009 - What asking for feedback is secretly telling other realtors about you

Do you ask for feedback after showings or has it become an outdated practice that makes agents look desperate?

A 16-year realtor posted on Reddit that their sellers hardly receive showing feedback anymore, and that newer agents rarely leave it. Scott took the question to top agents in his Inner Circle and got completely different answers.

In this episode:

• Why buyer's agents are refusing to share feedback without their buyer's consent — including the lawsuit risk that changed one agent's policy
• A 30-year veteran's case against seeking feedback: it "shows your cards," signals inexperience, and can invite lower offers
• What to ask at the showing instead — offers on the table, financials, days on market — and why newer agents need a mentor, not a survey
• The other side: feedback as ammo, real boots-on-the-ground info you bring back to your seller on price, staging, and positioning
• A follow-up template for listing agents that gets honest answers without chasing — and why ghosting is never cool, in dating or in real estate

If you're not already part of the Inner Circle, what are you waiting for? Market insights, buyer and seller scripts, exclusive webinars with top agents nationwide, and preferential treatment for your open houses. DM "INNER CIRCLE" to Scott on Instagram: http://instagram.com/loan.daddy

Connect with Scott:
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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheLoanDaddy

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you're in this business and your skill set is very strong, you should have a good sense as far as why a property is not selling. Welcome to the Low Daddy Podcast episode 9. Uh on this episode I want to talk about feedback. When I talk about feedback, what I'm referring to is if you are a listing agent, do you seek out feedback from a buyer's agent when they're looking at your listing? Or on the flip side, if you are a on the buy side, are you providing that feedback to a listing agent? I spoke to a couple agents within my inner circle to get their opinions on this and what their best practices are. And I got different answers, and I was really surprised by it. I was trying to figure out is this more of an outdated practice? Does it come across as being desperate when you're seeking out feedback? And these are some of the questions that we're exploring here. And I thought about this because I came across this post here on Reddit, as per usual. The title of this was simply feedback. And this agent wrote a 16-year realtor here with good consistent production. I was trained to always give feedback after showings. I've seen a few podcasts where influencers say don't give feedback. I've never had feedback affect a seller's acceptance of an offer, though. My sellers hardly receive feedback anymore. Since the days on market have been stretching out, I think feedback is so important. Newer agents in my market rarely leave feedback, thoughts. I thought this was just a really interesting post, and I was curious to see what, again, agents in my inner circle thought about this. So I called them up and I asked them what they thought and how they approached feedback. And here's what they said.

SPEAKER_03 1:39

I no longer provide feedback to the listing agent unless I can get consent from my buyer. I'll I'll say that the listing agent wants feedback. Do you want to share any, or do you have any? I don't do that as a courtesy to listing agents anymore because that doesn't really help my buyer.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

And if they absolutely hate the property, would you provide feedback or you would just leave it?

SPEAKER_03 2:03

Only if the buyer consented to giving their honest opinion. Like I just heard of um like lawsuits in other states where it's like a buyer initially didn't like a property and then decided to go back and did like it, and it like affected like the negotiations after the fact. So I just like providing feedback for listing agents helps the listing agent. The listing agent is not my client, the buyer is the client. So I only share information uh with their consent.

SPEAKER_04 2:32

I think it's a waste of time. Um it depends. I mean, so if a property is sitting for a while, right, and we know the reason why, then no, we don't ask for feedback. But if it's sitting and it's been like very active and all of a sudden things die down, and it's maybe not because of a war or some other bizarre potential reason, right? We may ask, like, what's this what's the response to this or that? Is it the view? But it's rare because I'm a believer in that if you chase that information, you really don't know what the fuck you're doing. I feel like you a broker should know what they're doing and should know the answers to why something is not moving, but rarely do we ask for feedback. It also can sound desperate, like it is a city, we don't have interest, so it works to our sellers' disservice because it could lead to a lower offer. Say somebody is interested and we call them, and you know, that gives up our our kind of shows our cards, right? So I prefer not to have feedback. I prefer to just trust my gut. I'm pretty good at what I do, and I should be at this point after 30 years. We pretty much know. But sometimes I get good feedback. I say, I'm I'm really swamped, or you chose swamped, and you know, I get whatever responses. Sometimes I get no, I'm dead. You're so lucky, you're swamped. It's rare, it's rare that I I look for feedback. I I tell my sellers this as well. If yeah, I say I'm a big communicator, I'll tell you how things are going on a weekly basis as much as you want. If you want it on a daily basis, I'm happy to, you know, follow up with you daily, whatever. But I don't really get feedback from other clients, other other brokers. It doesn't do you any good.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Would you ever give feedback to a listing agent as a courtesy to them?

SPEAKER_04 4:17

No, I think it could be construed as rude. If they if you don't ask, you don't tell. It's like if you don't have anything nice to say, if it's a beautiful property, I I say, my god, that was stunning. That's some of the best views I've seen. If it's somebody that I know over the many years, like, oh, it was great seeing you, beautiful property. I wish they were interested. You know, so it's it's based on relationship at that point, it's not based on deal.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

If someone was new to the business and didn't have your sort of finely honed intuition and they were like just baffled as to why a property was sitting, how would you recommend they go about finding out why a property was sitting, if not through using Facebook?

