Answer the phone already! (mild rant)

The BBQ Pit
1

OK, so my wife and I have been thinking about buying a house. We’re taking our first tentative steps in the area and have begun looking at a few houses.

One night, while walking to my sister’s house, I saw a house that seemed OK and was worth taking a look at. So I jotted down the phone number of the Realty agency and resolved to call for basic house info (rooms, price, etc.) in the morning.

The next morning, about 11:00 or so, I call the Realtor. The answering machine picks up “Hello, this is XXXXX Realty. No one is here right now. Please leave your name and two phone numbers, day and evening, and we’ll get back to you.”

Well, I’m not crazy about receiving calls from strangers, even if I “asked for it” by leaving a message. So, I didn’t leave a message and hung up. I tried again later that day. Still an answering machine. OK, well, I tried again later. Still no live human being.

It’s now been four days and I have yet to get a human being on the phone. Is this normal? How does this Realtor stay in business? Is she (the voice on the phone is female) never in? Am I being unreasonable in wanting to speak to a human being?

Zev Steinhardt

2

Perhaps they want messages so they can give them to the realtors in a certain order. Perhaps they each have a territory, and want the right salesperson to be able to call you.

With that said, I still think it’s incredibly unprofessional to not have a human being answer the phone at least some of the time.

3

A friend of mine here in Orange Park is a realtor - he’s a one-man operation. He’s got an answering machine and a cell phone - I think the number on his signs is his answering machine. Of course, if I didn’t know that, I probably wouldn’t deal with him.

Does the realtor listing the house have a website? You can usually get the general information there. Just a thought… Happy househunting!