REAL ESTATE AGENTS - CHARLATANS OR PROFESSIONALS?

I enjoy being a real estate agent.  It provides me with abundant opportunities to meet an unlimited variety of people and to be of valuable assistance to them in what, for most, is the most important financial decision of their lives-buying or selling their homes.  I perform an important service.

Why then, I wonder, do I often get the feeling that real estate agency, as a profession, ranks somewhere in the category of con men or charlatans?   Might it be my imagination?  Am I being too sensitive?  Consider then, that when I meet a person for the first time and in the course of chatting they ask, "What do you do for a living?"

Proudly, I respond, "I am a real estate agent."

I don't think it is my imagination that they, upon hearing this "terrifying" revelation, take a slight but noticeable step backward as if to fend off some dreadful happening.  Or, I don't think I am making it up when I notice a brief flash of widened and horrified eyes.  They appear immediately on alert as if I am about to steal their first born child to sell into slavery or surreptitiously snatch one of their organs for the black market or invite them to an Amway party. 

So, I am confused because the vast majority of real estate agents I know are good human beings just like you and me. They perform valuable services for their clients.  For example:  One of my most recent transactions was to represent the buyer in the purchase of a new home.  It was a beautiful upper end, new construction home located in the Mathews Beach area of Seattle. (See photo above)  For a variety of reasons, none too unique, the transaction was, to be charitable, a protracted one.  But, in spite of what at first appeared to be insurmountable obstacles separating my buyer and the builder/seller, the deal was made with both parties satisfied and having their needs met.  It took creativity, understanding, negotiation, education of the parties and technical understanding of contracts on behalf of the seller's agent and me to get this done.  The point is, a deal that died three separate and distinct deaths wound up becoming a finalized transaction.  Everyone got what they wanted.  This transaction was not the result of chicanery or the handiwork of charlatans but of two professional and capable realtors working diligently on behalf of their clients.  Real estate agents - definitely professionals.