I'm sorry, I don't speak Realtor-ese
Mike's post today brings up such a great point. When you are in The Biz, you forget that your buyers and sellers don't always know all of the lingo and can get confused. They don't deal with this every day like we do!
Be compassionate, be professional, and always be sure to be sensitive to your client's understanding of the process!
In the process of doing our business, we as Realtors move in and out of our own language without the slightest hint of confusion or misunderstanding. It's what I call Realtor-eese. We are fluent speakers of Realtor-ese, but our clients may not be.
I am dealing with a client who is a wonderful professional with a world class education and
widely known skills, but he is realty-illiterate. We've spend hours on the phone going over every detail of every form because he really wants to understand what he's agreeing to.
That brings me to my point. Buyers and sellers understand the simple basics of a real estate deal. That means they know what it means to have a house for sale, and they know what it means to have a buyer who wants to buy their house that is for sale. Beyond that, it's anybody's guess.
I recently had a client who wanted me to drop my commission rate because he had done the math and thought I was making an obscene amount of money for little work. He didn't realize that other agents were involved. He had no idea that I might not be the agent who sold the house. That brought up another concern. Strangers would be in his house. If I wasn't the one showing the house 100% of the time, then no one would be there to monitor the buyer's agent or the buyers who were going through the house.
Then, another client had been told that it was illegal to sell his house below his original purchase price. Here again, education was needed, and it needed to be in language that was understandable.
What's an addendum? What's dual agency? What's a buyer's broker? Who gets the commission and how much? What is a jurisdictional addendum? Why do we need all of these forms to sell a house? What's a contingency? The questions are voluminous, and they need to be addressed in clear-speak, not specially in Realtor-speak. The lack of understanding on a buyer/seller's part can be catastrophic to a deal.
When you're working with a client, make sure you speak in down to earth simple terms that make sense to the complete novice. Don't be afraid to ask, "Does that make sense to you?" It will pay dividends in the end, and you might just create a smarter buyer/seller.
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Give me a call for all your real estate needs, and let's make something amazing happen.
Mike Cooper @ Cornerstone Business Group, Inc., 888-722-6029
Real Estate Sales and Property Management
(Disclaimer: All grammatical mistakes, punctuation breakdowns and misspellings are purely for your amusement and entertainment. Feel free to cackle.)
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