How Buyers Drive Real Estate Agents Crazy
2026
Buying a home can be long and challenging process. It can be stressful for both you, as the buyer, and for your real estate agent. On occasion, you might even make the buying process more difficult unintentionally, much to your agent’s frustration. Here’s how buyers drive real estate agents crazy—and complicate the process of buying a home.
1. You want additional showings, bring an entourage, and spend hours looking over the place—but you’re not even close to making an offer. It’s typical to view a property during an open house, then ask for a private showing, even several. But it’s counterproductive when you arrive at the showing with a designer or contractor, a psychic (yes, it happens), or friends and family, then spend several hours measuring virtually every inch of the place—when you’re not really serious about the property. This is counterproductive on several levels: (1) You’re not giving yourself a chance to gauge your own reactions to a property before bringing in an entourage. (2) There will be multiple opportunities to thoroughly explore a property before signing a contract, so going over a home inch-by-inch on the first or second visit is usually a waste of everyone’s time, including yours.
2. You make unjustified low-ball offers. Unjustified low-ball offers are often a waste of time for everyone involved. The seller isn’t going to swallow $100,000 for no reason, even if the property has been on the market a while. In fact, your low-ball offer will help the listing agent get a small price reduction, thus opening the window of opportunity to another buyer. It’s certainly OK to offer less than asking, but be realistic and respectful.
3. You plan to negotiate the price down during escrow but don’t tell your agent. Sometimes a buyer writes an offer, which the seller is open to accepting, but secretly plans to ask for a price reduction during escrow just because the buyers thinks he can. Sure, you can. But doing so adds stress and ill will among all parties involved during what could already be a difficult transaction.
4. You make big demands on your agent’s time even though you’re far from being serious. Sometimes buyers are a year or two away from becoming serious, but they still make a lot of demands on the agent’s time. For example, you make your agent research city building permits on a house just because you’re curious—and even though the property doesn’t fit your requirements. The problem is, agents can’t be as effective if they’re spending lots of time researching tax records or city permits for clients who are years away from being serious. Plus, these types of buyers can end up earning a reputation as “bad clients”—the type that most good agents want to avoid.
5. You change your mind multiple times about what you want.
It’s OK to change your mind based on what you learn during the buying process. But once you’re ready to buy, have a clear picture of what you want. A lot of time and effort gets wasted when you don’t really know what you want and start looking for a high-rise condo in the city, change to looking at houses in the suburbs, go back to city condos, then maybe move on to houses in a different city.
