Debra Stone

When I was farming extensively, I used open houses to meet neighbors, sellers. This is an incredibly effective way to get listings. If you pre-market an open house in the neighborhood, you have the opporunity to meet sellers and to further develop your presence in the neighborhood.

The key word here is tricks. Why do we need tricks? We need sophisticated agents who understand technology. The bottom line is leads and relationships. I love the part about how the agents need training; they do not understand what to do? Real Estate is an interesting business: Is it really a pseudo profession of sales people? Which is it a profession or sales? When recruiting agents is the broker recruiting sales people or professionals? The idea that agents are the only entrepreneurs left? If they are, they are some of the lowest paid entrepreneurs I know...we all know that many agents sell just a few properties and the business is occupied by many part-timers. The elite few and the working agents sell most of the properties. What do we provide the public? That is what we have to offer, not tricks. Expertise in an area, expertise on the internet etc. We all know that a buyer will not buy an overpriced property no matter how many ads we have no matter where they are. The reason realtors advertise is to get prospects in general, not sell the specific property. Sellers want to believe it is to sell their home. We know differently. Expert agents are the best at providing their clients service rather it be for a buyer and seller. Excellent service does now require tricks!

I believe that the real issue in the real estate industry involving trust comes from a variety of issues. First,it is not seen as a true profession. The barrier to entry is very low. Most of us realize that almost anyone can get a license. Requirements are not high, so we should not be surprised at the results. We need to really change the requirements for licensing and demand higher standards from the real estate industry, if we want to gain respect in the eyes of the public. If your industry itself values entry requirements so little, how can we expect the public to respect our license. We must raise our standards ourselves to regain our position as trusted advisors for our clients. Second, the regulators do not have sufficient staff to make sure that all are following the regulations. More auditing and other checking of standards needs to be done in order to monitor the industry. The public needs to understand how the industry works. For the most part, because of lack of staff, the regulators rely on brokers to do their part. But with so many agents and so much activity, we all know it is difficult to monitor the process. One idea would be to have brokers audit each other. This is done with other professions, like CPA's. Better oversight and more transperancy would be the result. Finally, if we work together, we can change our industry for the good. The first step is recognizing that we need to change ourselves, then we can take action. For the most part most Realtors or agents are competitors, many of us do not get involved in the process of the business of our industry as a whole. Serious Realtors must get involved in their associations and industry groups to work for change.