How to Handle Difficult Real Estate Clients in NC

Episode originally aired: March 17, 2026

In this episode of the DASHcast Podcast, Derrick Taylor and Courtney LaMotte get real about difficult real estate clients — the red flags NC real estate agents ignore and exactly how to handle them before they cost you your business.

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Difficult Real Estate Clients: The Red Flags Agents Keep Ignoring

Full Episode Transcript

The following transcript is from the DASHcast audio, formatted for readability.

Foreign. Hi, I’m Derek. Hi, I’m Courtney, and this is the dashcast podcast. So, Courtney, how are you? I’m doing good.

Great. You know what we’re not gonna do today? Okay, I’m sorry. That threw me for a loop. So today, Courtney, I think we really need to touch on a bad client.

Okay. Every client’s not a good client. There are problems with buyers, there are problems with sellers, and I think it would be helpful to those agents out there to kind of get an insight of when all money is not good money. Yeah. And I think it’s okay sometimes to turn down a client because you guys might just not be a good fit.

Right. Like, they might just, you know, be having unrealistic expectations. They might just, you know, be asking too much of you at a certain time in your life, and vice versa, whatever the case may be. So I definitely think it’d be good for us to talk a little bit about different red flags we might run into with buyers. A different red flags will run into with sellers.

So tell me a couple of red flags that you’ve run into with a couple of buyers that maybe just didn’t make you guys a great fit. Right. So I would say on the buy side, I’ve actually had clients that I’ve, let’s just say, walked away from. Yeah. Which is fine.

Which is fine. Because either our personalities didn’t mesh or they were unrealistic about what they were looking for, even though they may have had a pre approval, but that’s not the dollar amount that they were looking for. Right. Based off of the market we were in. Yeah.

I feel like there are those clients who are going through something in their life at that point besides just buying a house. Meaning. Okay, divorce. There was a death. There was something that I felt as though I couldn’t help them or I wasn’t the right person to help them.

And like we mentioned, you know, all money’s not good money. All clients are not going to be your client. Right. So to speak. So those are just some of the red flags that I think that I’ve seen and I have personally walked away from clients because I felt like it just was not gonna work.

Yeah. Something’s not clicking. Something’s not clicking. And it’s okay. I.

I feel like I’ve had literally this similar thing where sellers. Right, yeah. With sellers, with buyers, where we just. We weren’t clicking. And I was like, you know what?

I feel like you might be really great with one of my colleagues. Like, you guys personalities match. They they, you know, live closer to where you’re looking or something like that. To where it’s, it’s okay to have boundaries. It’s okay to, you know, potentially say we’re not a great fit.

But I’m gonna still find you someone who is going to be a great fit. Absolutely. And in this business, I mean, I’m sure you know this as well. You really do have to be a chameleon. You have to be not an actor and be fake with people.

Yeah. But you have to find that specific thing that helps you to click with that client so that you can keep them engaged for sure. And if there’s nothing, there’s nothing. Yeah. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it happens.

And I would love I my clients to have fun. Right. I want us to jive. I want us to like be out looking for homes and click and if they click with someone else, that it’s okay. Yeah.

I’m not forever. I mean, you look at it like this is the biggest, it could be the biggest purchase of their life and you want them to enjoy the experience. For sure. It’s already stressful enough to make sure your credit is right. If we’re talking about new first time homebuyers.

Yeah. Making sure your credit is there. Making sure you have, you understand the process. It’s a lot. It’s a lot.

So if you have someone who’s a stick in the mud or a tight ass. Yeah. And they’re trying to have fun doing this, it’s. It’s going to be a horrible experience for them. I 100% agree.

And on like the other side, when we’re talking about sellers, like, I feel like it’s sometimes it’s even you don’t want to be the agent that takes bad listings and get that reputation of like getting fired because you are just too much of a yes woman or a yes man. So, so to me, I’m like, it’s okay. Sometimes if a seller and I, we meet, we chat and we’re not a good fit. I am perfectly okay walking away from that potential listing knowing, hey, I can set you up with someone I think would be a great fit and not put myself through the literal stomach aches of dealing with someone who’s a little bit unrealistic. Absolutely.

