Realtors beware of over engineering the real estate business. Real estate is all about people. People buy things from others with emotion and feelings of trust. Don’t get me wrong here. We need good process flow and checks and balances. What I am talking about is making the business too transactional and less relationship focused. Looking at efficiency, profit, and lots of data is fun for an engineer. I is one.
I jumped into a family real estate business from manufacturing consulting. I looked at processes and ask questions, drew charts, asked more questions. Why do you do this? Why do you fill this form out? Why? Why? Why? I was an adult 2 year old.
I did the same thing with real estate. I drove my first broker crazy. I wanted to break the rules, because at the time they seemed stupid to me. As an example, I take a listing and with a pen fill out a form that has all the information about the property. Then I take it into the office for the salaried administrator types it into the computer. Why touch it twice? Why? (Once I became a broker I started understanding “liability”) You do not need an agent taking a shortcut to change a list price if both seller and buyer have not signed a paper authorizing it. Example…
I am noticing that teams and mega agents are putting more layers between them and the client or customer. It is causing problems.
Talked with a person today, about a former real estate deal. He said that his agent was not present at the closing, and neither was the buyer’s agent. Both sent a proxy. Substitutes are fine but it does not relieve responsibility. The title company left off the home warranty payment on the closing statement. The money was not collected at closing. The warranty company was not notified. The parties were looking at the seller to pay. The closing was months ago. He did sign an agreement that he would pay the money, but he did not catch it and neither did the title company, or substitute agents. They are left with a few problems and shared liability. It still leaves the problem of who pays for the HVAC repair or replacement that just happened?
I spoke with another gentleman who had his home listed for quite some time and he said that the listing agent never bothered to call him after his listing expired. He did not know why it did not sell. He wanted feedback. Perhaps he lied to me, but his perception was that the listing agent did not follow up and give him news.
These are things that I am guilty of right now in the feedback lacking department and not providing enough hands on direct work with clients. It is not easy to manage the balance of being personal and providing the amazing level of details for many clients over time. That is an agent or broker’s challenge. How do you foster personal relationship and trust? If you want more income and more free time, you try to put processes and people in place that are trustworthy.
I do know that sellers and buyers want to work with their Realtor. They do not want to feel slighted by working with a substitute and sure do not want to experience a drop in service. That is not good for word of mouth referrals. Realtors beware of over engineering real estate business.
