I can't speak for other areas but my MLS area is huge and I can easily drive 200 miles in a day showing a dozen or so properties. We try to give a 2 hour time frame when we will be showing but at times we are early or late.
If I am just showing a couple of homes and I will be early or late I try to call and let the sellers agent know...if I am showing a bunch of homes and am off track it is a little difficult...some areas don't have cell coverage.
Oh...I am not only a Realtor but just sold my home and went through the same thing you are referring to. We are renting a condo right now during our new home build and the condo is on the market and we have short notices all the time too.

It really should be spelled out in your lease what amount of notice must be given. Any lease that I write up has a time frame so all parties know.
But yes, being 3 hours late is too much, being one hour late or early is not too bad.
Both parties have to be respectful of the other.

Most leases call for "reasonable" notice given of intent for LL to enter premises. "Reasonable" is vague but I'd say anywhere from 12-24hour notice is reasonable. 1 hour early/late is also reasonable.

As to coming in while you are showering, that means you have a lockbox on your door? That's totally unreasonable to me if I were renting as that invites a REA to stop by unannounced whenever they wish.

Not true Tony... just because there is a lockbox on the property does not give agents authority of any kind to enter. Agents are required to schedule an appointment, no matter if there is a lock box or not.

Nc, while I agree, it's been my experience that the overwhelming majority of REA's will try to come in if they see a lockbox and it appears that nobody is home.

In our MLS Rules if the showing instructons say "Call Office" and a Realtor doesn't do that prior to showing it is a $100.00 fine and it is enforced if the listing agent makes a vaild complant. This stopped a lot of problems.

There's no excuse not even to be 15 minutes late or early not with all the communication technology at our figure tips - literally.

"Sorry, we are running late/early, you can expect us at ---- o'clock."

What's so difficult about that?

That type of behavior has NEVER been acceptable. However, with Generation ME, it's all about what they want, with no thought for the inconvenience that it causes others. If there's a lockbox, it should only be in place when you aren't home. Otherwise, if you are home, the REAs need to actually knock on the door, fairly close to the appointed time. If they are early, it would be courteous to receive a "heads up" phone call when they see their schedule opening up for that early visit. If they are running late, again, a phone call to see if the showing would still be possible at the adjusted time would be the courteous thing to do.

However, expect the worst, and when someone behaves with civility, you'll be pleasantly surprised and appreciative.

A lock box is standard in our area. There are hundreds of agents. Most people are looking within the confines of a few city blocks and not traveling great distances between various properties. I think the big problem is that some people want to cram as much as they can during a day. One agent, when we were selling our previous place was notorious for showing clients 8-10 places in his rank order of which buildings he liked and blowing off the showings at the bottom of the list when clients got tired out because they "probably wouldn't like it anyway". He made three appointments to show our unit with three different clients and never showed up for any of them, and never canceled.

I think this is the fault of both the agent and the client. Looking at 9 properties in one day is a fishing expedition, particularly when you can see most of what you need to see in the online listing. If you have to look at a bunch of disparate properties, you don't know what you are looking for yet. We looked at Dozens of properties but never more than 2-3 at a time, and over a period of more than a year, and never with the appointments crammed close together. And if we were a half hour early, we hung out for a half hour before knocking on the door.

We had an appointment show up at dinner time(6:30pm) that was supposed to be at 10:00am. My husband was extremely pissed off and refused to even let the realtor in the house. He gave her a ration about being a professional and CALLING when they couldn't meet the original appointment. She apologized profusely and gave a lame excuse about loosing her appointment sheet, didn't have our number, etc. Didn't matter to us. We told them NO and went on with our dinner. There is no reason for being late and not calling. Realtors have this attitude that they can do anything to sellers that they want and we should take it. The hell with that. Oh, and she wasn't the only one to pull that BS. NancyLouise

I have always looked at this as trespassing... nothing more, nothing less.
Palimpsest... believe it or not, most buyers DO NOT know exactly what they want, and do not look at only 2 or 3 homes like you say. Especially in an area like mine, where Lake Norman waterfront causes each home to be uniquely diiferent. There is a saying in this business... "Buyers are liars". It is said with a light hearted tone to just mean that most buyers start out telling us one thing, and a lot of times end up purchasing something different. It is tnot atypical for me to show 10 - 15 homes at one time. Especially the last 4 years because of the huge inventory.
Anyhow, if an agent is more than 15 minutes late, which is easy to find yourself, a courtesy call is in order.