Especially when it comes to list price. Yeah. You can have all the conversations in the world and give them all the tools and data and sometimes they just have things going on in their life that, you know, call for a different person or a different approach and sometimes that’s not gonna be you, and it’s gonna be fine. And like you mentioned, there’s this unrealistic price in their head based off of the fact, well, my son had his child here and my daughter took her first steps and my dog is buried out in the back. Like, we understand all that, but realistically, in this market, you’re not going to get that price for this house.

Yeah. So we need to peel that back. And I think, like we always, always say data is going to be our best friend. Right. I’m not going to tell you.

You’re. You’re stupid. I’m not going to tell you. You’ll never get this. Because you know what?

Let’s say you do want a million dollars for your house. Maybe one day it might be worth a million. In this moment, I’m just going to. To say, hey, this is what I’m seeing. This is Y based off of X, Y and Z.

At the end of the day, it’s completely up to you. Yeah. You’re going to make an informed decision or. Or not informed decision. And if we are not on the same page, that’s perfectly fine.

I just don’t want to get too in the business of just being like, yes, yes, yes, yes. Just to score the listing because it’s going to cause you headache and heartache and all this extra added stress if you guys aren’t aligned. And you really. On the. Whether it’s the buy side or the sell side, like you said, the data should dictate where that price is going to be, how much you’re going to pay for a house or how much you’re going to sell your house.

I have to say, though, on the buy side, when you give them the data and they come up with what they’re going to offer, you kind of have a open door to say, well, you know, this is why X, Y and Z with sellers, it’s a little bit harder because. To break through that ice. Yes. Because they have this price in their head or based off the data, they know what they need to clear to buy the next property. Yep.

So it’s a, it’s a little bit different of a conversation, but you’re still not going to drive with every buyer and every seller. And that’s okay. Exactly. That’s okay. You’re really not.

When have you personally run into a situation where you had to step away from a client, what was the reason? Or you had to say, hey, maybe you might work better with someone else. Like, give me a little bit of insight as to when that has maybe happened to you, whether it’s a buyer or a seller. Right. So, I mean, just recently I had a client who, I’m not kidding you, there are those Saturdays and Sundays that you spend with someone and you could Easily show them 18 houses.

Yeah. Within that weekend. Yeah. Did that time and time again. Again.

Yeah. It wasn’t just one weekend. Yeah. It was some days in there during the week we saw house after house, out after house. One thing that you want to do with as being an agent is to be upfront and honest with your client 100% and you not are being gullible in the thought process of you thinking that they’re being the same way with you.

You always want to take people at face value and believe who they are when they say who they are the first time. Yep. But you give them the benefit of the doubt and you think that they’re going to tell you the truth because you’re trying to help them buy something that, you know, it could, they could be spending the most money of their life for sure. So with that being said, I showed this person so many houses for so many weeks and then maybe like two weeks into the showing process, he says to me, oh, and I need to sell my house too. And I’m like, okay, so whole other conversation, whole nother conversation, a whole nother path that we need to take.

Take. Yep. So I’ve always been one to try and get all the information I can when you. We start this process for sure. And.

And I went to him like that, trying to get him to give me the information. Didn’t find that out, like I said, till a few weeks later. And we just kept seeing houses and seeing houses and I got frustrated because I kept showing him houses, but we weren’t getting anywhere because he hadn’t put his house on the market. Yeah. He hadn’t gone to see if he could get a cash offer for it.

And there was no, there was no real anxious feeling of doing that. Yeah, it was more about he wasn’t giving you all the. No, it was more about he wanted to see houses. This man text me at 11:30, 12:00 clock at night. He was calling me at 7:00 clock in the morning.

When somebody is that motivated to get in contact with you, you think they have all their rights in order or in a row. And that just wasn’t the case. Yeah. So I can’t say that I fired him. Yeah.

Let’s just say his call stopped being answered. Yeah. Because with that type of attitude Seeing what he had put me through, I didn’t want to put another one of my colleagues through that. Yeah, and I definitely feel you sometimes. It’s just we want to give the world to our clients.

We go above and beyond all day, every day. We answer calls, texts, and I will always meet you where you’re at. But sometimes we do get clients that it’s just fluff. It’s not serious. And sometimes it takes a while for us to figure that out.

