‘Rude’: 24yo real estate agent shares wild text message
A young real estate agent has shared the “rude” text she received from a potential buyer, with the response revealing a wider trend happening in Australia.
Australia’s general contempt for real estate agents has reached a fever pitch, and a simple text has revealed just how tense things have become.
Sydney real estate Ana Bujak, 24, shared a wild text message she had received where someone had reached out and asked for the price of a house without clarifying what property they were referencing.
When she replied, “Which property?”, the person called her “completely useless”, which is objectively rude.
When Ms Bujak shared the exchange online and admitted it left her “scratching her head”, the majority of Aussies weren’t sympathetic.
Immediately, people blamed her and claimed it was “annoying” that agents don’t put prices on listings, and someone else claimed that not having a price is “infuriating” behaviour.
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She explained the exact price wasn’t on the listing because the property was going to auction, but added that the point of the social media post was to expose how “rude” someone was being.
For the most part, Ms Bujak’s point was missed, even after she shared the texter had showed up to a recent open house she was hosting and was “so rude” in person as well.
In general, though, most people didn’t seem to care that someone was mean to a real estate agent and, instead, the post was taken over by Aussies airing their real estate frustrations.
Someone did jump to Ms Bujak’s defence and argued that there’s never an excuse to talk to anyone “like that”, with another saying that it was an “insane way” to address anybody.
Adding further context, Ms Bujak said she’d had no previous communication with the person and had zero way of knowing what property she was referring too.
When someone questioned why she’d even bother to reply to such a rude message, the agent said that kind of message is “the norm” in her industry.
“Unfortunately, there are some buyers out there that are quite rude and unpleasant to deal with,” she explained.
The 24-year-old agent told news.com.au that she gets rude messages like that “all the time”, which is beyond frustrating.
It isn’t unusual for someone to be snappy with her, even if they are in the wrong. She recently had someone go off on her after she politely asked them not to trespass on a client’s private property.
“I think there’s been some bad eggs and people have had some horrible experiences and think we are all the same,” she said.
Ms Bujak understands that real estate agents don’t have the best wrap. In 2023, the Governance Institute of Australia Ethics Index found that real estate agents were the least trusted professionals in Australia.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t “weird” that people are rude to her on a “daily basis” when often she’s just trying to be helpful or do her job.
The agent said it is frustrating that often people will be upset with her over things that aren’t even her fault.
Even though Ms Bujak has gotten somewhat accustomed to the general distrust real estate agents seem to stir up, she was taken back from the response she received after sharing the text.
“People forget you are a human behind the screen,” she said.
The distrust of real estate agents seems to have been spurred on by Australia’s housing crisis, which has made life tough for everyone.
Mortgages have soared, and the official cash rate has stayed fixed at 4.35 per cent for over 12 months.
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Between high demand, low availability, and landlords paying inflated mortgages due to interest rates, rents have also soared across the country.
The national vacancy rate hit a record low of 0.7 per cent in February 2024, and by December, it had only just climbed back up to the still very low 1.4 per cent.
According to the latest report by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the average house price in Australia is $959,300 and the median rent for a house in Australian capital cities is now a steep $650 per week.
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