It became acceptable when people didn't say no, and just let them in.

If enough people say no, these rude people would understand that not everyone will bow to their pushiness.

When we listed our condo, our agent prepared us for this kind of stuff by telling us that people in his field didn't have a consistent level of professionalism.

It stinks, but it's how things go.

As long as you are following the terms of your lease, I wouldn't worry about snarky realtors or others, just turn them away if they don't follow the rules or even bother to call. Having said this, if you're able to accommodate a realtor and their client and are willing to do so, then great but wouldn't feel bad about not making everyone happy.

Looking at 9 properties in one day is a fishing expedition, particularly when you can see most of what you need to see in the online listing. If you have to look at a bunch of disparate properties, you don't know what you are looking for yet.

Not always ... we looked at a passel of properties in one day, all in a small area, because we were looking for "acceptable housing" in a certain price range and not "dream home".

Fortunately most were empty - the one we bought had tenants but they were packing to move so they didn't care. It was chaotic.

Lazygardens, we did the exact same thing with a condo we just purchased. We walked into a Realtor's office, gave her a list of parameters, she found about 20 listings that met our criteria, could get us into 12 condos that met our list the next day, and we bought one of those 12 units. Since we were out-of-towners and only had a few days to look, it was a long day viewing properties (and it really wasn't that long, the units were clustered in 4 areas) or not viewing at all.

This post was edited by xamsx on Wed, Apr 17, 13 at 13:46

"We had an appointment show up at dinner time(6:30pm) that was supposed to be at 10:00am. My husband was extremely pissed off and refused to even let the realtor in the house."

What a lameball realtor to be this unprofessional. I wouldn't let have let them in either.

I feel the need to comment on your statement regarding being followed around like you were going to steal their possessions. Our house is on the market and several pieces of my jewelry were stolen during a showing of the house. So, if you come look at my home I will be following you around. Sorry, but I no longer trust anyone, not even the agents!! I know this will more than likely hinder a sale but I am too distressed to do otherwise.

It is what it is vickij. If it makes you feel more at ease, then go along on the tour of your home. To bad the REA aren't more vigilant and professional at their jobs so you don't have to resort to watching what happens in your own home. It may make some buyers uncomfortable that you are there but it is your house, your rules. NancyLouise

Well, it probably will hinder your sale because the homeowner following around an agent and a potential buyer is often on the "big turnoffs" list of what bothers buyers.

I wonder if the agent would be so hesitant to turn the names of his clients if asked by the police.

"Looking at 9 properties in one day is a fishing expedition..."

Not necessarily. When I bought my current home, I had decided on the specific townhouse development I wanted, and looked at all the available homes in the neighborhood in one day. There were 9.

I was serious about buying in that development and was under contract for one of them within a couple of weeks.

"Looking at 9 properties in one day is a fishing expedition"

Gosh, then, in my area there are a lot of "fishing expeditions" AND plenty of SALES as a result !

In the urban neighborhood of the type I live in coupled with the type of condominium complex I live in, if you have a particular matrix of what you are looking for and the complex I live in is a perfect match, there are not nine properties on the market that are good matches, all at the same time. It's a sort of niche market, unlike the broader suburban market where there might be nine in the same neighborhood, ninety in the general community and 900 in the vicinity. Take it from me, the buyer has a pretty open ended set of criteria if they are looking at this And a dozen other properties all at once.