This is a little disheartening for me.
The immediate problem here is agent incompetence. The bigger problem is that we have a system wherein anyone that can breathe can get a license. So, incompetency reigns supreme. What other industry has 1.5 million practitioners with only approx 1 million products (homes) to sell per year???? You do the math.
Comment by Tom
Unfortunately, real estate agents, for the most part, have a very negative reputation. Deservedly so, because most DON’T do their job well. Especially the last 6-8 years, all you needed to be able to do was have a pulse and you could make a living. Just go to most realtor’s websites - they’re a joke! Look at their photos - they’re a joke! They’re technological morons for the most part - many are lucky they know how to send an email - and that’s only because they HAVE to in order to function in today’s society.
There is a great opportunity for tech savvy, intelligent realtors who actually KNOW how to market a property and KNOW how to negotiate and KNOW how to run a business.
The barrier for entry into this ‘profession’ is $300 for a license and the ability to memorize some facts long enough to take a test.
Most of that is not even relevant to whether or not a realtor is successful. And most brokers have very little education in place to teach what IS important. They just throw a new agent to the wolves, and unless they have a business background and understand HOW to run a business, they’re going to fail pretty darn fast.
There ARE good realtors out there, but as the old saying goes, 20% of the realtors do 80% of the business. I think it’s actually more like 10%. And those realtors ARE good and worth their weight in gold. You just need to be able to find them.
Sellers are just as much to blame - they list their expensive home with ‘a friend’, ’someone they met at church’, ‘a relative with a license’, or the guy who sends them a calendar every year. They don’t bother to check and see HOW they market a property and HOW much business they actually generate. Look online! It’s pretty easy to see how a realtor fares on the internet - Google ‘em! With 85% of ALL buyers starting on the web, any realtor who’s OUT there is probably figured it out. If your realtor shows up on as a page on the corporate real estate site with a little page boasting about all their ‘awards’ and all their ‘initials’ after their name, you should just move on. That’s a perfect sign that they are NOT internet savvy, and probably spend most of their energy taking classes, NOT selling real estate.
Comment by Melanie
It is really sad-and lamentable that photos, regardless if they are mediocre from the source, are frequently made into worse images at the MLS.
Only consumers can change this.
Consumers must demand professional marketing serivces from their Realtors: Professional-grade images, stated marketing program with statistcal reporting at the room level, web exports to leading sites like Yahoo!, Googlebase, Trulia and MSN, a unique branded website for each listing and 1 million buyers a month coming to a site to see that and other listings.
And yes-there is a company out there that has been doing this already. Obeo.
Comment by Steven Stearns
I really like the photos of the “REATORS” (they have a Masters Degree in Real Estate, right, to be conferred such professional status, right?! LOL!!) who show themselves with fat white cats on their laps. Or, the glamour shots. Has nothing to do with selling the home for one’s client, but must make these former Avon salespeople and part-time “country club pros” feel better about themselves.
Comment by BB
Incompetence & Laziness. Realtors, for the most part (certainly there are exceptions), are utterly incomptent and lazy. I don’t want to label them “stupid”, but as Forrest Gump would say, “Stupid is as stupid does.”
In South Florida, Realtors seem to project that the work is in getting the listing, not in the actual “selling” of the home. You see this in apothy in everything from quality (and quantity) of photography, to the lack of openhouses and really and out-of-pocket investments in actually trying to “build a market” for their client. But then again, I think “REALTORS”, the NAR, and the structurally protected, insular universe they operate in is perverse. They add little value, certainly not approximate with the rich commissions they pull from a transaction (LOL, if one occurs!). And typically, the least skilled among us troll this “profession”. Sure, many are “well-presented”, much like a make-up counter girl at Saks (or Kmart, LOL) might be … but beauty is really “skin-deep” in this business. Ask them if they use CRM practices, or for details about the home they are trying to peddle, and their ignorance will dumbfound even the most overt skeptic.
Really, housewives & househusbands, drunks and cat-lovers alike are better served sticking with what their core competencies are … NAR would be probably 1.9 million members “fewer”, but we would all be better for it.
Comment by BB
Buyers are ELIMINATING properties based on the presentation online. They want photos (LOTS of photos), virtual tours (not just regurgitated photos one just saw on the MLS, but additional, more expansive photos or VIDEO). If they don’t get it, they hit the NEXT button. Simple as that. Gas is too expensive to drive around to dozens of properties to see that they are “wrong”.
90% of Real estate agents, for the most part, are CHEAP. They don’t want to pay a professional to take photos or video tours. They don’t understand that just because you have a digitial camera and can press the button, that you actually can take a PHOTOGRAPH.
They have NO concept of marketing or what it actually takes to market a home today. Most are accustomed to being the “order takers” they have been for the past 8 years.
Before you list a house, LOOK and see what that broker is doing to market a home. LOOK at their photographs. LOOK at their video tours. It’s amazing how little sellers check into a potential listing broker. They’ll give the listing to anyone and cross their fingers. Those days are over.
Comment by Mark
I rely on the inability of realtors to take pictures to spot buying opportunities. It’s called arbitrage, and it has been around since the beginning of time. If there are many pictures, there will be plenty of interest/bids = higher prices. I for one, love bad realtors, if it weren’t for them, I’d be living in a cardboard box.
Comment by Richard S
Te more important question is why brokers are STILL allowed to bundle this “service” together with access to the MLS? It’s an antitrust conspiracy is why, which protects their ever sacred 6 percent ridiculously inflated commissions! To have access to the MLS, to get photos taken, to have an open house conducted, etc are all things that could be charged for separately. If they were separarted, competition for each niche would ensue and quality would improve.
Comment by Simple economics thwarted by antitrust conspiracy
Real estate agents are some of the dumbest people on earth. Their job is a joke and their mottos and terrible profile pictures compliment the profession well. The profile picture with the cell phone held to the ear is always a good one. The whole profession (it’s not really a profession of course) is for losers. Oh and please stop with the dream team advertisements with three loser agents in one pic. hahaa
Comment by pathetic
I could go on but I think you get the gist of it. Shocking and yet there isn't one comment that we're not familiar with. Most of them we say to each other. One comment that stands out for me is from Tom stating, "The bigger problem is that we have a system wherein anyone that can breathe can get a license." It holds true that the general public doesn't have a clue as to the value we provide for them. Or do they? Are there so many uninformed, uncaring and lackadaisical agents overshadowing the good ones that our "profession" is viewed as a joke? You tell me.
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