Being Secretive with Your Realtor? It's Not a Help.

Recently I've had the uncomfortable experience (a couple of times) in which potential clients were overly secretive about their situation. One was in Los Gatos, another in San Jose.

I'm going to be blunt here: it is really hard to help when we, as agents, don't know what is truly going on. It's not a whole lot different than keeping important things from your doctor or lawyer. If you want help, it is imperative that you tell your hired professionals what is going on.

For that matter, if you are interviewing agents to list your home or to help you to buy your next home, expect those agents to ask you about your needs and motivation. Hiring an agent (and the agent agreeing to take you on as a client) is a two way relationship. Both sides need to be clear and honest with each other.

Let me give you an example. Years ago, I had some prospects (not yet clients) in Monte Sereno who inquired off and on for years about selling their home. At one point, it became a "hurry up" situation. Luckily, they told me the truth: one of them had been diagnosed as terminally ill. The sick one did not want to saddle the survivor with selling the home after the death.

It helped me to help them in knowing the truth. I cannot give tax or legal advice, but I recognised from what they were telling me that it would probably save the survivor a TON of money to hold onto the house until after the spouse's death because of the stepped-up basis. Now I can't say that to them, but knowing it, I could and DID say, "before you list with me or anyone else, tell your tax person what you just told me, and tell your tax person that you are thinking of selling now". That couple's CPA told them to wait. They did. Had I not known the real reason for the sudden uptick in motivation to sell their home, I could not have assisted them. Their openness and honesty saved the surviving spouse hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In contrast, I've had conversations with seller prospects who did not want to tell me why they were selling, or where they were moving afterwards. I'm not sure what the concern was, but simple questions were responded to along the lines of "you don't need to know that".

Makes it hard to feel like there's a team approach to selling the house, and makes it far less desireable to work with those kind of folks.

If you want to buy or sell a home, you really take on a partner when you hire a Realtor. Do your due dilligance in hiring, but trust enough so that you can have a functional relationship that will be a win-win. Being overly secretive will hurt your chances of hiring well and will likely undermine your ultimate goals.