So what did you. What was one of your experiences that was like, okay, I’m being had right now. I need to get away from this person. Cause it happens. Yeah, I will say that.

Like, I also, I don’t say I’ve ever let a client go, but I have realized where I wasn’t the best fit and quickly realized we need to figure something else out. And one of the times was, honestly, every time that I would go to say something or we would talk about something, I would get continuously interrupted by one of the two that I’m showing homes to. And I started to get really frustrated because at the end of the day, I am the professional. I do know what I’m doing. And I was like, I’m not going to be interrupted continuously and I’m not going to be brushed off just so I can open a door for you.

And then everything I say, you’re kind of just like, mmm, I know more than you. Okay, you might. You might know more than me, but I actually am a professional. I actually do know a lot about this process and getting clients to the finish line. And I’m not going to ever be disrespected.

So I definitely feel like sometimes clients will approach real estate agents in general as someone who just opens doors. And I definitely don’t think that we’re always taken in the best light because of stupid stuff on social media. Like those girls on selling Sunset Sell two homes a year. Okay, like what? And you’re gonna tell me that they have a ton of experience, Right?

We are constantly talking and working with clients every day. 10, 20, 12, dozens of contracts a year. And I do know what I’m talking about. And I’m not going to be interrupted and, or disrespected just because of what you think. Real estate agents are in the media.

The only time I think, speaking of being interrupted or kind of backing down from somebody, like, I never go into a showing and feel like I’m inferior to that person for sure. But that’s why I have that conversation, or I. I talk so much to the clients at the beginning to find out what they do. Right. If you’re a builder or an inspector or an appraiser, then I kind of am like, okay, well, let’s talk about this.

Different combos, It’s a different convers. It’s not like somebody who works at Wawa or, you know, Walmart. Yeah. You’re having a different conversation. It’s like, hey, did you see.

And you can tell them the type of material that you see a problem with. Right. Tell them because one, they know about those things. Exactly. The one client you’re teaching and the other client you’re kind of just having a conversation.

Yeah. Because they understand it. Yeah, I agree. I agree. It’s very different.

What, what made you stop saying yes to every client or yes to every situation? Yeah. Where is that line? When did that start? I want to say starting real estate young and being a female, I honestly just when I first started real estate, I did not have confidence.

I was just like, I’m young. A lot of my clients were older than me. And I felt like I went into a lot of conversations, like not feeling the biggest person in the room or the smartest person or the confidence person in the room. And I slowly had to like check in with myself and be like, you do know what you’re talking about. You may be younger than some of your clients and you may be new to this business, but you, at the end of the day, you’re putting in the work, you’re in real time, meeting clients, learning every single day.

So I will say initially, no confidence. And I was saying yes to everything. I was like, oh my God. Lead, lead, lead, lead, lead. Right.

Because you probably thought it was the right thing. Yeah. And I was like, that’s the only way I’m going to learn. Which I will say I did learn from that. And what I learned is that my confidence, once I started, you know, really getting to know my clients and, you know, starting to close some deals and starting to get some five star reviews and I was like, oh my gosh, like, I actually might be good at this.

And I started to build up my confidence and I realized I was like, I can’t say yes to everything because I can’t give everything 100% if I do. So it wasn’t necessarily a specific instance. I think it was just about 2,3ish years into where I really started seeing the work I had been putting in pay off. I was like, I don’t have to say yes to everything. I can be a little bit More, I don’t say picky, but selective with my time.

And I, I’m well on my way enough to where I can like pause for a moment, not say yes to everything, and just work on with what I’ve got. And then started seeing referrals and stuff like that. So I don’t think it was like an exact turning point, but I think once the confidence came, I got a little bit more protective about what I do with my time. And time is like so limited. I mean, as busy as we can be, or as busy as you have to be.

Sometimes. Have to be. Yes. There is no time for anything. Yeah.

And, and I, I, I’m always saying that I sleep, eat and breathe real estate, because literally I do. Yeah. And it can make you burn out. But I feel like the only way that a lot of agents get to the point where they’re like, yes, I do eat, burn, breathe, sleep, real estate, it’s because they’re also confident in their work and they know when they can turn it off. You know, you need to take a beat.

Yeah. When your phone rings and you say, damn. Yeah. You’re like, it’s six o’ clock in the morning. Why had it called me?

