Tag Archives: professionalism

What’s the Value of Agent-to-Agent Relationships?

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REALTOR Love! What’s It Worth?

Heard a story the other night from a friend who is a REALTOR(R), while talking about the hot hot seller’s market we’re in now in many places around the country. (As an aside, doesn’t this mean that early 2013 is not a great time to buy?)

Apparently, she had a house on the market for all of 48 hours before she got 12 offers, 6 of them all-cash. But that’s not the interesting part.

The interesting part is that two of the offers came from buyers represented by agents she didn’t like very much. She called them difficult to work with, and a couple other unsavory descriptions as well.

Now, it so happened that the highest offers were all-cash, from agents she had decent relationships with, so that was that. But it got me wondering….

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They Deserve Better

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Above is the video I shared at Xplode San Antonio today, which was part of the Texas Association of REALTORS conference. This wasn’t a video we had made available to the public, but after my experience today, and a conversation with one of the attendees, we at HearItDirect decided this message needs to get out.

If you are a real estate professional, and you’re not outraged by Raymona’s story… you need to reconsider your career. Seriously. If you’re guilty of some of the stuff Raymona describes, you need to reconsider your career.

Let’s look at this video together a bit.

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From the Annals of Wired Straits: More on Relationships

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Don't Tase Me, Bro!

Ah, the horse ain’t quite dead yet, Matt Dollinger. Nor is the discussion a moot point.

I testify, cuz at the September dinner of the Wired Straits Social Club (kinda like a Houston-based Lucky Strikes, which I started in NYC), we discussed this issue at some length. And got something out of it.

I figured I’d share at least one insight from that with you.

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If Real Estate Is Not a Relationship Business, What Business Is It?

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I know you're working at marketing my 3BR/2BA colonial... but I just don't want to be in a relationship with you...

Over at Inman Next, Chris Smith stirs the cauldron up with a post entitled, “It Is No Longer A Relationship Business – Here’s Why“:

Where I disagree is in the stance that I want to have a relationship with my Realtor.

I don’t.

In fact, I can’t even imagine it.

My argument is that I am not alone.

Unlike a lot of the general public, I have a high level of respect for your profession.

I know how hard you work.

I know how unappreciated many of the things you do are.

I know the stress and challenges that come along with earning a paycheck and paying your bills ONLY if you sell things.

I have met countless Realtors both in person and online that have blown me away with their sales ability, marketing savvy, brand building skills and digital media efforts.

While many would never put the career Realtor along side other careers like Doctor and Lawyer which require significantly more education, I would.

It still doesn’t make me want to have a relationship with you. (Emphasis in original)

Read the whole thing. And people say I stir the pot….

In any event, not being a real estate agent, I don’t have a whole lot to add. I don’t know if RE is or is not a relationship business. But I am a strat guy, a general commentariat talking head guy, and so on. And I did have some questions for Chris (and others) which I asked over on his blog. It seems to me that what I’m asking needs a bit more elaboration, so here we go.

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Should Social Media Be Taught to Everyone?

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With great power comes great responsibility

I was reading some Facebook status updates — signifying that obviously, I’m not a total social media moron who hates all things social — when I came across an interesting little comment:

The post that Eric Bryant and Maya were talking about is this one by Jeremy Blanton. His conclusion:

I think in the case of these three the message is clear, social media can take your business and explode it to a whole other level. People realize the importance of social media in their business plan and it was evident by the packed classes that had anything to do with social media.

A lot of conversations — eternal ones, it appears — about social media as marketing is about whether it’s effective.  Maya Paveza, a good friend of mine who was on that panel, threw down on Mike Ferry recently because Mike disparaged the efficacy of things like Twitter and Facebook (well, and she thought he was rude).

But let’s have a different conversation, because I’m sort of bored with the “social media works/social media is fool’s gold” stuff. Let us take as given for this discussion that social media is the single most effective marketing strategy ever invented for real estate. Let’s assume that it will take a real estate agent’s business and explode it to the next level.  Okay? Okay.

My next question: should social media techniques be taught to everyone or kept secret for the chosen few?

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Have You Seen Me? The Role of the Broker in Contemporary Real Estate

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Okay, maybe 1930 is going a bit too far back...

One of the most insightful set of comments I’ve ever read on this here blog (remember, I usually learn more from writing this blog than I ever “teach”) is to my last post about technology-loving agents. As it happens frequently around these here parts, at the same time I was being enlightened by you, the commenter, I was also looking at two other things.

The first is this Mike Ferry vs. Mike Ferrara Smackdown debate (ht: Chris Smith, @TechSavvyAgent) at Coldwell Banker’s recent convention. Watch at least the first 20 minutes or so; it’s pretty engaging, entertaining, and enlightening:

The second is this incredibly well-written post by Jeff Brown, who also takes me to task periodically and teaches me things here on Notorious.

Here’s my point/question: Where is the broker in all of this conversation?

In the entire 32 minute long debate between Ferry and Ferrara, has either gent used the word “broker” even once? I missed it if they did. In all of Jeff’s wonderful post, does he mention the word “broker” at all? No.

Quite a few of the commenters on the technology and agents post expressed all sorts of reasons why technology was so important. And they make some great points. I agree with many of them. But did any of them ever mention the broker? No. And some of them are brokers or managers themselves.

This conversation about technology and the REALTOR reveals that what is at stake is the notion of the real estate agent as a professional saddled with, and deserving of, fiduciary duty. One of two things has to change: the dominant business model of contemporary real estate, or the idea that real estate is a profession.

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Interesting Perspective on Professional Values

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From two eminence grises of the legal world comes this article those of us in the RE.net thinking about raising levels of professionalism in the real estate industry might want to think about.  The money graf:

There is, of course, no turning back: Law firms must be run in a businesslike manner. But they should not just be run for the greatest possible economic return. Law firm leaders must emphasize other values as they reorient their firms with respect to their clients, their partners and their associates. And they should redefine their own personal responsibilities and commitments. At the end of the day, they and their partners should restate, for the younger generation, the historic concept of what it means to be a legal professional, which has generally meant that private lawyers have public responsibilities beyond their immediate self-interest and beyond the needs of their immediate clients. (Emphasis added)

The two authors of this article are not pajama-wearing bloggers in the basement… like yours truly.  Ben Heineman is the former general counsel of GE, and teaches at Harvard Law School and at the Harvard Kennedy School.  Bill Lee is the co-managing partner of Wilmer, Hale — a multinational megafirm based in Boston — and also a professor at Harvard Law.  Like Todd Carpenter, they’re kind of a big deal.

It is interesting how the legal profession is trying to rediscover itself, at the same time the real estate community is trying to define itself.  Technology and the economic realities are driving both towards unprecedented self-examination.

The question for real estate, however, is an interesting one.

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