None of my contacts seem to answer. What's normal?

[Jared G.]

I have been in contact with realtors, lenders, insurance agents, and property managers for the past couple of months. I've noticed that while they are friendly and mean well, most of them have been dragging their feet on everything. Every interaction is a missed call, an unanswered email, taking 3-4 days to respond to simple, straightforward questions, and promising to send something over and then never doing so. Even when I want simple estimates for what things may cost, it takes a week of back and forth to get an answer.

You may think, "it must be you, then" -- but I doubt it, because when we do talk, everyone is in good spirits and we are productive. It's just very difficult to keep anyone around for very long. Plus, I have so many questions that by the time I get a hold of them, much of what I was going to talk about has been interrupted with even more pressing questions.

How much of this should I be willing to accept? I know people are busy and I want to respect everyone's time, but another weekend is now going to come and go where I can't be as productive as I want to be because I am waiting on others to get back to me with necessary information. 

What do you consider normal, and when would you move on to working with someone else?

[Ed Emmons]

I would look for different people. You can ask how they prefer to be contacted and what you should expect for response time. Then follow up if they are late. But good people will usually communicate well.