March 24, 2009 Flashback

I wrote this post back on the 24th of March.  It was important to me when I wrote and it's still important today.  I've been lucky to not hear this phrase since I wrote it (let's keep it that way) until this afternoon when I got the ActiveRain Newsletter (August 30, 2009).  The headline read "Are Buyers Really Liars? What Saying This Really Says About YOU!" and was the featured post of the day.  An article by Kevin Tomlinson of Miami Beach, Florida in which  Kevin goes through a little history of the phrase "Buyers are liars." Although he defined it by its root origins, I think you can see why real estate agents still use it to this day based on the comments left on the post - not that I like it, but look at the rationale of the phrase being commented on.  I see people saying..."well, it's not true, but..."  I don't think there should be a "but" in there anywhere.  The fact is the phrase needs to die a quick death.

But why are we still using it?

I mean, seriously folks, if we are thinking this way about our clients, can we truly be serving their needs?  It pains me to watch this phrase tossed around and pains me even more to see agents who want to justify why it exists in the first place.  There are many phrases that were "justified" at one point or another by someone.  That doesn't mean they were always the right thing to say.  Yes, buyers can lie.  So can real estate agents, lenders, appraisers, and the french fry chef at McDonald's.  Let's get rid of the Stone Age attitudes of real estate and move beyond these cloistered opinions about people.  Let's move beyond and make real estate fun and worthwhile for all involved.  Let's stop the whispers behind our own backs of "used car salesman" by stepping up our own game and earning the respect we want.  We don't want it, but we're still allowing people to whisper it because we have plenty people that act like it and a perception that's hard to shake.

Please for the love of all good things in this world, strike this phrase and never let it be uttered again.  Let's bury this monster once and for all.

photo courtesy of sscornelius

I read something the other day and a crusade was born.

I am going to kill something.  I am going to bury it so deep in the ground the world will forget it ever existed.  I am going to see to it that it is destroyed and removed from this world.  I am on a mission and none of you can stop me.  I am not an angry person in general, but I have reached my limit and the only answer is that it has to pay.  And its death is the only way to resolve the issue.

What am I talking about, you ask?  What could make my blood boil enough to throw words like kill, death, and bury around?  What is my mission?

Its rather simple folks.  I am going to destroy an age old real estate-ism.  Something I heard in school while taking my licensing classes.  Something I have heard in the halls of offices and in conversations between agents thinking they are alone.  Something that reared its ugly head  and gnashed its sharp teeth in a post by a fellow AgentGenius writer (*please see my note below about that) the other day and made me firm in my belief that it must be wiped from the face of the earth.

That thing my friends is a phrase.  A phrase so ugly and insidious it makes my skin crawl.  The phrase?

"Buyers are liars and sellers are too."

(Also sometimes said as "Buyers are liars and sellers are worse.")

Are you kidding me?

Some of you in the non-Realtor® public might have your jaws on the ground right now.  I don't blame you.  I'm as flabbergasted as you that this phrase was ever used and has been allowed to float around for years.  Is this how we view the home buying and selling public?  If so, we deserve a much worse reputation than we get at times.  I'd call for the head of any agent who used the phrase and round up a posse with torches and pitchforks in an old fashioned monster hunt.

This phrase has been allowed to live on in the real estate lexicon for too long and it is now my mission to get it listed in the real estate phrase book as archaic.  I would love to say it already is as there are many great agents out there that are as disgusted with this as I am, but there are still those out there that will whisper this to their friends as some sort of private inside joke.  To them I say, no more.  Forget our industry for two seconds and let's just think about the public.  What are we saying to them if we whisper this behind their backs and then smile at them and say "just sign here, I'm your friend."  Would you trust someone with a purchase as big and complex as a home if you knew your agent was saying this?  Of course not.  So stop thinking it, repeating it, and tossing it about like its some sort of trite joke.  This isn't a joke.  Period.

Of course, our industry could use a bit of a face lift too and there are those of us out there that are trying to change the state of real estate one client at a time.  Bringing the "service" back to the "sale."  Putting clients' interests back where they belong - in the number one spot.  Making sure that things go smoothly - not so we get paid at the end of the month, but because there are people's lives involved.  Real people with real dream, real desires, real problems, real hopes, real money, and real estate.

There are plenty of agents that have always felt this way. I know, because I've been helped by them in my own buying and selling.  Not every agent is the enemy, but there are those that have allowed this kind of self-centered thinking to perpetuate and they must be told that this will not work anymore.  It won't be tolerated and it won't be looked kindly upon by the consumers or the agents that have made it their career to help them.

Its time, so gather your pitchforks and torches and let's put this monster to rest...once and for all.

*I don't think Brian, the writer at AgentGenius meant anything bad when he said it, but it was said and that's what upset me.  It shouldn't be said unless its in the context of "Hey, remember when real estate agents used to say that?  How stupid was that?"  I'm actually glad Brian said it as I had forgotten about it since the last time I heard it.  If he hadn't said it, I might not be on a quest to conquer it.