We are in a 'downturn", the market is "correcting" itself, it's a "buyer's market" and it is more difficult today to make a decent living in Real Estate today then it was 2 years ago, Prices are higher for supplies across the board, gas prices are through the roof, insurance rates and taxes are stopping buyers from purchasing homes. All of this is the plight of Realtor in today's market. At times it is difficult to remain optimistic especially when we are struggling to keep are business's afloat, what boggles me however is how unscrupulous many of our fellow Realtor's have become. In desperation to make a sale or secure a client I have witnessed some very nasty behavior lately and certainly not something I want to become a part of. If I have to start stepping on other agents and cutting people out of their rightful earnings to survive in this business I would rather find another career!
Countless times I have been around a Realtor lately and heard it said "well it's a dog eat dog world" or I have to be self preserving and worry about me first or a number of other such comments. This is the very time we need to learn to work together, respect each other more and educate our clients. Clients in this market many times feel they have the upper hand and can "manipulate" agents to do things they would not even think of doing in a normal market. I recently had a client I spent weeks with looking for commercial property, wrote two offers that we could not get to work, logged in over 20 hours driving him around, researching possible properties and all the other work involved in finding a commercial piece of property and then the client called a listing agent directly on another piece of property, made an offer on the property (priced $300,000 higher then what he told me he would spend)and bought it. Because the agent was willing to "give back" part of his commission since he was getting both sides. A good agent asks a new client "are you working with another agent?" and suggests that they go through that agent.
I believe what goes around comes around and my Blessings will come but it never hurts to remind everyone that morals and scrupples are always the best codes to live by. Our reputation is often all we have in the end...make it a good one!
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