Are REALTORS Acting Like Union Bosses?

Ditto Dave's remarks. Let us each concentrate on what each of do best. For some that looks differently than others. Market you skill sets and learn the others. Be the best you can be at what it is that you do. Other business models will fail or success on their own merits, don't give them artificial life by contrasting yourself to them.

Chris,

Once again you make some very good points.  Makes me think of old quote (don't ask me who said it at this point), "Me thinks thou doth protest too much."

Sometimes we do sound a bit defensive when discussing other methods of selling a home.  Very territorial.  I'm guilty of it, as I know many others are.  But lately I have learned that the more you try to 'justify' what you do, the more it looks like you don't carry as much value as you proclaim.  Better to let the consumer decide.  When people get disappointed or let down, then they see the TRUE value. 

Didn't mean to abbreviate your post!  LOL  I'm just one of those 'get to the point' people.  

I know that sometimes we feel attacked because of our profession, and being compared to the old "used car salesman" mindset of high pressure sales and fast talking, can certainly prompt certain types of personalities to be reactive instead of proactive.

I have learned (over many many many years) that it's better to treat the general public like small children.  They aren't going to listen until they fall down enough times and get tired of being injured. After that they come running to us to pull their fat from the fire.

I don't liken our profession to used car sales....I prefer to think of us as miracle workers.  ;) 

Chris-Great post...gives a person lots to think about.  I say focus on your own goals...those who do not educate, improve or waste their thoughts on other's will be out before they know it.

I can't control other people's actions, there is something out there for everyone including a variety of real estate  services.  I never compete with other's I compete with myself....my personal best!   

You're so right about the world of commercial real estate in which some of us live.

Not to take anything away from any residential agents but it is such a different game with commercial real estate and I see so many residential agents try and get involved without much success. The lack of success has nothing to do with their ability to sell real estate but more the fact that they don't have the patience. A typical residential deal takes about 60 days to close if that. A commercial deal takes about 6 months to close. I don't have access to Zestimates or Trulia Voices or whatever else is out there these days.

There are no Zillows or Trulias or HomeGains in the commercial market. There is simply a relatively small network of brokers that work damn hard to go out there and find buyers and sellers. We don't have half of the resources the residential side of the business has and somehow we manage to do a pretty good business and don't complain too much.

With all that residential business out there you would think there would be room for the FSBOs, the RedFins, and the Zillows...

Just my two zents...

 Rob Beland

The Real Estate TrendMill

I think that is a common misconception about the commercial brokerage community. As far as my listings go, I do post my listings on the same MLS system that is used by all residential brokers in Massachusetts. I also post to Loopnet and have recently started using MyNextDeal. The only service I don't use is Costar which is extremely expensive and more suited for companies in the big cities like Boston some of the big suburbs around Boston. Even the bigger real estate companies in my area post to Costar or Loopnet and do broadcast emails and keep a current page of listings on their website so I don't think it's really the closed club that a lot of residential brokers make it out to be.

I don't do a lot to inform the residential brokerage community about my listings although since I do post on the residential MLS, I do see a report of brokers with clients that have registered with specific search criteria that my listing fits so I do contact those brokers directly to make sure they know about my listing.

As far as sharing goes, the first thing I do when I get a new listing is go to my Outlook which I use for my contact manager, and I have a list of commercial brokers in the area that I will email a flyer and any other information I have like financials, floor plans, site plans, etc...

I would rather co-broke every deal and make only 1/2 of a fee than keep my listings private and not make any money.

I also keep a database of local business owners, commercial lenders, accountants, and attorneys and I will also send them the listing directly. You never know who knows who that is looking for real estate.

One big difference is that with the residential brokerage community being so large, I think a lot of brokers simply put a sign on the property and list on MLS and sit back and wait for a buyer's agent to come along. In commercial you can't sit back and wait because there are very few commercial brokers out there so if you want to be successful you had better make sure you have a good relationship with all of them and you keep them all up to date on your listings.

I think I have an idea for a post...I should really address the whole idea of the "closed club" directly and highlight the ways that commercial real estate companies advertise their listings and what resources are out there for them as compared to the residential brokerage community.

Thanks Chris... 

Chris:

Thanks for writing this.  Isn't it sad that as REALTORS® we can sometimes be our own worst enemy.

My thought on this is let the worry warts be trouble by new business models and FSBO's.... all the rest of us can carry on as we have been doing, in other words business as usual!

Chris,

I have been posting my listings to zillow and point 2. I wonder are we doing what is right for our clients or are we slitting our own throughts by giving them exactly what they want?

I happen to be a Union member.  In fact, I'm an elected official of an AFL-CIO union local, the American Federation of Musicians Local 30-73.  I used to work in Washington DC.  I don't agree that Union heads are walking marble floors and granite staircases and living the good life these days.

By contrast, I see companies and management advocates spending hundreds of millions of dollars, lobbying on their own behalf and buying the ability to influence legislation.  The myth that cigar-smoking "union bosses" run Washington while those poor captains of industry struggle along on their stock options is so much drivel.

Unions protect the power of their members.  I don't hear Union members complaining about being ignored by their leadership.  True, there were excesses in isolated cases on the part of organizations like the Teamsters in prior decades, but the Union movement is mostly in survival mode these days. 

If you Google "Myths and Facts about Unions", you'll read some very informative articles.  There is a lot of well-massaged anti-Union propaganda out there written by union-busting organizations and their consultants.  Unions today still attempt to represent the worker.  Our own local spends a majority of time attempting to see that people get paid for work they have already done.