Educating a Real Estate Dummy

When we were house shopping, we were skeptical of agents — the first one we worked with was clueless and indifferent — and we seriously considered using Redfin or a similar service. We tried go to open houses if possible, but we still relied on listing agents to view some properties, and we had to work pretty hard at dodging their follow-up calls and relentless pressure! Finally though, at one open house, we met an agent that we got a great vibe from, and we recruited him to be our buyer's agent. He was GREAT to us, earned every penny of his commission, as I imagine someone like Rona might. They seem like the exception to the rule though.

i wasn't convinced he was a real estate maven until this sage advice was dispensed, "it is driven by folks like you and me that are motivated to sell their homes for as much as possible. That's the main reason real estate prices continue to rise over time in most areas." yeah. maybe in mayberry.

our agent is a client's wife. she adds very little value to the process except a little legwork but i'm also either solidifying a relationship or risking it depending on how it all turns out. we haven't come across a decent agent yet. some are nice but very few can keep their advice to subject matter that they are qualified to give it on.

Very good article. The sad fact is that Sellers and Buyers use the first agent they meet or are referred to and for some idiotic reason, stick with that agent through thick and thin. Even when they should divorce themselves from their listing agent or buyers agent, 9 times out of 10, they don't. I did when I was younger and not in real estate and I lost a fortune. I placed a great deal on loyalty, but I found that it was misplaced and one-sided. I was loyal to my Realtor but they weren’t loyal to me (the days of sub-agency) and they didn’t have my best interests at heart.

Real Estate is a sales game and Realtors are salespeople on straight commission, Realtors don't get any expenses paid by their company, do not get medical or health insurance or a 401k. Therefore, their job is to sell a house to a buyer (or as a listing agent for the seller) as quickly as possible. It is not in their best interest to try and get the best possible price for a seller – if the deal requires serious negotiation and if the buyer walks, the Realtor doesn’t get paid. That is too much of a risk to take for nearly all Realtors. Some will take a stab at getting the best price they can, but if there is any serious push back from the buyer – especially in this depressed market - it is the listing Realtor who pushes their seller to accept the offer.

Same for dealing with a buyer’s agent. There is no commission incentive for Realtors to get the lowest possible price for their buyer. A lot of Realtors will make an attempt to get their buyer’s from paying full price, but if they can’t get their buyers to buy the house, their odds go down in getting another house sold to that buyer. They may or may not find another suitable home, the buyer may get cold feet, their credit score may change, they may want to start a home search in another area with a different Realtor who is from that area, some family member or person in the office will recommend another agent. In other words, a delayed sale is usually a lost sale and the way the present commission plan has been structured for decades, the agent is put at cross purposes with their buyer. Some agents will still try to do the right thing, but it is at a big risk to themselves.

Real Estate sales is a one shot transaction of a buyer buying a home once every 7 years or a seller selling a home every 10 years (on average). If a Realtor had a safety net (lead generation done by the company instead of by the individual agent, expenses paid, insurance and a base salary), then the Realtor could look at the bigger picture and provide great customer service and satisfaction. Their eye wouldn’t be on short term results for their own best interests. Sad but true.

AZ Realtor:

WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!
Longevity and better income is made in *repeat* business and *referred business*. To get this essential business you MUST DO RIGHT by your clients so they recommend you to their friends and family. Period. If you see the real estate business only from transaction to transaction you will not last.

Sally makes a good point. Longevity and better income is made in *repeat* business and *referred business*. To get this essential business you MUST DO RIGHT by your clients so they recommend you to their friends and family. Period. If you see the real estate business only from transaction to transaction you will not last.

That sounds really great but when one peels back the layers of most really super successful realtors, all you’ll find is (usually) someone whose prior sales background was selling clothes or jewelry, but they had the most important item any independent sales contractor could have. A huge network of girlfriends, local family or personal connections and acquaintances, or the nuclear weapon – an influential spouse in a high net worth profession.

There are exceptions, but in the 20 years I’ve been a real estate investor, most consumers judge their real estate experience in strictly social and or emotional terms. People are emotional and social animals and I’ve bought many things based upon the connection I’ve had with the sales rep. I’ve also purchased many items even if the sales rep is terrible because I wanted the product.

