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Imagine making an appointment to look at a house, condo or apartment. In my experience, most of the time, the current resident isn’t home when an appointment is scheduled. This is intentional so the person looking at the place is focused on the actual residence instead of distracted by the tenant or homeowner.

But if the current resident was home, would you ask them questions?

In this story, one person is looking at an apartment when the tenant is home, and he asks several really good questions, like about noise and the landlord. But the real estate agent’s reaction to these question turns him off so much that he decides to try to prevent him from finding someone who would want the apartment.

Keep reading for the whole story.

“You need to leave right now”, sure

I live in a country where the real estate agents do no work. They post an apartment on one of the real estate sites and you need to chase them to see the listing at the precise time that they choose.

I found an apartment that seemed ok, message the real estate agent on whatsapp to which he responds “call me”. A little bit short but no big deal.

I give him a call and again he is very brusk on the phone telling me that I must be on time as he a very busy man.

Ok, again no big deal.

Even one minute late is too late apparently.

The appointment is for 6pm and I got stuck in a meeting but still expected to be on time but just in case, I texted him saying I would be 5 minutes late.

I show up at exactly 6:01pm and see that he isn’t even waiting for me, he has his real estate office on the ground floor of the building complex that I am seeing the apartment.

He is in his office doing work and I walk into his office, say hi and he immediately starts complaining that I am late.

I apologize and say I am here but a friend (a local who is fluent in the local language) is going to be here very shortly to see the apartment with me and should be here very soon.

The agent wants to make them wait.

I call my friend and he says he is 2 minutes away to which the real estate agent tells me that he has another appointment and that he will have to make us wait until after the next appointment.

I respond that my friend will be here very shortly and to please wait a little bit until he arrives.

He responds that he makes sure all of his appointments are very organized and that he does not like having multiple people at the same time.

I tell him, I do not mind having someone else with me and can ask the next group if they do not mind seeing the apartment with me.

He ignores this comment and keeps working.

At least they got to see the apartment.

My friend then shows up at exactly 6:05pm. I know because I check my clock. My friend walks in, says hi, and the agent then takes his time getting up and locking his office so we can go upstairs to see the apartment.

We walk to the 3rd floor, knock on the door and the tenant lets us in.

I start walking around and start chatting with the current tenant and his partner.

The real estate agent says don’t talk to the tenant, look at the apartment.

What is the agent worried the tenant will say?

I continue walking around, see most of the apartment and then continue chatting with the tenant and begin asking a few questions about the apartment. I ask how is the noise in the apartment.

The real estate agent immediately interrupts and says not to talk to the tenant.

I ask the real estate agent why and he ignores me.

The tenant begins responding to the question and ignores the real estate agent telling me the apartment has practically no noise. Great!

The agent is so rude!

My next question is how is the landlord.

The real estate agent interrupts saying very loudly “What did you say”.

I repeat my question to the real estate agent and he says to not ask about the landlord but continue looking at the apartment.

The tenant begins responding that the landlord is fine but the real estate agent again interrupts for us not to talk.

OP admits to asking something rather taboo.

I thought, ok, maybe the agent is stressed that the next appointment is coming and say “ok, can I have the tenant’s number so we can talk afterwards”.

I appreciate that this is taboo to real estate agents but speaking to the tenant is a must in my book and if we cant speak now then why not speak later. I had no intent of going around the real estate agent.

The real estate loses it. He starts aggressively telling me to get out. Cue Malicious Compliance.

You want me out, fine.

OP knew just what to do.

I go outside and wait on the front steps of the building and notice it is now 6:41 which is likely close to when he scheduled his next appointment.

I see a couple approach the building and approach them asking if they are there to see the apartment.

They say yes, and I proceed to tell them to be careful of the apartment and the landlord as something is very wrong with it if the real estate agent does not want me talking to the current tenant.

The real estate agent starts yelling at me and threatening to call the cops.

The agent is not going to get his way.

I ignore him until I complete the story to the new couple to which they thank me and go inside with the real estate agent.

We’re not done yet.

Still waiting outside, my friend sees someone new entering the building. He approaches the new guy, quickly telling him what just happened.

The guy responds that ya, the real estate agent is awful and he would be happy to give the number of his landlord.

Everyone is helpful except the real estate agent.

I call his landlord explain the situation to which he responds he is sorry this occurred and would be happy to give me the number of the actual apartment owner.

I call up the actual owner tell the owner the story.

The owner apologizes that it happened, said that she would talk to the real estate agent and see what can be done and that his behavior was not ok.

I’ve almost never looked at an apartment or house when the current resident was home. That’s considered pretty taboo. When I was selling a house, we were told we had to leave when someone was scheduled to see the house.

But in this case, it seems like the real estate agent is trying to hide something if he’s actively trying to prevent the tenant from answering questions. It may have been better if the tenant weren’t there at all, but the agent’s behavior was suspicious and rude.

Let’s see if Reddit agrees.

This is a good reason not to talk to tenants.

Another person has a good question.

This person doesn’t think the real estate agent knows what he’s talking about.

If I was moving, I don’t think I’d want to be home when someone was looking at my place. It would be kind of awkward. I’d feel like they were judging the place, because they would be, but it would be hard not to take it personally if they didn’t like something that I actually did really like. I wouldn’t want to hear their comments.

However, I would be perfectly happy to answer questions about things involving the community, like noise levels, neighbors and the landlord.

The real estate agent in this story either needs to make sure the tenants aren’t home when he’s showing apartments, or he needs to keep his mouth shut and let the tenants answer questions if they want to.

At least they got the answers they were looking for.