I've heard this before many, many, many times: “To assess and rate Real Estate Agents is nearly impossible, standards, markets, laws, practice, vary by town/county/region/state, etc.” I say, okay, that's fine. Let's ask the other realtors in the market — if they're honest in answering, then the person who gets the most nods as the real estate agent to other real estate agents is the best in that market, period, end of story.

-rsh

First, REALTOR is a higher standard than Real Estate Sales Person, in my State you can be both, or just a Sales person, REALTORS are held to a higher Professional standard, as we all know. (Many also know I got my backside handed to my for an AR post recently that was swarmed, so I am VERY carefully editing myself here).

I think you analogy of Heart Surgeon is a weak one. If you are going to use any analogy to the Medical profession you need to compare Physicians as a whole to Real Estate Sales People, beyond that you do have sub-specialities within both field, so if you want to hold firm to the Heart Surgeon you may want to then refer specifically to the Celebrity Manhattan Condo Real Estate Agent (or LA, or wherever they may be), Truly a niche market.

To assess and rate Real Estate Agents is nearly impossible, standards, markets, laws, practice, vary by town/county/region/state, etc. In theory it would be nice to do so, but the best way to rate them at current is look at the top earners in a market, and that say nothing about service, and even then you need to go beyond earnings and look at actual units (for instance if an Agent in my market did 5 transactions of $5 mil each, and another agent did 25 totaling $25mil, how would we determine if one were superior to the other?). A local company in my market does Customer Surveys after each settlement – then they present (much like MBNA used to) their Consumer response rate, of course I doubt anyone shows their warts. But I am not permitted to discuss warts (why does the movie “The Insider” come to mind…), so any company would of course present the positive spin, no one wants to say “Hey! This client thinks we really messed up!!” quite often a negative feedback from a client is because they didn't understand the process or ask the question.

I learned a long time ago – Real Estate professionals speak a different language, just like any profession. I used to translate Tech to Business when I worked in a corporate environment, to help the Execs understand the development process and reasons behind what we could/could not implement. The same needs to be done in Real Estate. Most negative experiences consumers have with Real Estate professionals (this is my opinion and theory) are rooted in miscommunication – in the Consumer not understanding a part of the process, and the Real Estate Agent thinking they communicated clearly and effectively. It is truly just a failure to communicate.

And I could not, would not, respond to the first part, as I would use myself as my own Real Estate Agent, choosing not to travel or whatever, until after I handled the sale myself, asking a fellow Real Estate Agent or my Broker to step in and work on the negotiations to keep that clean.

FYI – Standards of Licensing in Delaware: 99 course hours, then 3 chances to pass the state/national exam, if you fail 3 times, you have to repeat the course. Then Continuing Education every two years including mandatory subjects like Legislative Updates.

Thanks for making us think Rob!
Maya =)

I don't know how you define “best realtor in a market,” but in light of your reference here to *professional* excellence and your previous comprehensive post on “Evaluating Professionals” (11/28/09), would you agree that who local Realtors® would hire to handle their own transaction is but a piece of the puzzle for consumers contemplating who to hire?

Also, care to share what Realtors® listed as second, third, etc. most important when hypothetically considering which area colleague to hire?

Thanks for the post. By the way, some time ago your friend Matt Dollinger suggested I contact you … I hope to do so after the New Year.

Best,

Michael Erdman
President & Founder
AgentsCompared.com

This post was mentioned on Twitter by robhahn: New Notorious: Who You Gonna Call, Part 2 – What It Means http://bit.ly/7jyB6O...