I’ve never heard a buyer or seller mention how great their realtor was in saving them (or making them) tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. It is always, he is so nice, or she is so nice and she wanted to know all about me. Or her children and my children go to the same school or attend the same Church or my fellow co-worker has a cousin who sells real estate. Or the sale closed.

This is a people business and relationship business. This is not a performance based business or a business which attracts successful people from other professions. How can it be, when all one needs to be a Realtor is to take a 24 hour class and then take a multiple choice test? I’ve never seen a Realtor advertise on how many homes they’ve sold – below list price! Or how many price reductions they had to have before the home finally sold. It is always how many homes they sold, whether or not they were the buyer’s agent or the seller’s agent. Oftentimes, they just list the home and it is someone else who sells it for them.

I once asked a fellow Realtor (who is in the Top 200 of 1.5M agents in the entire U.S.) how he became so successful and remained so successful these past 18 years. He told me that he happened to list a home in Scottsdale (by an out of area seller who was in town that weekend and had walked in the door to his agency while he was no more than a rookie agent on the floor desk), and which turned out to be the highest priced home in the area. (Scottsdale and Paradise Valley has the greatest concentration of wealthy out of State owners who have second homes here).

To this seller (and to most buyers and sellers) all Realtors are more or less the same. This agent used a direct mail and postcard campaign to reach other high net worth and out of town owners of like properties, who all assumed that since he was marketing such a high priced property, that he must be a hell of an agent.

He was glib and could network well. Since real estate is a single transaction business, as long as he kept his face in front of the public by advertising high end homes for sale (whether or not they sold didn’t make any difference, for the pictures of such houses painted a picture of success in the minds of the general public) and since the public can’t easily research how many of his listings didn’t sell, or took years to sell, or sold for so much less than their list price, he built a steady business. Over many years, he naturally picked up repeat business, as one will do as long as the house sells and the buyer or seller don’t wind up in court. The bar is so low to get in the real estate business or to stay in the real estate business that as long as the transaction was a pleasant one, over a period of years, any Realtor will get repeat business. People continued to buy American cars for decades when their level of quality and customer service experience at the dealership was terrible. People don’t like change unless they are forced into it.

Since there are 1.5M Realtors and another 1M agents (who are not Realtors but are licensed to sell Real Estate in the State they reside), the buying and selling process has to be made so easy and simple so that anyone of any background can be made to fill out a boilerplate contract or listing sheet to sell a home – or at least to start the process. Through the years I’ve seen countless people (unfortunately, too many Seniors) staying with the same listing agent who is not doing a good job for them but won’t fire their Realtor as they don’t want to make a scene. They don’t want to be confrontational. That their agent is their friend from Church or the Tennis Club. And they (in nearly all cases) continued to refer business to their Realtor, as they wanted to bond and be friends with the Realtor. They also thought that if they were to remain on friendly terms that they would be treated favorably by the Realtor. Sad, but true. The tail wagging the dog!

of course I interview real estate agents. Though I doubt it happens that often in truth.

Here are 2 good interview questions to ask a realtor.

1) "What is bad about this house". The answer they give you will speak volumes. Amazing how many cannot answer the question. Given that every house has SOMETHING wrong with it, that is not reassuring. You can tell how straightforward a realtor will be right there.

2) How long have you been in the business and how many transactions a year do you do. A small percentage of realtors do most of the business. This tends to be a good thing if they are working for you

I agree the chemistry must be right or the client-agent relationship does not work. The whole thing is just like dating, Courtship, trust, commitment, fear of commitment, communication, give and take, give the client space, on and on.

Maybe because I’m a man with degrees in finance, history and economics, but I am educated enough about real estate that I don’t concern myself with chemistry or how it is similar to the many aspects of dating. I know that I am dealing with a Realtor – a salesperson (why don’t they just come out and call themselves salespeople, rather than hiding behind the innocuous title of agent or realtor?) who is on straight commission and if they can’t sell me a house, most of them might miss their car or mortgage payment that month. They would be better off if they were on salary, as are other professional salespeople. Why would anyone in their right mind work for free until they sell something? Even car salespeople (usually) are on a base salary, however low that might be.

