How Do I Deal With Adversity in Real Estate?

I transitioned to Real Estate because everything is always easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Everyone seems to think that Real Estate is always happy. I hate to break the reality but it's not. 

In today's blog, I will tell you the real score of the real challenges that I have encountered in my career as a Real Estate Agent. I will not sugarcoat these challenges so you will learn from my experiences. 

Unforeseeable events will surprise you when something really unexpected or worse, tragic happens in our clients' lives. These will put a stop to your transaction. So today, I will talk about those situations and how you can handle them, 

Scenario 1: Let's talk about the type of deals that I have encountered.
I have had difficult deals like divorce listings, foreclosure, pre-foreclosure listings, deaths in the family. When stuff like that happens, or even when a buyer is buying a house for their divorce, these are not typically happy situations. As an agent, you are going to face and deal with so many situations and you need to be equipped with the capability to deal with them.

You need to understand this is not the kind of deal or transaction where you're taking pictures all the time with people on Facebook and put smiles all over your face. I often do this a lot of times with my other deals, but not these kinds of deals because I understand that these clients are not exactly happy because of a situation.

Again, the question is, how do you handle these situations? How do you respond?
Let's say your transaction for a divorce listing was running smoothly, and you are doing everything perfectly. (Like what happened to me when I had a divorce listing). Suddenly, the two parties didn't agree on the divorce. One person wanted it, but the other person did not. So that other individual who did not want the divorce was dragging their feet and were trying to sabotage their own listing, and it is going to get ugly. In this scenario,  I had to deal with either anger and frustration. Some people would try to talk to me like crazy.

I don't like that. I demand respect because I have given respect. And we need to have that crucial conversation. You can't be afraid to have that crucial conversation. It is with utmost importance that you keep your cool and composure when dealing with these kinds of situations. You need to be a professional constantly.

How do I maintain my professionalism despite this tense situation?  
The first thing I do is, I set the rules of engagement and I set up the rules of how we're going to get things done and how we are going to present the information and communicate. In this kind of situation, I tend to do a lot of video emails when communicating with my clients because I don't want that to be misconstrued. I need to do what you both say especially in divorce listings.

Scenario 2: So how are the decisions going to be made? This is the number two concern. And then how am I going to follow up with you once again? 
Again, I go back in emailing them because, in those situations, you don't want to have one side saying you working for this person versus the other. As much as possible, be neutral in your communication. The best way to do that is by email. And I just listen very professionally.  I would then put both parties on text messages, and I would get them to respond if they would agree with the decision or not. I would lay out their options and ask them how they want to handle that. Once I know their decision, then we can move forward. 

Scenario 3: Let's picture a different scenario. You do your best in a deal, then you mess up because newsflash, you're not perfect. What do you do?
You have to accept that you're not perfect. You're not going to get everything right. Don't be afraid. Be honest, and seek help. Get somebody who can help you, perhaps your broker. They should be helping you. You should have a friend who is in Real Estate who's more experienced than you are. You can call your mentor or your guide, or someone to help you in every situation.

You have to know and accept that it's okay to not know the answers right away. You can say, let me find out for you at a later time. As agents, it is our job to present options to our buyers and sellers so that they can make an informed and educated decisions. We don't make the decisions for them. I see a lot of new agents messing that up because they are trying to tell people that they don't want this and that they don't want to hear a no. You need to stop that listen and advise. Once they make their decision, our role is to advise them on two options on their decisions.

So what if they decide to buy a house with a jacked-up roof?  I will tell you that roof is jacked up. If you inspect, your centers jacked up, but if you want to buy this house let me help you mitigate the issue that you are going to have. 

But if you do make a mistake, how do you bounce back and learn from the mistake?
You're not perfect. You either get the job done, or you learn what you didn't do to get it done. Ask yourself objectively, what did you do wrong? Did you contribute to the issue? If you did, fine. That happens. Just don't do it again don't do the same mistake twice. 

Scenario 4: Now, here's the big one out: Sometimes, you just need to work with some people who are just so difficult to work with.
Let's face it. Some people are just so difficult to work with. You will not be somebody's cup of tea. But you need to understand the red flags. 

Some of the red flags that I see are:
1. Anger Management Issues
2. Super controlling people who are angry at the world.
3. People who just decide to talk to you in a disrespectful tone and comes to you differently.
4.  When someone is trying to overprice their home.

What do you do?
First things first, you set the terms of your relationship in the very beginning. For instance, I don't show up late. I show up on time I show up ahead of time. I continue to communicate. I demand respect because I will always give respect. I won't tolerate being yelled at.

You also need to understand when people have anger issues. I understand why are they angry and what's coming up with them. Maybe it's because they don't like the situation that they're in. Separate the two and be calm in your interaction. Give a reassurance that you are just trying to facilitate what you're doing. Let them know that you understand what they are going through. Layout their options as well to enlighten them in their decision-making process. 

I would also like to elaborate on another major red flag that I enumerated earlier: Someone is trying to overprice their home.
Maybe that person really needs much money as they can possibly get. But when you have someone trying to go $20,000-$30,0000, they're trying to make you down-sell that house just as a complaint. You know more likely this house is not going to sell at this price point. If it does sell, it's not going to appraise. You need to make the client understand that if you put so much pricing at home out of the point where the appraisal makes a terrible turn-up. You can tell them, that you can put it out there but it's not going to appraise much. Ask and them this question, "Is that what you want to go through? Do you really want to drag this out in this particular situation? Because that's exactly what you're going to go through." If your client is still not being reasonable, super red flag right there.

 In addition, other verifiable people will ask you to cut your fees and give up some of your commission to help them out. I can't tell you how to do your business but the fees in their situation are their situation. You need to be firm on your boundaries as a professional. 

Scenario 5: When someone is acting violently crazy.
You can't help it. Some people would just act like they're really going to try to hurt or harm you. What's the best course of action? JUST WALK AWAY. You should never stay in a bad situation with a deal because you're afraid of losing money. The good news is that you will not lose any money, but you will gain more time and energy.

Bottomline
The truth of the matter is, adversities in this industry are pretty inevitable. That's why you need to learn from it, know how you respond to it, and don't let that adversity control you. I hope this blog is super helpful. If you know someone who needs to read this message, share this with them.