So, question for
@Getzlaf15 and all you real estate experts around here.
Family is thinking about a permanent move from Kansas City to the Brainerd Lakes area in Minnesota. I have vacationed there for 37 of my 50 years, so we are familiar with the area. We want to provide a complete lifestyle change for our family with 3 kids. They are excited about the possibility. Our time frame is spring of 2021.
We know approximately where we want to be, but will be enlisting the help of a local agent up there to help us out. I need to know the ins and outs of lakefront living, and also going from sewer to septic, natural gas to propane...things like that. I'm not worried about being able to handle those things - just need local expertise and am willing to pay for that.
I reached out to a large brokerage up there and submitted a detailed email listing what we are looking for, areas we want to be in....basically laid out what we are looking for. We haven't sold out house yet here nor have we gone to a bank yet. Our house here will sell quickly in this market and our credit scores are perfect. I explained this in the email. We will be up there on vacation starting Thursday and will be there for 10 days. I mentioned we would love to meet with someone and maybe see 3-4 properties so we can get a feel for where we want to live.
I also mentioned our timeline, and that if we were required to be pre-approved or ready to move in the next 60 days I would understand if they didn't want to waste their time. I started this process the beginning of last week.
I heard from them almost immediately (a very quick response from someone in the office). We talked for a half hour and I reiterated what I had said in the email. I also said again that if they were busy and couldn't work with us I would understand, since we were in research phase at this point. I also said we will use you as our buyers agent once we are ready to pull the trigger and that we were 95% sure we will be moving. She mentioned she would forward my information to a buyers agent and they would contact us the next day.
Fast forward a week to yesterday. Still no contact from anyone. I called her back and left a voicemail basically saying: "We haven't heard from anyone - not sure if you guys decided to pass on us but I need to know so I can make other arrangements." She then called me back a few hours later and said the agent who was supposed to reach out last week would contact me.
He finally texts around 9:30 last night and promises to send me some listings by email so we can narrow down a few to go look at this Saturday. He emails them late last night, and I reply back this morning at 8:00 am with some we had found with a couple of other quick questions. As of right now we haven't had a answer to any of my questions. Nor has anyone really answered the questions I had in my original email.
So my question is: should I expect a better level of communication than this? Or am I just considered a non-factor and not worthy of their time? This agency has 10 buyers agents on staff, so I can't believe they would all be so busy that a simple email reply wouldn't happen for a full day. I was also hoping for a phone conversation with the agent before he started just emailing me listings - just so he could maybe get a feel for us.
I'm not expecting him to fall all over us - I have been in sales and marketing my whole career so I understand sales processes and good prospects...etc. But I would at least expect some courtesy communication here.
We are just trying to do our due diligence before we pull the trigger here. Thoughts from the pros?