For most people, finding the right home starts with finding the right Realtor. Notice I said the RIGHT REALTOR. Do your homework for a REALTOR just as you would your homework for a house. There is so much more that goes into purchasing a home than just facts, figures, and pictures on the Internet, and a good REALTOR is one that can and will be able to sift through this information, develop opinions and offer advice about such, and implement the strategies to achieve your ultimate goal of home ownership.

Can you find the perfect home WITHOUT a REALTOR? Sure, and you could also either accidentally or by sheer luck win playing Texas Holdem' in Vegas without reading a book by Doyle Brunson, shoot a caribou in Alaska without an experienced guide, and win in a court-of-law without an attorney, but why leave it to chance? You can hire a professional REALTOR assisting you as your exclusive "Buyer's Agent", and have the seller pay for these services! And herein lies the theme for this blog - finding the right Realtor TODAY means finding the right SPECIALIST!

When I started in this business in 1984, we didn't have "Buyer's Agents" and "Seller's Agents"and "New Home Specialist" and "Accredited Luxury Home Specialist" - we had real estate agents that used an antiquated MLS search system (THE MLS book!!) to research Austin properties, that would at some point call their client to let them know if they had found 10-20 homes to go see (in person), and then the RE agent would go pick them (and their 6 kids!) up in their car, and spend the next 2 weeks (or 6 months!) physically driving ALL over town looking at homes!

Today, most of that homework that we, as Realtors, used to do, is now being done by the consumer BEFORE any RE agent is even called. So where do we NOW fit into the game, and why? As I've pointed out many times, times have changed the way we do business -AND- what the consumer now NEEDS and EXPECTS from a Realtor, i.e., Specialist.

The first thing is: ACCESS TO THE KNOWLEDGE BASE- Specialists by definition possess specialized information about their field that will benefit their clients. The real estate specialist who can demonstrate an ability to provide in-depth information about the market, neighborhoods, appreciation rates, clubs, social networks, affluent service providers, schools and more will have a distinct advantage over their competitors.  As more information becomes available it is the specialist's job to stay abreast of the timeliest data available to protect and enhance their client's interests. Consumers cannot get this kind of info off the Internet!

Second:EXPERIENCE AND REPUTATION - Question: if you had a brain tumor, needed brain surgery, and could pick your surgeon, would you choose one with 3 years experience or 25 years experience? If given the choice, I know which one I would pick! I would pick the one that had the most extensive knowledge, experience, and hundreds and hundreds of hours in the operating room - one that had seen what had gone wrong in a procedure and known how to fix it, or known what could go wrong and circumvented the problem even before it became one. The same applies when it comes to choosing a REALTOR - the one with the most experience, the one that has sold hundreds and hundreds of homes generally has a much better idea of the problems and/or potential problems, and the ways to "surgically" remove them if that problem occurs - a Specialist in that medical field.

Third: SPECIALISTS PROVIDE VALUE ADDED SERVICES - Find the right church; find the right baseball/soccer/swimming/basketball league; know the distance to the nearest hospital/doctor/grocery store/post office;introduce them to their kids' new school principal/teacher/coach. Get the idea??!! We, as Realtors, didn't USED to have to do this because we DIDN'T HAVE TO!! We found the home (that was hard enough!), and too many times we thought we had earned the commission! Consumers didn't necessarily believe it then, and they sure don't BELIEVE IT NOW!

Fourth: GIVE THEM GOOD REFERRALS -  Of course, we're not going to give them our BAD ones! DUH!! Perhaps the most powerful reason for a consumer to choose a specialist is a personal referral.  The number one way that both traditional buyers and sellers come into contact with their agent is through the use of a personal referral - 40% of buyers and 44% of sellers. This statistic is even more pronounced among luxury home clients as 75% of current luxury home specialists report that their number one method for coming into contact with affluent clients for the first time is through a referral or recommendation.

A few years ago I coached a 10 year-old select baseball team I named THE EDGE. I chose that name because every kid on that team I had personally scouted, and I had decided that that particular kid had an "edge" over any other kid at a specific position, and was slightly better than the next player. I "cherry-picked" the BEST twelve kids I could find that had an "edge" - the BEST possible players to win with, and they did. In 2003, they won the Texas State Championship in their age division.

Today, in light of the current market conditions, both buyers and sellers are looking for an "edge".  As they do in other areas of their life, they are looking for that edge in the right real estate specialist.  It's evident all across the spectrum from buyers' agent to the sellers' agent to the luxury home specialist.  They want the agent that has the specialized knowledge, the experience and reputation, the specialized services and they want proof of the fact.