As I peruse the shelves at Barnes and Noble and surf through the internet’s slew of expertise real estate advise, the picture I am presented with is a world filled with people asking critical questions, doing detailed research, and conducting grueling interviews to choose the “right” agent.
But this just isn’t reality.
Unfortunately, there are no authoritative academic ethnographies detailing how people first decide to actually buy or sell a home (versus waiting or entirely abandoning the sale), or on how people chose their agents. Instead, we have stories from agents (http://www.trulia.com/blog/pacita_dimacali/2009/08/why_did_you_choose_me_as), guides on eHow (http://www.ehow.com/how_3252_choose-real-estate.html), user-created lists of interview questions (http://www.city-data.com/forum/real-estate-professionals/154942-agent-questions-sellers.html), and video advice from CNN’s expert (http://www.howdini.com/howdini-video-6649607.html). All of these sources give very useful advice, but it is just that: advice, a view of “here’s how things SHOULD be” and not a picture of how things actually are.
So how do people in real life choose their real estate agent? Based on sampling non-expert online forums and speaking with friends, here is the real world guide to finding a real estate agent, ranked by most common method:
- Social networks. We all hear the phrase “social networks” but what does it mean in a practical way? It means the friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend’s-spouse is in a position to know of your existence on the planet Earth and your profession, so that if they decide to buy/sell a house you are able to be recovered from the far reaches of their mind and brought to the fore. Think of social networks as throwing seeds as far as you can, knowing that the wind and animals and cars will spread those seeds even further.
- Skimming the newspaper and real estate publications. Clients rely on high-quality pictures that match the price and location of house they are looking for to sort agents. Again, maybe not the most scientific process, but it is commonly used.
- Shallow internet searches. Remember that while people maybe “should” type in very specific search terms to find the best realtor, most buyers/sellers are not experts, so they type “Phoenix real estate agent” and not “Moon Valley luxury home real estate agent”.
- Rational search and comparison. Only at the far fringes do we see the researched and methodical searching that the experts recommend. While economists may see this as the “ideal” way of going about it, as practitioners what we care about is how people actually act, not how they should act.
So what do we do with this reality check?
- Focus on your “weak ties” to other social networks. Have a friend from high school you haven’t spoken with in a while? Reconnecting with that one person opens up the possibility that one of their friends, who you’ve never met, might stumble across your name and profession at the right time.
- Reinforce existing social connections. Make sure to send Christmas cards to previous clients, friends, and family. Attend the PTA meetings at your neighborhood school. Become a regular at a bar, and make sure the owner knows you’re a real estate agent.
- Pay attention to picture quality in all of your ads. If your house and profile pictures aren’t top-notch, that can give the potential client a reason not to look you up.
- Remember your ready-made networks. Family, high school and college alumni, religious groups, sports clubs, children’s activity groups previous clients, neighbors: all of these constitute your core network, and the broader this core network is the broader the chance that someone in THEIR network might get a recommendation to call you.
- Online social networking. Having a wide group of friends on Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, and the host of other social networking sites allow you to stay top-of-mind with an incredibly wide group of people with relatively low time costs, compared to face-to-face networking.
- Brian Cody (foreclosuregrove.com)
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