Real Estate agents and Realtors do a lot of silly things when attempting to drum up business. The one I want to address today is the concept of dropping everything to show a home to someone you never met, don't know anything about and will likely disrupt the "deal" you're already working on. Do you know how fickle this sounds to others? Granted many will disagree with me and that's okay not only because I take my security and safety seriously but because I can count on one hand the number of disrupters who ever wrote an accepted offer when I've jumped to appease them. Don't get me wrong, I will jump for those whom I know due to reasons you may use conjecture but that's beside the point.
Floor duty has been much a part of my real estate activity since my teens. I don't know why some associates hate to embrace it. If you're even the slightest bit systems oriented it will benefit you. To compliment floor time you need to get out and about to see new listings on a regular basis. Virtual tours or visual tours as they are sometimes called do not have the personality which exists when you're up close and personal. You have to actually see & feel the product to accurately describe it to potential customers.
I was lucky enough to have seen a perfect match for a young caller who described her dream home for me. She let me know that she was getting married soon and while they had been looking, the agents she had contacted never followed up. Shame on them and utterly fantastic for me. She rambled on and on due to her excitement for about 20 to 30 minutes before I got a word in. I let her know that I had pieced together exactly what she described and already had a "perfect" match. Most agents do not take the time to listen but I did and had seen her dream home just days before on one of our office tours. Whether its tours, public and broker open houses or a preview. Get to know everything available in your market!
Specifically, I listened to her tell me the price point she was interested in. No upsell here and I made an appointment for us to see it the next afternoon. I expected to see a young couple at the appointed time but so many more people showed up. I think it was her whole family with maybe 9 or 10 people in tow. I believe this was because she did a secret drive-by on her own the night before. There was no question an offer was coming. They could not stop raving about the house its features and condition were excellent and exactly as I described. After about an hour we went our separate ways and shortly thereafter I got a call to stop by their house. Their house? She had told me they lived in an apartment. She gave me the address and we confirmed a time. I knew the neighborhood and this was no 1st timers address.
Mom & Dad's home was magnificent it sat across the street from The Philadelphia Country Club which might tell you something. I had friends a couple blocks away so I knew what I was getting into, I thought. Dad was President of one of the largest banks in Philadelphia. He never questioned me but stated that he had to meet me because his daughter couldn't stop talking about me. We laughed because I told him I had found out how much of a talker she was when we first spoke. We discussed price & terms plus had a cordial to memorialize the undertaking. Do you have any idea how much this contact meant to me in future business. If I had 2 more like him I would've retired at 40. Key points to remember, know you're market and always, always FOLLOW UP! You never know where it can take you.
The interesting thing was that he could not finance the home for his daughter through his financial institution. Guess who bankers like to pal around with? OTHER BANKERS! Suffice it to say that our foursome at Philadelphia Country Club was treated royally and the relationships continued for twenty years more until I arrived in the Sunshine State. These men were substantially older than myself although when any of them had a real estate need I jumped.
It's excellent to know who you are talking to but always avoid those who begin their conversation with, Do you know who I am?
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