Perception Vs Reality When It Comes to Real Estate
There is the perception with many people that real estate agents seldom earn their money and are often overpaid when it comes to selling homes. This perception of agents is drawn from the perceived reality that all we do is drive around in our too large, and too clean cars and open a few doors so that clients can see a house and place offers on them.
Part of this perception may be true. We do drive around in our cars and often times they are clean, but the reality is that we need to make room in them for clients that may ride with us, and they are often cleaner than our client's cars, but what image would we give if we had cheerios all over the floor and coffee cups dropped there as well.
The reality of situations is that we cannot make that drive with a client unless we have first gotten the listing. We need time and do the homework needed to ensure that we can drive directly to a home, and know how to get into it and maybe even know the code to the alarm system so as to avoid the noise of the horns blaring and the rush of people and the police to stop the unwanted intruders. This is homework than can be either brief if the listing agent is attentive and responsive or frustrating if it involves many calls and texts to get that info. Very little of this is seen when we walk up to a door and do what we have to do to get into the house.
The perception is that we get clients just by putting a sign out in front of a house. The reality is that some people do call from the sign being posted on the house, but many of them call to ask the price and other details that would be obvious if they did a little bit of searching on their own, or even called their own agent. The selling of that home requires work on our part to make sure the home gets its best exposure on the Internet. Some of that is done when we list the house and the MLS (Multiple Listing System) provides direct syndication to the prime sales sites. If they don't , then we need to do that job ourselves, and that is done by us while not stealing time from our clients. For me that is late nights or early mornings.
No one sees the reality of our early mornings to review email requests or the time spent writing our blogs to market our listings. Likewise the late nights setting up the agendas and an efficient route are never obvious as we drive around during the day.
The reality of what we do to make our days efficient and productive is seldom seen. The amount of time spent 'behind the scenes' on calls and preparation is what makes the perceptions of our ease in getting our jobs done so simple for the most.
This post was written for the November AR Contest : A Day/Week in your Business Life
Perception Vs Reality When It Comes to Real Estate
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