage from him.

And I wrote him a letter telling him how obnoxious he was and in what
ways he was obnoxious and that that was why I cancelled without giving
a second thought to the effort he had put into processing my mortgage
and that he was lucky I didn't write his boss too. (Although I figured
it would lower his average, that the boss probably kept track of.)

OTOH, there have been a couple people I wish I had written letters
like that to, and maybe even their bosses.

I too would be curious to read the letter or email the agent sent you.
There is such a big range in what various people think is outrageous.
etc.

Posted by Smitty Two on February 29, 2008, 10:01 pm

> On Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:36:02 -0800, Smitty Two

> >

> >>

> >> She wrote this letter only to you? If so, forget about it,

> >

> >Yes, to me, although she cc'd my g.f. and promised to send a copy to

> I guess I should have asked "She sent this letter only to you?"

> That's what I meant. So even if she only commented on you, or only

> addressed you, in the letter, that she sent it to your g.f. puts it in

> my second category.

> If the g.f. doesn't believe any of the bad stuff, or thinks it isn't

> bad, which seems to be through or she wouldn't have showed it to the

> other man, that means I guess thta you haven't sufffered much harm

> (unless contrary to your gf's expectations, the man thought less of

> you after reading the letter.

> But regardless of what she and he actually thought after reading the

> letter, it was iiuc clearly the agent's intention that the gf should

> think less of you. And that's where the problem lies.

Well, if she wanted my g.f. to think less of me, she missed the mark.
The g.f.'s reaction was one of abject horror that the woman could be so
vicious and nuts.

> >the gentleman who referred me to her. (a promise that did not

> >materialize, but the gentleman was horrified when my g.f. showed the

> >letter to him later)

> >

> >>

> >

> >>

> >> If she sent a copy to someone else, and harmed you in some way, please

> >> give more details.

> >> >

> >

> >>

> >> Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words addressed only to

> >> you can't hurt you. What is it that happened that has you so

> >> outrages?

> >

> >That is a very thoughtful question, and one I have deliberated on a bit

> >already. More will no doubt be revealed. But, I will tell you that the

> >letter was outrageous, (so why would I not be outraged?)

> That doesn't help me understand. What is it that makes the letter

> outrageeous?

How silly of me to think you'd let me get away with a circular argument.
All right, for those clamoring for more details:

I wrote a long, well-thought out, well-crafted letter of introduction to
the woman. The g.f. lives 300 miles away, in a city where it may be a
good time to buy investment property. We intend to buy something, rent
it out for a few years, and then sell, hopefully at a nice profit.

But, I'm not intimately familiar with the real estate situation there.
So in my letter of introduction, I told her who we were, what we were
looking for, and acknowledged my ignorance on several points. I also
told her I would be there in less than two weeks, and wanted to look at
several houses, as well as discuss various strategies, etc.

She wrote a nice letter back, and then a follow-up single sentence two
days later, asking whether we had decided to work with her. I phoned
her, got her voice mail, and said yes. The g.f. wrote her an email, also
saying yes, and asked to set up a preliminary appt. to meet her, show
her some printouts of listings we were interested in seeing (based on
drive-bys), and also get her feedback on some questionable
neighborhoods, and suggestions of other homes that might fit our bill.

Five days elapsed, and she had not contacted my g.f. for an appt. I sent
her a polite email, saying I hoped she was just busy and hadn't broken a
leg or anything. She phoned me, and I asked her to phone my g.f. to set
up the preliminary meeting. She agreed to do so, and I gave her the
phone number at her request, although she had it already. We agreed to
see houses on Friday.

Two more days elapsed, and no call to the g.f. By this time, I was due
to arrive there in about 48 hours. I wrote and said: "We need someone
more responsive, and will look for someone less busy. Please cancel our
appt. for Friday."

Her next email was short and polite, if hinting at a bit of surprise,
and maybe a tiny bit defensive. I wrote and said that I didn't think she
should be surprised, given the five day delay followed by the two day
delay. She wrote two more emails of modest protest but no particular
significance, which I ignored.

