Message Mishaps: Lessons in Communication from Real Estate Blunders
Have you ever sent a text or email only to realize as soon as you sent it that it went to the wrong person? I think it’s safe to assume that this has happened to most of us. I once sent a text to my daughter to tell her it’s time for bed. Except I sent it to a client instead. I hope they had a good laugh. Recently, on the same day, I received text messages from two separate clients with messages meant for their significant others. Thankfully, they were mundane messages and not embarrassing for either of us.
Next, imagine you’re in the throes of a stressful situation with a client and you need to vent to someone. You text a friend to complain about your client, hit send, and then realize that you sent the message to your client. The message about your client was sent to your client instead of your friend. We’ve already established that it’s easy to send a text or email to the wrong person. How do you recover from this?
PAR hosted a webinar in October titled “Best of the Legal Hotline: And They Got Caught!”. This was a compilation of several actual and recent cases where agents were subject to disciplinary decisions by the Pennsylvania State Real Estate Commission for various acts of poor conduct.
Case 7 was about a Salesperson who accidentally emailed the buyers about the buyers when the Salesperson intended to send it to another agent. The Salesperson wrote in the email that they were hoping the buyers were homeless for months since they were difficult in the sale. The buyers requested that the agent withdraw from the transaction. The Salesperson was fined $1,000 plus $590.29 in investigation costs, and they were assigned 10 hours of CE courses on ethics.
It’s a warning to all of us to not become an idiot when we’re stressed out. This business is stressful and some clients will be very frustrating to work with. Figure out how to deal with it without putting yourself in a position where your words will haunt you and jeopardize your career.
Case 8 involved texts mistakenly sent to a client. The agent sent 2 texts to clients trying to schedule an appraiser visit. Then sent 2 more texts, including racial slurs clearly directed at the client. The agent had meant to send these to a friend. The Broker fired the agent and released the client/sellers from their contract. The agent was handed a $4,000 fine plus $485.04 in investigation costs. They were given a 3 year license suspension that was immediately stayed in favor of probation, meaning the agent will be on probation for 3 years. They were also assigned remedial education as a term of the probation, to include the courses “NAR At Home With Diversity” and “NAR Fairhaven”.
I think this agent got off light. The moral of this story is not to suggest that agents shouldn’t put their racial slurs in writing. If you have the impulse to demean your clients with racial slurs, you have a lot more work to do than taking those two NAR courses. You have no business doing this business. The moral of this story is that there are real world ramifications to what can be a brief lapse of judgement, a short fuse, a minor complaint. When sent to the wrong person, it can cost you your license, and depending on what was said, it should.
You should know that you will invariably get frustrated by the decisions and behaviors of some clients. It’s part of the job. Sending a text or email in the heat of the moment to vent to someone could backfire in a big way if you mistakenly send your rant to the wrong person. In summary, these real-life examples underscore the importance of careful communication in real estate, cautioning agents to be mindful of their messages to prevent unintended professional ramifications.
Facts, opinions and information expressed in the Blog represent the work of the author and are believed to be accurate, but are not guaranteed. The Lancaster County Association of Realtors is not liable for any potential errors, omissions or outdated information. If errors are noted within a post, please notify the Association. Posts represent the author's opinion and are not necessarily the opinion of the Association.