SPEAKER_04 4:59

They should be working with a mentor. If they don't have at least five to seven years experience, in my opinion. I've mentored for Corcoran often. I think I've mentored about seven, eight uh brokers. You should have somebody that you you can work with that that has at least 15 to 20 years of experience to go to. And it doesn't do your seller any service to, in my opinion, to to get that kind of feedback. Even new developments, they don't they don't ask for feedback. Right. You know, you just don't. It shows your cards, it shows your lack of seasonality, your lack of uh experience. I mean, I love it. If they if somebody pursues me and asks me for feedback on a showing where I brought a buyer, I get a lot out of it from my buyer. If you're interested, oh tell me more. Do you have any offers? I ask at the at the appointment, too, because that that's when you're supposed to ask at the appointment. Do you have any offers? Because you know if your buyer, this is something that your buyer can work for them. Then you at that point ask, how are the financials? Anything I need to be um alerted about, multiple offers, any offers, how long have you been on the market? I I think they're brain immediately. But that broker should definitely have a mentor to to to speak to about these things and not reach out to the general public if they have a seller, especially.

SPEAKER_02 6:20

I think it really depends on the property, and I also think it depends on sort of the what goes around, comes around situation. I think a lot of times brokers that are seeking genuine feedback are seeking genuine feedback so they can relay it to the seller and say, listen, I spoke to 10 brokers, the price is X, and you know, we've been on the market for a certain period of time and we haven't gotten any offers. I think it's sort of adding to the ammo to be able to articulate to the seller sort of this is what's happening, booths on the ground situation. And that's really the only feedback, unless it's sort of like a genuine, like, oh, you know, the staging isn't great, or you really should consider painting or doing something to make it nicer or spruce it up or whatever it is, or um, but I think the feedback is really more so to arm the seller with more info.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Just looking at the other side of it, like no part of you would feel that you're coming across as being desperate.

unknown 7:19

I don't think it's desperate, but I think if you're like really gunning for the feedback, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 7:25

It's like listen, it's never cool to ghost someone in dating or in real estate, you know, ideally you're you're giving someone a little bit of uh closure, be it on a showing. But if you're like reaching out like three times, like what's the feedback, what's the feedback? It's like, okay, alright. Right. Then it's like a little like clearly we're not uh having this as like the top of our list. And typically sometimes what I'll say, if I don't necessarily have specific feedback, it's you know, we're keeping it under consideration, it's in our back pocket, and we'll let you know if we've got any questions. I mean, it's sort of it, or we'll say, you know, didn't love it for XYZ reasons, and you know, good luck with it.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Can you give us like a template of like if you are a listening agent, how are you reaching out for feedback in a way that doesn't seem desperate?

SPEAKER_02 8:12

I mean, there's sort of just a normal email follow-up, you know, it was great to meet your so-and-so clients, seemed like they liked XYZ, you know, would welcome any additional feedback or questions if they have it, or if it's, you know, I think it's being an active listener during a showing, and if there was a question that was asked or sort of like half-posed during the showing and you're able to then speak on that during the follow-up, it sort of keeps the conversation going. So there's like the normal email feedback, or if you have like a good relationship and over the years it hasn't, you know, uh there are a lot of brokers, but within certain circles, it's a small pool. And if you have a relationship with a broker, then you know, just pick up the phone and call, and it's sort of like it's it's not personal, you know, if if someone doesn't like your apartment or the apartment that you're showing, and that's where you sort of say, hey, you know, listen, is it is it uh the furniture, or is it the size, or is it the views, or is it, you know, just any detail is is appreciated, and that's sort of how I I go about it.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Alright, so you see different answers there. The agent who mentioned she's she's a 30-year veteran in this business does not give feedback. She's not seeking feedback, she says, hey, you should know. If you're in this business and your skill set is very strong, you should have a good sense as far as why a property is not selling. On the flip side, as far as providing that feedback, she's not interested in doing that either. Because, you know, if that buyer were to come back, maybe that can affect your ability to negotiate. Whereas the other agent, you know, who again is a very experienced agent who's been around the block and a lot of people know him, he's thinking about the relationship. And I think it's on the delivery on how you're doing it. He talked about not coming across as being desperate because he's not asking the question five, six times, calling every day, asking for feedback. It's more casual. It's kind of I don't know if he even said the word casual, but it comes across as being a lot more casual and a lot more natural. And he did mention that he's more of an active listener, right? So he's looking for simple clues in the questions that an agent or a buyer is asking about their property. And I'm sure there are many other answers out there that you may have. So put them into the comments. Let me know what you think about these answers, how you would approach this. I'm curious to see if this is more of an outdated practice or if it's still being used. So that concludes this episode today. If you are not already part of the inner circle, what are you waiting for? Join, send me a DM, right? Inner circle. So, what do you get with this? You get market insights, buyer and seller scripts, exclusive webinars with some of the top agents in the industry nationwide. Also, preferential treatment for your open houses as well. There's a lot of benefits to this, and what we're seeing from a lot of the agents that have joined, it's increasing their GCI exponentially. So you could be next. Join uh again, DM me uh inner circle to my Instagram, and we will see you on the next episode. Bye.