Yeah. But it, it’s also a testament is like, you know, that it’s because clients trust you. Yeah. And that’s why they’re reaching out. Absolutely.

So it’s like, while we joke, yes, darn, it’s six o’ clock in the morning, you’re calling me. We’re grateful all the time. Come on, ring. Yeah, ring, ring, ring. But it is also, sometimes it is okay to just, you know, say, hold, hold the phone for a second.

Sometimes it’s okay to say no. Sometimes you just gotta, like, breathe, focus on yourself for a moment and then get back to work. And that’s important is that you have to be intuitive enough to know when to take a beat, when to stop, when to step away. Because you don’t want that stress to spill over to everything else. Everything else in your life.

Yes. Because of real estate. Yeah. So you, you have to be very conscious of that. I agree.

What’s one thing that you think in terms of support wise that has gotten you to where you’re at and made you confident in maybe sometimes stepping away, made you confident with taking more leads or less leads or whatever. Where do you think that that support has come from and how has it helped you? To this day, I would say being at dash. And I don’t want to sound like, oh, we’re promoting dash. But quite honestly, I’ve not been with any other firm.

I did interview a Several. Several different firms when I was coming on board. And I think I heard you say when you walked in there, you knew this is where you wanted to be. Yeah. It was the exact same feeling for me.

It’s kind of like buying a new house. When you walk in, you know that it’s home. When you smell that paint, you’re like, yes, yes, yes. It was the sound of the ping pong table. I was like, okay, yes.

No, it was. It was just that simple. Like, I. I would go to DASH before I even joined to study for my license. And they welcomed me.

They didn’t know me from Jack. Yeah. And was like, come on, if you want to sit and study in the lunchroom, whatever. And that made me feel really good about the firm. Not from here.

So I definitely needed a sphere of people and contacts to get me where I wanted to be in real estate. And that’s the support that I got from DASH and in being there, you literally are out there beating the pavements, buying and selling properties, and you have an entire team behind you doing the grunt work of what needs to be done in the background. And you don’t have to worry about it, because they’re gonna get it done. Yeah. Which then allows you to step forward and be the face of the firm.

Yep. But you gotta go out there and know your shit. You gotta go out there because you’re representing a bunch of people. Right. And word will get back.

Yeah. And so it’s just important to be able to not only have respect for the people who have your back, but have respect for yourself. Yes. So that when you’re out there, people can say, yeah, one of your agents stopped by, and they’re not giving a bad or nasty story about. Which is.

Yeah, it’s a. That can speak volumes. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, you.

You have to take this seriously. You have to respect yourself, and. And you’ll get the respect that you deserve. Okay. So we both have been in real estate for about 5ish years now.

Four or five years. Okay. When did you start? Three. Three.

It’s been four. I thought we started around the same time. Regardless. Okay. We both haven’t been in real estate a long time.

I just look like. Yeah. Less than five years. We’ve both been in real estate for less than five years. Right.

But when I was interfering. Interviewing firms. When you were interviewing firms, we kind of already touched on, like, the things that we were looking for. What are some of the things being a new agent and, you know, only having, like, not coming from another firm. What were the.

Some of the things that you were looking for at a firm in order to make your decision? So one of the big things that I think DASH does for new agents and that I think new agents straight out of school need. They need to know how to be an agent. Yeah. Because when you’re in school and you’re going through the tests, you’re learning how to pass the test.

Yeah. You’re not learning anything else. Learning anything else. You’re trying to cram to remember that information to get your license. Yep.

They’re not telling you about lockboxes or telling you about the MLS or anything real. Anything real at all related to real estate. Yeah. They’re not telling you that in the real world. In the real world.

Yes. So it’s important as a new agent to go to a firm that’s going to not only be supportive of you in learning, but will teach you how to be an agent. Right. And that’s exactly what DASH does. Yeah.

As far as I’m concerned personally, I needed to learn how to be an agent. Yes. I needed a place where I could go and get leads, because I’m not from here. I didn’t know people. Right.

I just needed that whole band of knowledge that a new agent is craving to do what they want to do. Right. And not even knowing where to start. And not knowing where to start. Yeah.

Right. So when you got your license, did you have any idea what you were going to do next? Like, how do I do this? Yeah. I was with another firm before DASH for, like, nine months, and it was my first firm.

