Do all buyer's agents delegate the search to the buyer?

[Tracy S.]

Dear Agents - 

I'm looking for a real estate agent and I've spoken to three of you. I've spent a ton of time communicating my very specific intent and requirements in a property as an investor and each of you have simply put me on a drip. As a buyer, I don't want an MLS drip. I can use Redfin for that. I'm paying a massive commission so that you can interpret (and help me articulate) my needs and deliver a highly personalized set of potential properties with your thoughts on how each of them may or may not completely satisfy them. This is by far the biggest purchase of my life and I want to work with someone who listens to me.

You can't filter MLS listings for the subjective and long-term needs that I'm taking time to communicate to you; why even show me the MLS? Ideally I'd see a personal email or text with an individual property that seems to be a fit based on our discussions along with your feedback on it before I even consider looking at a property. You could save so much time simply by taking a minute to critically analyze whether or not a candidate property suits my needs before even dropping it on my radar. Instead, I feel like you're clicking a few buttons to delegate the search to me, hoping I'll fall in love with something and get you to facilitate the transaction. Totally ignoring the work that goes into the search. Every time I (tactfully) ask one of you to deliver a personalized experience that takes into account my "must haves", I'm dropped. I'm tired of spending hours of my time screening properties that are clearly not suitable.

Is this common behavior in the industry?  I'm a management consultant by trade so as a fellow "people service" professional, it's surprising how impersonal this process is feeling.  Should I be lowering my expectations as far as the scope of work that I should expect from a buyer's agent?  I'm experiencing a trend of impersonal service, missed commitments, fake enthusiasm... what a drag!

[Fred Heller]

Well, I don't do that unless the investor specifically asks for it. When I send a property to an investor it's something that I'm recommending deserves a look. So before I recommend something, I want to make sure I've looked at it and vetted it first.

Having said that, there is nothing "wrong" with auto-searches. There are hundreds of different variables I can program into the search.  If you told me "I'm looking for 1750 SF 3/2/2 houses on 8000SF lots built after 1992 on the south side of Main Street in the 4500 block, I can set up an auto-search for that. What the auto-search can't do is pull rental comps or check for flood zones or tell me that it's an ugly purple house. That's where the human intervention comes in. So even if I did auto-searches I would want them to come to me so I can look them over before sending them out.

And, by the way, I hear a lot of shade being thrown at agents, but I never hear anyone talking about "agent--friendly investors." It goes both ways.