When you’re actually taking the time to pick a realtor to represent you in either purchasing or selling a house, many factors come into play. (At least I’d like to think that.)
One major factor is image. Image can be everything. This BSII (Bull S*** Image Impression) is very important in creating a comfort zone with a potential client. (Remember, you are a customer until you sign a contract. Contracts ARE NOT required to house shop. Don’t be boondoggled.)
1st Possible BSII
Your first potential exposure to BSII might be the television ads that spout on about an organization’s highly trained and dedicated staff of agents. That same ad, if the org is big enough, is made by some national headquarters who don’t know Jack from beans or staff from stuff. It’s an ad where they’ve spent oodles of money on marketing gurus to put together an ad to make you feel comfy about them. (It’s the standard type commercial.)
2nd Possible BSII
During the ads, they talk about their highly trained and dedicated agents. I have to laugh at that one.
In my class of 40 of 50 students, most were there for their own purposes, most were folk I just might not trust up front. And those I did trust up front became victims of the commission driven industry and I ended up on the wrong side of trusting in less than a year’s time with them.
Most agents take a 2 week class then take a test to carry a license. You don’t have to prove any ethical tendencies, you only have to take a test. You don’t need to be too bright because one can take the test as often as is necessary to get your license.
3rd BSII
Being highly trained means they’ve taken annual courses required by their local realtor board. It’s not voluntary. If you don’t take the required classes, you lose your license.
When you’re inside the industry, you get pummeled by companies that market agents in how to best get your face out there and attract business. OMG, it’s worse than signing up for a RODALE Internet service and getting spammed to death by Rodale!
Everyone wants your money and tells you how to sell like there’s no tomorrow. They tell you how to sell and make money doing it. Me, I’m thinking that if their service or process is so good, why aren’t they doing this for themselves? But that’s just my take. I could be wrong.
All the required courses are things you have to pay for. Oh, as far as ethics go, it’s a required annual class to sit through.
4th BSII
When you spot an agent who advertises, and those real estate agent’s name is followed by a bunch of designations, there’s a reason they’re there. And it’s not what it may seem to be!
People flock to someone with all those seals of “experience.” The nationally based firm I used to work for suggested that these various extra designations creates an air of experience and knowledge, hence, more business.
But most of those designations are a result of one 8-hour or 16-hour class taken. They’re like medals of attendance. Not all, but most.
5th BSII
The pitch in the national ad campaigns on TV or the web:
Our hard-working sales associates offer exceptional service in and provide the highest level of service and professionalism to their clients without any compromise of integrity.
After working on the inside, I’d have to believe that to be about 90% hot air. And integrity was a fleeting moment of luck. Almost every agent I’ve dealt with never hesitated screw me in one way or another and always had some dumb-play excuse as if they didn’t know something happened… again… for the umpteenth time. LOL. But that’s my problem, or was. It’s a sharky business that has no time for nice. Agents have to pitch or steal from each other the clients they get and that’s how it is.
When you walk into a piranha tank, I mean real esnake, I mean real estate office, do you think it’s happenstance when an agent walks by as you walk in? No… they’ve been laying in wait for that precious walk-in. That’s what desk / phone time is all about.
But here is some food for thought:
If you’ve been working with an agent, and you go to the office and someone else offers to help you out with whatver you have in mind… if you have any loyalty to the first agent, decline. If not, go for it because the new agent will reap the rewards, leaving the original agent holding paperwork but no commission check. (The same with calling in…)
If an agent performs a CMA for you, stating this is the max value of surrounding homes within a few miles… meaning a bank will NEVER loan more than that, that’s the truth. If another agent comes along doing a CMA, but tells you that they can get you what you want, even if it’s more than the highest valued like house within a few miles, THEY LIE! They just want you to sign that contract with them and they’ll whiddle down the price later on you.
If an agent tells you that you can’t sell for that much, but offers you less themselves, RUN. Or at least go to another real estate office and get a 2nd opinion on the value before accepting the lower offer from that first agent who is buying it for themselves.
If you’re in negotiations with another agent and after going back and forth with offers that get declined, make sure you’ve done that in WRITING. (Right Chris?) You might just find out that the other agent was never passing on the lower offers to keep the price high (for his commission.).
Yep… things to watch out for. I will never grab up an agent blindly. I will do it via word of mouth from friends and family of whom I trust to be business smart.
There are so many things that you can be taken for in a real estate transaction that it’s not even funny.
Caveat emptor!
