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All REALTORS are not the same.

When I started in the business I worked with a company that I will call 'blue', we were taught that as brand new agents who had no experience we could get listings. We were taught, or shall I say required, to charge as much as the seasoned pros. We were told to tell prospects that we could do as good of a job as an experienced agent, and that we could do more because we had fewer clients and more time.

It gave us the confidence to go out and work with the general public, but looking back on it now I can't imagine paying 6 or 7% for someone who has never sold a home before.

My first listing sold in about 25 days. I charged the seller 7%, as I was strongly encouraged to do by the folks at the blue company. I did often seek advice and get help from a much more senior agent, and took care to make sure that I did the very best job that I could. We all have to start somewhere and the number of years in the business does not mean as much as the number of closed transactions with buyers or sellers. In my case I caught on quickly. After selling about 50 houses, people who had been in the business many more years than I had were asking me for advice.

Those first clients never asked me how long I had been in the business or if I had ever sold a house before. Most cosumers do not realize that the turn over is very high in our industry and new agents start every month. Many don't make it through their first year, it is a tough business and highly competative. The company I was with attracted new agents with promises of training. They were the biggest in the area and in general charged the highest comissions. It was about the brand.

Cosumers should ask questions and keep in mind that it does not matter what color is on the for sale sign, it is the individual agent that does all of the work. His or her skills, abilities, and experience are far more important than which company logo is on the business card.

I don't think it takes 20 years to become a really great agent, but I do think that experienced agents are worth more than an agent selling her first listing.

Posted by Teresa Boardman on 11/12/2006 03:45 PM

Comments (16)

st paul, mn, realtor

16 Comments on All REALTORS are not the same.

NOV

2006

Well put, Teresa. Consumers are generally paying a LOT of money, and should put as much time into researching which agent to hire as they do deciding which computer or tv to buy.

Excellent point!

Fees are not always charged according to the quality of the service, but it should be.

Excellent points. Consumers should do research before they make a decision. After all, it is the biggest purchase they are likely to make in their lifetime. -Charles

Some agents have 20 years of one year of experience.

Good point, David! When I was starting out, I didn't have experience, but I did have a LOT of training and fellow agents who had no problem supporting me in my growth as an agent and in supporting the clients I was working with, as well as a Sales Manager with lots of experience whose door was always open and whose cell phone was at her side 24/7. We all help each other in our office; when you hire one of us, you hire all of us, and all of our experience. And in Texas, anyway, the contract is with the broker, not the individual agent, so the question really is, is the broker and what they have to offer worth the full commission?

I will say that when I really got out there and started working on deals, I would often check out the agent on the other side because they seemed to know a heck of a lot less than I did and I knew I didn't know much. All too often they turned out to have been practicing for 20 years or more; in a couple fo cases, they'd been brokers for that long. So, yes, one year of experience 20 times, not really keeping up with the changes in the law and in real estate practice, can be worse than a year's experience.

I agree with David. There are some highly "experienced" agents in my market that I avoid like the plaque. I would much rather work with a less experienced agent that's willing to work hard (and learn), not be a prima donna, and follows up in a timely manner.

Theoretically, it should be advantageous to work with an experienced agent. In my humble opinion, regardless of experience, the old 80/20 rule is in play... there are 20% of the agents that do a pretty good to really good job and the other 80% are mediocre to poor. Probably 5% do the really good job.

I've changed companies several times due to integrity issues with the brokers and my clients follow me. As Teresa says, it's the name on the card, not the company logo that matters.

As is in the lending industry. Making sure that you have someone in your corner that is leading you in the right direction is so important. I always ask my client first...What would you feel comfortable with paying every month? So many in our business work in the reverse, getting clients in for more than they feel comfortable with...

Scott

Interesting points- been through the blue, and learned a lot, but agree that a 7% commission gives lots in inexperienced agents to the advantage in a competitive market. While the other color coded agencies all feel that their "Brand" is better than Brand X, it is the relationship that develops between the agent and the client that result in the sale. Good luck and thanks for the post. You may want to read my post regarding the perfect fit.