Like everyone else, I naturally would prefer to deal with a Realtor/Salesperson who is personable. But when it comes down to crunch time, I know that I have to compensate for their lack of skin in the game - it is my money at risk - plus their underlying motivation to make a sale, coupled with a general lack of complex negotiation skills. If I could, would you? or other one-line objection handling techniques is not going to cut it for me. As a buyer, together with your buyers’ agent, you offer a price and terms for a home you wish to purchase and then have to rely on another Realtor, the Listing Agent, to sell your offer to the sellers – who you never meet. This is a very low level method of selling – relying on third parties – and is never practiced by seasoned salespeople in Fortune 500 sales, as there us too much that can go wrong. Then again, selling a home is not the same as selling jet aircraft or enterprise wide software.

I’ve sold several billion dollars of highly complex and technical equipment during the past 45 years. It was a multi-million dollar sale based upon performance of the product and how that translated into real dollar and cents savings. Real Estate is all about emotions. I’ve had agents start off with the old fear of losing something technique and when that didn’t work, the opportunity of gaining something.

However, my wife is totally tied up with how the whole emotional and social aspects of buying or selling a home – which is why Realtors spend 99 percent of their time with her talking about kids and grandkids. We’ve lived in 9 different cities in 7 States and in 4 foreign countries. Every time we were transferred, the H.R. department put us in touch with some top Realtor to sell us a home. With one exception, all I found were overly emotional and loquacious people who were not qualified to do more than drive us around the area and to push a sale as quickly as possible, even though my company used them many times in the past.

Many of these agents had 5 or 10 listings. One had over 20. At first glance, that seemed like a successful agent. However, we found that the more listings they had, the less time they had to handle most anything and were usually very unfocused as they were literally all over the place. Most worked by themselves, but one or two had a low-level assistant – often part time - they would dump us off on, while the Realtor went out to drum up more business. The Realtor was oftentimes the wife of some VP of the company I worked for and that relationship was the sum total of her expertise. Another was a member of the Country Club were my wife’s Chief of Staff was also a member. Not one Realtor concerned themselves with trying to save us money when we bought a home or made us the greatest amount of money when we sold the home. The ability to walk away from negotiations is a very powerful strategy, but they would never risk it. I would, but they wouldn’t. It was part and parcel of their compensation plan!

The expertise in real estate is not at the level it should be, considering the price of homes. We were always frustrated that our agent did not have the hard data on market trends and housing prices that we wanted. The Realtors would produce some canned trend reports provided by their company, but since the report never listed homes being sold by private owners (FSBO’s) or foreclosures, those reports were never accurate.

I find that most agents are still marketing homes like they're $200,000 and don’t spend much of any money in getting buyers to the property. I told one Realtor that she might be able to sell a home doing very little, but it won't be for as much.

#8

As Dane Cook would say: "You don't even know!!". Seriously, if you only knew what I had to do for a down and out client today.

There's a lot more to this job than people realize that has to do with dealing with *human beings* in all their complex glory and sometimes it can get downright crazy. It's very unpredictable. I don't think many people could deal with this job in all honesty. To be good at this job you have to have a high degree of skill in dealing with people of all kinds.

Real estate agents are more than salespeople, we *are* agents, acting on our clients behalf. We are deal managers. We are also licensed, car salespeople are not. We must continually pay for and take courses to keep current. I would love to be salaried and paid by the hour by my clients. I would make so much more money.

The chemistry between agent and client is a real factor, but of course not the only one. The two parties must be able to get along and work together. I understand my job in very specific terms and I take seriously the law of agency, loyalty to my client, the elements of a contract, and the need for disclosure.

Every single deal is different, with different players and circumstances.

Not all agent are good at their job, but some are and they work very hard.

