WHY CAN'T REALTORS BE MORE REAL?

I've been on the hunt for a townhouse or house to rent for the past month or so, which means that I've had to work with many different realtors in the area. So far, my experience with them has been, let's say, less than stellar.

Photo found here

For example, I emailed one realtor who responded and asked me to call him to discuss the property. Okay, that sounds legit. After my boyfriend and I called him a few times and left him messages, he finally called us back simply to tell us that the townhouse had been rented over a week ago. Really? He couldn't have just put that in his first email? Despite the property being rented, the listing stayed up on his website and on other rental aggregation sites for another three weeks before it was taken down. Interactions with other realtors have yielded similar results - they don't call you back, won't coordinate with you on dates and times for viewing properties, and don't update or take their listings down for weeks after they've been rented.

I've talked with coworkers and friends who have also rented in the area and the general consensus is that realtors don't care about you unless you're buying a house, despite the fact that they are listing rentals along with their sale properties. I guess money is really they only thing that they care about.

Since about 90% of the rentals available in my area are listed through realtors, it looks like I'll have to keep dealing with them. But is getting them to do their job too much to ask? I guess we'll see.