What Does Client Service Mean at Home Point Real Estate?
The bulk of my business is Home Buyers, although I work with people Selling a Home too in Brentwood, Oakley, Discovery Bay, Antioch, and Pittsburg.
I do lots of things for Home Buyers, primarily I give them my time. The key issue is what do I do with the time I give them. I can hand Home Buyers stacks of paper work and booklets on Buying a Home; but they really need to talk to someone.
One of our Business Principals at Home Point Real Estate is High Tech Real Estate with Personal Service. Now I don't like to waste my time so when I am giving time to my client it is about building trust and educating as much as it is about buying a home.
The other day I sat with a client in the office of a New Home Builder signing a contract to purchase her home. Now she was excited about the home and loved the neighborhood, but expressed regret that we had “wasted” so much of both of our time shopping for other homes. I explained to her that I did not consider it a waste of time, because that time we spent shopping educated her about the market and the different aspects of the community; as well as Buying a Home in general. Without that time she would not have felt as well about the home she did buy.
I am not slick; I am overweight, hard of hearing (so I can talk loud at times), and am somewhat socially awkward; but I understand real estate. I also approach my business with integrity. From my first communication with a prospect I work on building that relationship with personal e-mails and phone calls.
It is a big step when I get to meet with a client for the first time. Generally this will determine if we will work good together. The more time I have spent e-mailing them and talking on the phone generally the better the first meeting goes.
Often clients are very unsure about what they really want and where the market is at until we meet and they start looking at homes. I generally spend some time explaining Phantom Listings, Short Sales, Bank Owned Sales, Contract Process, Deposits, Lending and how the market works. Often times at this stage Home Buyers will make ill advised offers or decisions regarding Buying a Home as I have not built trust with them.
The more time I spend with clients the more I learn about their needs. Sometimes as they begin to look they open their eyes to possibilities they have not thought off. The initially declared needs/wants change and the clients expectations begin to conform to the market. Also trust begins to build and this is when they manage to get into contract.
I have clients tell me that other agents don't listen or make them a priority. The tell me other agents do not take the time. On occasion there are people who never listen and insist on always doing it their own way – they generally end up without homes.
How to build a relationship and trust is different for each person. Acting with personal integrity is something that I think they can see and helps build the relationship. I have a lot of strong opinions on certain things and some of you at ActiveRain have read those post, but it has never stopped me from having a great relationship with my clients. Oddly enough some of the people that are most different from me are the ones I work with the best.
We can state that our values or communication, education, service and so forth; but all of those things take a personal investment of time.
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