The residential real estate business is Pinocchio, a marionette delivering up a pantomime of a real business. We cling to our licenses and to the broker’s license to take up to half our commission and to the withholding tax exclusion and to all of our secrets and lies, but we don’t have a hand free to grasp the kinds of relationships that real businesses are based on.
Everyone knows that Pinocchio is a liar, and so people use us because they have to — for now — but few ever really trusts us. We were so afraid of honest competition that we structured our business in such a way that no one can trust us — nor should they. Why do people think Realtors are out to fleece their clients? Because that corruption is rife and rampant in the DNA of the tree we were carved from.
The best part of this comedy — and a marionette can never know that it is the object of comedy — is that we think consumers don’t see right through us.
Real estate is the most unbusinesslike business in the history of business. I don’t want to defend that statement comprehensively, because it’s late and I’m tired, but I can offer some data points. In real estate, after a sum total of 24 hours of nonsense classes, we say, “Here’s your license, kid. Get out there and wreck someone’s finances!”
I met with a new buyer client on Wednesday, and we had a wonderful time cataloging all the things Realtors and brokers would do if residential real estate were organized like any other sort of business.
What kinds of things?
If real estate were a real business, Realtors would market the damn product, instead of engaging in two or three acts of rain-dancing and then waiting — for months or even years — for the rain to come.
If real estate were a real business, Realtors and brokers wouldn’t be so transparently mercenary about using, abusing and burning through their clients. One of the huge benefits of real estate forums is that Realtors are openly discussing the tricks they deploy to strong-arm their “leads.” In no other business do vendors have such contempt for consumers.
If real estate were a real business, commissions would be divorced and incentives would be aligned to put the agent and the client on the same side in negotiations. The longer the real estate industry delays in reforming its practices, the greater the opening it offers to vendors offering a better or cheaper alternative to traditional real estate.

AZ

The classes I took to obtain my license were not "nonsense".
We covered:
Ownership
Encumbrances
Massachusetts Real Estate Law
Brokerage (Law of agency)
Contracts
Financing
Deeds
Appraising

Then you must study for and pass the exam. It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.

And as I have said, I'd welcome a salary and payment by the hour. Bring it!!

The Real Estate Sales Trainer, Floyd Wickman (I'm dating myself now!) once said, "Real estate is an interesting business because it is easy to get into, easy to get out of and optional in between." Yikes! He's right, continues to be correct and that is proving to be an Achilles heal for our industry.

Anyone with less than $1,000 can get into this industry and be empowered with our stamp of approval to execute legal agreements on behalf of the consumer that may be valued in the multiple millions of dollars. It should cost much more time and money to get into the business of selling Real Estate and the educational requirements, skill set and performance acumen should be elevated. We need highly skilled and financially trained participants who are NOT simply capitalizing on a prevailing market by getting licensed so they can chase a commission check or flip properties for themselves. Or the legions of agents whose only added value in the transaction is the number of girlfriends they know or the status of the person they are living with or married to, in order to build a network of prospects. Regardless of how hard some agents work, for the consumer to pay 5 or 6% for us to complete a transaction – not counting Title Company, Transfer Taxes and Attorney Fees – is way too much money in this Consumer information powered age.

Agencies will continue to bring in agents (agents are not hired in the classical employer/employee model) as there is no cost involved to the broker/manager. If a Real Estate office has 20 or 100 agents, their overhead is nearly the same, as the agents pay for this overhead with desk fees and commission splits. Real Estate Offices are basically acting as Landlords over their agents they rarely – if ever – supervise, and if an agent has only 1 transaction the broker makes money. The income of the broker is up but that of the agents is diluted. Fewer transactions are a reason for higher commissions. It is less the cost of entry than no cost to brokers for the number of agents. If brokers had a cost involved in hiring and keeping agents, they would only keep those that produce and less likely to bring on those that will only list their grandparents home in a 3 year period.

I don’t want to go 15 rounds from across the country concerning what I find (along with any one else who is in the business) the present state of the Real Estate Industry to be. According to Blanche Evans of Realty Times, a recent Harris poll indicates that people don’t consider real estate agents in a "prestigious" line of work. Realtors were ranked positively only at 5%, which is very near the bottom. Anyone who is honest and hardworking in this industry – and there are tons of honest and hardworking Realtors – are saddled with the present model of agency, which is still stuck in a time warp from 20 years ago and the great number of agents who are not professional. This will naturally occur any time you have a business that is based upon emotion, selling on commission and personal networking.

