"Honesty, Integrity and Experience"

You know, probably the very first question you should ask any real estate agent is, "What makes you different?"  The reply from most agents will probably be your standard answers like, "Honesty, Integrity, and Experience" but wouldn't that be pretty much what you should expect from your Realtor in the first place?  If you spoke with 10 agents I'm guessing this is what at least 9 of them would say differentiates them from their competitors, but do these things entirely set them apart from all the other Realtors out there?

I believe this is partly the fault of the agents themselves because they use these words without ever considering what they might really mean. Let's consider each one individually.

HONESTY:

Let's face it, when someone is trying to persuade someone else to buy their product or service, and especially when there is a considerable amount of money involved, honesty can sometimes take a backseat or at least only come along for the ride. Most people would expect their Realtor to be honest with them, but they may not exactly want to hear the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I'm talking about being honest enough with your sellers to tell them when their house is just not worth the amount of money they think its worth or that they need to fix some "issues" before putting it on the market. I'm talking about being honest enough with a buyer to point out certain things about a house that could kill their interest in buying it and cause you the need to show them another 10 homes before they find the right one. I'm talking about being honest enough to tell a seller that the market is slow right now and you cannot guarantee when their home will sell. My customers tell me they appreciate this kind of honesty. They need to make educated financial decisions and do appreciate the information I give them, even if it hurts.

Because I'm in the real estate market every single day, there are things that I know that the typical home owner cannot possibly be expecting. I consider it my responsibility to inform them of everything and to rise to a higher standard of "honesty".

INTEGRITY:

The dictionary defines integrity as, "The quality of possessing and steadfastly adhering to high moral principles or professional standards". To me this basically means doing what's right in all situations, no matter what the consequences. Integrity refers to the quality of a person's character, but it cannot simply be something you tell people you have, integrity must be proven.

A good example is when a friend or past client refers a potential client to me and they tell them I'm a Christian or that I'm the Chairman of the Deacons for Northland Baptist Church. Don't get me wrong, I do understand why they're telling them this. It's because they assume someone in this position would have a great deal of integrity, but one may acknowledge a person to have integrity yet that person may hold importantly mistaken moral views. What they're really saying is that I have the same "moral" views that they associate with integrity so even though this person may have just met me for the first time, knowing what I hold true morally can be translated as integrity unless I prove otherwise.

EXPERIENCE:

Whenever someone talks about experience, it reminds me of my very first real estate transaction with two out of town buyers. These were seasoned home buyers and I was petrified of the moment they would ask me that dreaded question, "So how long have you been in real estate, Ron?" To my utter amazement, that question never did come. On the day of their closing they told the closing agent I was "the very best Realtor they'd ever worked with".

After some time has now passed, I've come to realize that experience comes in many forms and isn't always measured by the years you've been in the business. I've met many, many agents that have spent quite a few years in real estate, yet I still wouldn't call them experienced. Because I pre-planned every single detail with that first client, they simply considered me an experienced agent and therefore never felt the need to question it.

When most buyers and sellers say they want an experienced agent working for them, what they're really saying is someone that has made a lot of mistakes and learned from them before getting to us. They also may not realize that experience doesn't necessarily mean the smartest person in the business, but that you probably know who to call when a situation does arise. For me, having a large business card file for my trusted vendors is a good example of experience. I may not know everything there is to know about Heating and Cooling systems, but if the inspection shows there may be an issue, my "experience" tells me that Chad Shanks Heating & Cooling is the one to call.

I often find that buyers and sellers don't realize how important it is to work with an experienced agent until they actually get to work with one that is. My clients are amazed at all the little things that can go wrong with buying or selling a home, but they tell me they didn't feel any pressure because they trusted I knew what I was doing and would take care of them. That's what experience can do for you. I never get tired of hearing them tell me after the closing, "how easy that was" or "how much they've enjoyed working with me throughout the entire process".

Maybe I should put these words on the back of my business card. "Honesty, Integrity and Experience" I like the sound of that!