Right. I didn’t really realize that when you are going to interview for a brokerage that you want to be at, like, you really kind of are interviewing the firm. You’re asking them, like, where do we get it? Leads? What are the splits?

What’s your culture? Like, how is there a training program? Like, I didn’t know any of that. I didn’t know any of that. So with the first brokerage, I didn’t ask any questions, looked like a buffoon, and then wasted nine months at this firm literally googling things, not knowing what I was doing.

Like, no support. No. Like, there was one person at the firm that I could go to for questions, and that was it. And, like, if they were busy or if they didn’t have the answer, I’m like, literally, Chad, GPT. Like, what does MLS mean?

Like, it was. I don’t know what to do. So honestly, I started just like, watching a bunch of, like, YouTube videos. Cause I was like, how the heck do I get out of this firm and where do I go from here? Right?

And I started watching videos about questions to ask firms and, like, how to, like, figure out if a firm’s a good fit for you. Right. So that was like, step one. And then I was like, okay, so I literally googled. And I’m not just saying this to say this, but I literally googled best rated firms in Raleigh, North Carolina.

And I’m not even kidding, Dash Carolina popped up as the first one clicked it. Literally clicked it. And it was like, schedule an interview. And I was like, click. Wow.

And then within a couple, I think within like a week or two, I had an interview. And between then when I clicked the schedule, interview, and then up until actually meeting in front of that, I did research on a couple of other firms, scheduled a couple interviews for around the same week. Right. And I wrote down my questions. I was like, okay, let me not make this mistake again and go somewhere that has, like, no support, no nothing.

So my biggest questions are like, what trainings do you have? Cause I don’t know anything. I just wasted nine months. Where do you get your leads? How does that even work?

Yeah. What are the splits? And then I was also like, what is your culture? Like, is it one man band? Do you have a team?

Like, I don’t really. Like, I’m not doing one man band again. You know, one of the questions that a new agent has no clue to ask a firm if they’re interviewing them is when you have a transaction, whose name does the transaction go under? Yep. That is so important.

Yeah. And because. Yeah, very important. It was the Derek Taylor firm, and I have 92 agents and they’re all going under my name. Yeah.

When somebody goes to Google an agent and see whether or not they’re good, like, you can’t find me. Yeah. Yeah. I had 16 sales my first nine months at my other firm. Which were they under?

Not me. Not. Not under me. Right. So they, like, don’t even count towards my past sales, which is really just not a nugget I would pass on to a new agent.

If they were looking for a firm, ask them, because you should be able to be the face of your work. Absolutely. And that was another question I literally just didn’t even know to ask until I. Until I had experienced the trauma of nine months of working at this other place and realized, glad you feel. Yeah, I’m glad I’m back.

I’m glad I’m doing better. Right. But I will say it’s just questions like that, like, just do your research. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I genuinely feel after I had that first interview, I literally canceled my other ones.

And I was like, this is where I’m supposed to be. And I remember Q, our founder and CEO, saying, please go interview at other firms so you have a lot more people to, like, give you the pros and cons and then make your decision. I was like, no. Bye. I love how he makes you go down that objective road so that you could then just do an about face and bring your ass on back.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He wants you to go out there and see how horrible it is. Yeah. And he wants you to make those phone calls and talk to those people to see what they are going. That knowledge.

Yeah. And I think the more knowledge, the better. So for new agents, please just do your research, come up with questions and then re. Like, remember that you are interviewing that firm. You’re going to be hanging your license there.

They’re going to be your support. Whether or not it’s going to be long term or short term, you need to know, do your research. Do your research. And please, please, please, for the love God, come with questions. Come with questions to their interview and make sure that you get all your questions answered.

Yep. Absolutely. We’re going to wrap this up. If you have any questions, please put them in the comments. Subscribe, ask us anything, and let us know what you want to see.

Yeah. In our podcast and information you might want us to touch on or. Or ideas that you might have. Yeah. If you’re interviewing whether it’s here in North Carolina or any other states, typically the questions are going to be the same.

So if you’re. You’re trying to find a firm that’s a great fit, just ask us questions. We’re always here to help. And thank you guys again for listening in. Thanks a lot.

See you next time.