I am familiar with the courses you need to initially take to get licensed. While it is good to have some basic (and these are very basic, given the amount of time spent in class) understanding the different types of ownership, deeds, contracts or real estate law, we all know that we are never to give out any advice about such issues to our clients? Why? We are not an Attorney, we are not licensed to practice Law and if we give any advice, we can and will be sued for practicing Law without a License!

Financing? Outside of a very small handful of agents who have a degree in finance or an MBA, most agents I know can’t figure out anything more complex that what they will net at a 5 or 6 percent commission – and I’ve witnessed them not being able to do even that, as strange as it may seem. Any agent who gives out financial advice is also looking at a major lawsuit. We do not have professional licenses in those disciplines. Appraising is another set of courses and another test and license.

I used to work in a real estate office where there was this agent (Olivia) was the master of finding free continuing education courses (CEUs). As real estate licensees in Arizona we are required to take 24 CEUs every 2 years. That isn't much. 12 hours spread out over a year. They can be taken online, through our company, at a real estate school or at a Title Company (we are a Title State and do not use Attorneys). All of our local boards have events that include educational components and credits. Believe it or not, there are paid events where you can take these courses and pass the test over cocktails while driving in a bus to the way Las Vegas!
There are some agents in my market who don't mind paying for courses but who will not take a course that doesn't include CEUs. Our local boards won't sponsor education that doesn't include CEUs, and most of the real estate offices won't either unless it is to fill up some time at the office meeting. Our state department of commerce won't approve some types of education that Realtors need to be successful. That isn't really their function. They are a regulatory body and their focus is consumer protection. Education is important in any occupation. It doesn't require a college degree to become a Realtor or any kind of degree at all. States have determined what we need for education and how often. The education they have approved isn't always very worthwhile.
I have been away from corporate America for eight years now. My previous employers used to require and provide a lot of training and education. Certainly more than 12 hours a year. I had to stay on top of my game to remain competitive and marketable. One of the biggest concerns I have had as an agent is that I will lose touch with the business world and that my skills will become stale and unmarketable instead of cutting edge. I worry about becoming obsolete, and I would become obsolete if I let the state and the real estate industry determine my educational needs.
The last time I heard from Realtor Olivia was two years ago. She was excited because she was actually getting pretty good at using e-mail. I often wonder what would happen to her if for some reason she needed to get another job. I suspect she could get one but that it would involve wearing a hat and a name badge.

So.....as good as this discussion is getting about why the real estate industry is less than perfect, the real questions remain:
How YOU separate the dummies from the mavens?
Before you hired an agent, did you interview?
Did you get referrals or check references?
Did you know or ask about your agent’s real estate philosophy?

From the responses so far, it seems that few buyers or sellers take the time and care needed to determine if their agent is qualified to do more than find the home and possibly write the offer. How do you know if the agent that you are working with is qualified to truly protect your interests, if that is what you want? It certainly sounds like many people expect more from their agents, but set themselves up for dissapointment by not working to find the right agent that can deliver on their expectations. Are real estate consumers even clear on their expectations before they get into a transaction? Can you get what you want if you are not clear what you need or want?

Good points, Sam Schneiderman. When I first meet with a new client I ask them what they expect from me as their agent. That surprises most people.

No one ever asks me for references!! I would. Or what my philosophy is. Or what my last deal was like.

Protecting my client's interests is the priority. If you always keep that in mind, you will do well. It's a simple directive that is easy to stray from.