Then the bombshell, in which she meticulously dissected my first
introductory email, insulting me at every sentence. It was sarcastic,
snotty, condescending, and ridiculing, filled with CAPITALS and many
exclamation points
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!

She told me repeatedly what an expert she is, and how much praise she
gets, and how many banks she works with, and how it's people like her
who are working 13 hours/day to save the economy, and how few days off
she's had,

It ended with her advising me that she was putting me on her "do not
ever call me again" list, since I had treated her poorly (!) and that I
was forever forbidden from calling her, and how much fun she had writing
<this diatribe,> and that she was gonna sleep like a baby.

That is my definition of "outrageous," with which you may or may not
agree. But trust me, the picture I paint above is woefully inadequate. I
do find one thing amusing, though. The woman cannot spell "bankrupt,"
and she cannot spell "professional."

Posted by dpb on February 28, 2008, 2:29 pm

Smitty Two wrote:

...

>> Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words addressed only to

>> you can't hurt you. What is it that happened that has you so

>> outrages?

> That is a very thoughtful question, and one I have deliberated on a bit

> already. More will no doubt be revealed. But, I will tell you that the

> letter was outrageous, (so why would I not be outraged?) and 100%

> unprovoked. If I had an employee who spoke to one of my customers like

> that, I would fire the employee on the spot. Our society has grown rude,

> and we have grown accepting of rudeness. I guess I'd like to rail

> against that, effectively or not.

Well, we only have your side of the story and you're being very coy
about providing anything at all factual other than the other person's
supposed misbehavior.

Without further comment, I'd say it is highly unlikely such a response
would be "100% unprovoked"/

I would suspect that you had several previous e-mails w/ this person,
she apparently took the time to respond (but not instantaneously we can
infer or on your every whim) and you then blew her off would certainly
not be entirely unprovoked.

One can be passively aggressive and write something that comes across to
another as very hostile either deliberately or sometimes even innocently
as can be observed in this newsgroup all the time.

I would only strongly suggest you review your actions in a totally
dispassionate mode before you get too much more worked over this other
person's supposed sins.

That would, of course, include looking at the implied business
arrangement you may have developed by suggesting you were interested in
a particular property which she was representing either directly or as
part of a MLS service. Particularly if it was a MLS listing and you
contacted this person initially, it isn't exactly kosher to then go and
use another agent for the same property. Not necessarily a formal
breach of contract, but certainly not all that up and up, either...

--

Posted by mm on February 28, 2008, 5:01 pm

>Smitty Two wrote:

>...

>>> Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words addressed only to

>>> you can't hurt you. What is it that happened that has you so

>>> outrages?

>> That is a very thoughtful question, and one I have deliberated on a bit

>> already. More will no doubt be revealed. But, I will tell you that the

>> letter was outrageous, (so why would I not be outraged?) and 100%

>> unprovoked. If I had an employee who spoke to one of my customers like

>> that, I would fire the employee on the spot. Our society has grown rude,

>> and we have grown accepting of rudeness. I guess I'd like to rail

>> against that, effectively or not.

>Well, we only have your side of the story and you're being very coy

>about providing anything at all factual other than the other person's

>supposed misbehavior.

>Without further comment, I'd say it is highly unlikely such a response

>would be "100% unprovoked"/

>I would suspect that you had several previous e-mails w/ this person,

>she apparently took the time to respond (but not instantaneously we can

>infer or on your every whim) and you then blew her off would certainly

>not be entirely unprovoked.

>One can be passively aggressive and write something that comes across to

>another as very hostile either deliberately or sometimes even innocently

>as can be observed in this newsgroup all the time.

>I would only strongly suggest you review your actions in a totally

>dispassionate mode before you get too much more worked over this other

>person's supposed sins.

>That would, of course, include looking at the implied business

>arrangement you may have developed by suggesting you were interested in

>a particular property which she was representing either directly or as

>part of a MLS service. Particularly if it was a MLS listing and you

>contacted this person initially, it isn't exactly kosher to then go and

>use another agent for the same property. Not necessarily a formal

>breach of contract, but certainly not all that up and up, either...

All good points.

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