NOV

2006

We wouldn't expect to pay the same amount to a lawyer with only one or two years' experience as we would a seasoned lawyer with many years of experience & successful cases under their belt. I'm surprised by how often the public is willing to pay the same commission rate regardless of the agent's experience. That's why the newbies are taught to focus on selling people on the brand more than themselves, except the 'brand' is not going to be the one handling the intricacies of the work involved though.

As someone who still belongs to a brand "big red" I'll call it...I can tell you that the impression of the brand does matter to consumers. More than once I've been competing against someone in my own company because the consumers wanted an agent from this brand. Which, as you've said above goes to show that it's the individual agent that provides the service and knowledge. The majority of my clients are seniors, and they do pay attention to company logos.

Lisa, You are so right! I work with seniors and they make statements like"such and such company" sold the house around the corner" they are very brand conscious which is why I have not gotten my brokers license and struck out on my own.

Interesting... your theory about seniors being more brand loyal. I guess things must be different in South Florida because I see a mixture of all types of brokerages (big & small, franchise or not) getting listings in the major adult communities around here. Brand doesn't seem to make any difference to Florida seniors. I tried Googling to find any study on seniors & brand loyalty but couldn't find anything worthwhile.

Leanne - so much of what I do is by my gut, or by what my clients say they want. You have to go and bring up an emprirical study! I'm going to have to see what I can find! Thanks for the suggestion!

Teresa- KW is definitely up and coming in the twin cities, and has, as far as I have heard, started to earn itself a very good reputation too!

DEC

2006

Teresa,

This is a great article and thanks for submitting it to the Carnival of Active Rain!

It was a very tough category to judge and I had to read all the posts several times before I was able to pick a winner.

Keep up the great work!

DEC

2006

Teresa,

I worked for one of those blue companies, many years ago, when I was just starting out. If we did not get a full commission for our listings, we were penalized by the blue broker. They would lower our split and take what we had discounted out of the rest of our commission. I must say it taught me to only take listings that were a full commission! After the 1st time I did that, to this day, I have never taken a discounted Listing. It's not fair to my other customers that do pay a full commission. It will also make it's way around the neighborhood that one person was charged X and another was charged Y. NOT GOOD for Business! Sometimes a new agent is better because of their enthusiasm and new found dedication to the Real Estate Business. They may also have more time to spend on getting their listings sold and are more diligent when new. On the other hand, a newer, inexperienced agent can be a severe disaster for a Seller. I think all new agents should have a mentor for their first few years in the Bussiness. I had one and it has made all the difference.

www.TheSilverBee.com

Debbie Cook

Debbie, I work for a company that is very heavily into training and the idea that when a seller lists with our agent, they get the ENTIRE company working for them - meaning, the first several months I worked for them, as a new agent, was mostly spent in heavy duty training (at one point I felt like saying, "STOP! You're giving me so much information it's beginning to leak out my ears!"), and that if I run into something that I need help with, even now, there's always someone to ask (the trick is figuring out which one of all the agents has the best answer to the particular problem - and after a while, you know who to go to for wise, experienced assistance - so we have LOTS of mentors, all the time we're here. And the Sales Manager has her cell phone on all the time and is always available.

The scary thing, to me, was when I was a new agent and would be in a deal and the other agent clearly was right out of school and didn't know how to write a contract properly or any of a myriad of other things that I did, so I'd need to compensate for that in handling my side of the deal so that neither buyer nor seller would be harmed (remembering that our COE, and my personal code, require fairness to all) - and I'd look into their background and discover that they'd been an agent for 20 years or, worse, were a broker! The first time this happened, I thought it was a fluke. Several deals later, I realized it was the difference between my broker and whoever they'd been trained by.

So, a new agent can be a disaster, or they can know more, through training and mentoring, than someone who's been practicing for 20 years and taking all the update courses and clearly sleeping through them!

I agree, all REALTORS are not the same. It's just not as easy as years of experience to tell the difference in value to the client.

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