Given the nature of the real estate sales industry, its low barriers to entry, its compensation structure as descibed in today's blog, it is in the buyers best interest to use a tenured professional with a track record of success, one that can represent your needs (not the sellers), one that understands the specifics the legal parameters of the terms of the Purchase and Sale Agreement, that knows the value of the long term home inspector one that will still be in business and answering his phone a year or two after the sale, one that where appropriate, discusses the available sales comps with the listing broker, one willing to position his buyer in the best negotiating stance for making offers. I have been financing real estate for almost 20 years and when it came time to buy, I used Sam to represent me on my purchase and specifically to conduct the negotiations. He got the house underagreement for $7000 less than I told him I would pay. As I buyer I just wanted the house and was willing to put it under agreement, Sam stepped back and said' let's play the game'. he negotiated and got more at the inspection. So given the nature of the industry, the low barriers to entry, and the relative cost of the property, it makes sense to find a dedicated person, with a track record, that understands his role.
Every customer is an annuity, that is why, the professional agent should do his homework and do his best for his client. Every customer multiple referrals. The nature of the compensation may conjure up negatives but it does not in ALL cases define the integrity or profesionalism of a few select professionals. When you find
integrity, a professional, one that understands the negotiation, the legal parameters of the legal agreement and obligations of the parties, he/she is invaluable.

Connor

best

connor is that a reference? just curious, does sam ever refer the service you provide to his clients? this just went from the ridiculous to the sublime. i've yet to see a modicum of evidence that sam is a maven at anything except self promotion, but the free marketing and questionable branding as a maven weren't enough. now business associates w/ a vested interest in his volume are chiming in on how dynamic of a real estate mind we're being graced with.

why is nobody posting on how to distinguish a maven from a dummy? it's an extremely difficult distinction to make when all realtors provide the same service, some incrementally better than others. the true focus on agency shows when the inevitable snags in the process occur and the extraordinary lengths both buyers and sellers agents go to to keep the deal alive. i believe sally calls that deal management. show me an agent/broker that has a unique, innovative channel to market their product or client or creates an efficiency and i'll show you a "maven." i have not come across one yet. mostly agents that as connor says "play the game."

#15 and 16. Good post.
From what I’ve witnessed by being a Realtor for quite a number of years, is that most of the public are still so uninformed about how to choose a Realtor or Loan Officer. I think that we and the NAR have kept consumers in the dark and for good reason. Initially it was because the consumers had to come to us for information, which we tightly held onto until Listings went on the Internet starting in 1997. Consumers are now much better informed as they are now able to do much of their own property research. While all this information is very helpful, they usually always need a long standing and highly trained Realtor to make sense of all this (sometimes competing) information. Especially on how it relates to the town, city or neighborhood they wish to buy into.

Since we Realtors are basically all small business owners, working independently of one another and the office we work out of, the level of expertise across several million agents is very wide. The industry is there to facilitate the sale of a home and not to get into how their contractors (Realtors) are judged or how to judge them. There would be legal and other issues to consider if they were to do so. It is pretty easy for the general public to compare publically held companies or to compare a tangible item, but selling homes is a highly intangible, service related business. And as a result, most prospects can't identify the Realtor best suited for their needs. In addition, it is not too often the number of times people buy or sell a home and as the years pass, they usually only remember the end result (if successful) and not the problems along the way.

One of the very first questions I ask on a Listing appointment with a seller is by what criteria have they used to select the Realtor that is going to sell their home? In all the years I’ve asked, not one person or couple selling their home ever thought about this! That always astounded me. They would have thought about these criteria if they were making any type of financial decision for the company where they work. They would refer to it during the entire selection cycle of buying any type of technical product (software, hardware, etc) of which they would be using as an end user. Even though they usually would not be technically proficient in any or all the intricacies of the product, they would have a team of financial, legal and technical people to work with inside their company to sort it all out and to come to a final joint decision.

That to me as the biggest problem buyers or sellers face, as they don’t have this type of support group behind them. That being the case, they fall back into deciding on which Realtor to use by how they connected emotionally or who they were referred by. Important, but mostly superficial. As we all know from personal experiences, you have to kiss many frogs to find a Prince – or a Princess. Many people kiss one Realtor and go straight into a marriage! The listing agreement is a legal contract for a number of set months and then they are tied into it for better or worse, richer or poorer. Too many sellers sign 1 year contracts. I can only see them doing so if it is a very unusual property or one over $2M.

I had an agent in the office tell a client that it takes X amount of time for the average agent to sell a home in this market. The client told the agent that he wasn’t looking to hire an average agent and he would not sign anything more than a 3 months agreement, which could then be extended if circumstances required it.

I have listed and sold multi-million dollar homes to C Level, Fortune 500 Executives and to University Deans, Top Lawyers and Doctors, and they have (nearly) never thought about the background of a Realtor selling their house. They met me and happened to like me. Another reason is that they were often referrals, people who relocated to the Valley that I either met at an open house or their name was given to me by my Broker, they happened to be my neighbors, I met them at a black tie benefit, or they were friends of friends or friends or associates of my wife.

Others would see which Realtor had the best photographs in Homes and Land Magazine or the call the office on a home which was in an area they wanted to purchase. Sometimes they would just call or walk into the office and speak with the Realtor at the floor desk and make a decision to buy or sell on the spot. I’ve seen that not work to the buyer or to the sellers’ advantage in most cases, as it was usually the less productive agents on floor duty.

What I would advise people to do when looking for an agent is to read the biographies the agents post on-line – either on the agents’ personal web site or on the web site provided by the company where they work. See if there is a match, such as level of education, their work experience prior to them becoming a Realtor, if their business is mostly referral based or within certain towns and price ranges. I often recommend to people that in this market, that they should try and find a Realtor with a solid sales background – both in Real Estate and preferably as a salesperson who has sales experience from Corporate America. If they had only sold retail items or held functionary support jobs in a company, their level of business acumen and negotiation ability was usually always at a low level, even though some of them became so-called mega-agents. That was due to the fact they had a huge network of personal contacts through family or marriage.

It is vital that this Realtor have a thorough understanding of computers, the Internet, marketing and how to promote the home to a world wide audience in the best way possible. I’ve seen too many times where the Realtor’s face is plastered all over the property flyer. Sorry. Since we Realtors always harp about ethics and standards of care, etc., etc., we are supposed to be there to sell the house instead of ourselves. The public doesn’t care if we are Top Producers, or sold $50M dollars worth of homes or are in the Top 1%. etc. They just want to buy or sell the house. I hate to say this as it is not an absolute, but many of the older agents who work the high end market on referrals and have been doing so for a good numbers of years seem to be not too aggressive or (for lack of a better word) hungry. Nearly all of them don’t know the latest techniques of Internet marketing or anything to do with computers. They are so used to listings coming to them, or that they are a big fish in a small pond, but so many of the homes they represent seem to just sit and sit and sit on the market while the prices keep getting slashed. Many of these agents (again, not all) are so used to having their own way and doing whatever they want in their own time (their broker is not about to take on any of these rainmakers) that they become out of touch with the present generation (X and Y) buyers. They can relate to Boomer sellers or to the WWII generation, but gone are the days of just sticking a sign in the yard and having the home sell (9 times out of 10).

There are too many Realtors calling themselves real estate consultants or real estate marketers. Stop apologizing for being salespeople! We have a Real Estate Sales License! Not a Real Estate Marketing License! Selling real estate (or selling anything) is a sales business and not a marketing business. Marketing is an activity which supports a sales force. I would have sellers ask on how much money the agent is going to spend to promote the house and ask for a detailed list of all the marketing activities to be held on a weekly basis. They should know if the Realtor is going to hire a professional videographer and photographer, so that the public can see every room of the house, rather than just a few out of focus and dark pictures of furniture in a room. Or when I see a home advertised that it has a new kitchen and there are no pictures of the kitchen. Or if the home has a barn or stables and there are no barn or stable pictures. The seller should also insist that they see how their home is shown on our MLS system – not the one as shown to the public on Realor.com. Our Realtor-only MLS system. Most sellers don’t have a clue as to how their homes are being marketed to other Realtors. The misspellings, the poor pictures, the lack of any sizzle or excitement. Sad but true.

In closing, I congratulate Sam for bringing up this very important topic. The questions he asked are so important and so overlooked and I can tell from across the miles that he is in fact, a maven!