Real estate agents are leaving the business, and while that’s not front page news anymore considering the last five years, it is relevant to both buyers and sellers.  In 2008 Sequim had 258 real estate agents, and now (April of 2012) we have only 107 real estate agents.  Let’s do the math.  That means we only have 41% of the agents we had, which is nearly a 60% loss of agents.  Here’s a coincidence for you.  While I was finishing typing that last sentence I got a call from a homeowner whose home I showed a month ago.  He called to tell me that his listing agent left just the brokerage.  Amazing.  He also told me that his listing has been terminated, and he wants to relist his home with another company at a $50,000 price reduction.  He’s not my client, so I did not feel comfortable telling him over the phone that his home was overpriced by $100,000, not $50,000.  I did share that with his listing agent when I showed the home, but either his listing agent did not communicate that to him, or he simply did not believe it.  This is a perfect example of why a homeowner’s home has not sold and why his own agent is starving.  She can’t earn a commission trying to sell an overpriced home in a recession.  No wonder so many real estate agents are leaving the business!

Real Estate Agents Closing Doors

These real estate agents did close their doors.  This was one of the largest real estate offices in Clallam County, and the owners were evicted from the building.  They didn’t have enough business, and their traditional bricks-and-mortar business model could not survive this recession.  That’s certainly unfortunate for them.  For consumers, buyers and sellers, there is a bigger picture of change occurring.  It is slowly transforming into something much more consumer friendly, efficient, and much more oriented to addressing the best interests of the consumer in an honest way.  Consider how incredibly easy it is for you as a buyer to search all the homes in the MLS online 24/7 from the comfort of your own home without talking to any high pressure salesmen, or how easy it is to do your due diligence online to find a competent and professional and trustworthy buyer’s agent.  You can now do tremendous research online at absolutely no cost about a home, it’s history, the previous prices paid for the home, the tax assessment, and much more.  All of this substantially reduces the need to consumers of a large bricks-and-mortar building full of sales people.

Real Estate Agents Go Virtual

If you consider this real estate blog alone has over 1,100 articles about Sequim real estate, an MLS search buyers can use 24/7, and dozens of powerful online tools for them to research and do their due diligence on Sequim homes before they ever arrive in Sequim, and that they can do all of these things without being forced to register, you can see why I could say just based on this that I have the largest virtual real estate office in the county and maybe the state.  During the calendar year of 2011 over 315,000 prospective buyers used this real estate blog to search for and find their retirement home in Sequim.  My articles were read over 1.6 million times.  In light of how buyers love to use the Internet and free powerful tools to help them, it’s not hard to understand why so many of the big offices are closing their doors.  Not only is their overhead ridiculously high, but their business model and sales approach no longer caters to buyers’ real needs.

Real Estate Agents Not So Physical

I do have a physical office, but clients don’t care about a physical office any more.  Why should they?  Sellers want me to come to their homes, and buyers are interested in driving around and looking at homes, not sitting in an office.  In fact, my clients seem to prefer meeting at Starbucks and enjoying a cup of coffee as we prepare to look at homes on their filtered list.  This is why I’ve spent so much time and money building so many powerful tools on the Internet for buyers.  Not all real estate agents get it, but buyers get it and they love it.

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Have you ever thought about real estate agent personalities?   I write periodically about how important  it is that you have a great real estate agent, but rarely do I discuss personalities or behaviors.  First, you want an agent who is knowledgeable and competent.  That’s a given.  Then you certainly want an agent who is trustworthy, someone you can trust to represent your best interests.  That’s a given.  But you also want someone you feel you can work with, right?

That’s where personality comes into the picture.  Real estate agent personalities run the gamut from quiet to boisterous, from reserved to giddy, humble to arrogant, serious to humorous, and so on.  One could say that what I’m describing are really reflections of a person’s personality or personality traits, and that there is much more to a person’s total personality than learned behaviors.  That’s probably true, but we often identify a person’s personality by how they relate to us in a given situation.

A real estate agent’s personality is often reflected in what they did in an earlier career.  So a Realtor who was an accountant or an engineer will typically be a detail person who pays great attention to trivia, which is good, but which also can drive some people crazy because of how that directs conversations.  My own prior career as a lawyer would normally suggest, I think, that I would tend to be confident and arrogant.  Those who know me best tell me I am confident but not arrogant.  Thank God for that, but it’s a process and I continue to strive for humility and wisdom.  Lawyers are rarely good salesmen and are known for being deal killers in the real estate business, but fortunately I started as a Realtor and later became a lawyer.  My heartbeat even as a lawyer was to facilitate real estate transactions and not kill them.

Of the five major personality traits recognized by psychologists (see Big Five Personality Traits), “agreeableness” includes aspects that have a direct impact on how you and your real estate agent  will relate while you are shopping for your next home, or listing your home for sale.  Here is the range of “agreeableness.”

• I am interested in people.
• I feel others’ emotions.
• I have a soft heart.
• I make people feel at ease.
• I sympathize with others’ feelings.
• I take time out for others.
• I am not interested in other people’s problems. (reversed)
• I am not really interested in others. (reversed)
• I feel little concern for others. (reversed)
• I insult people. (reversed)
• I like being isolated. (reversed)

Where your agent is on this scale of agreeableness is no small matter.  You definitely don’t want an agent who is near the bottom of this list.  I live in Sequim, and I would say that many of my Realtor friends in Sequim are agreeable and very pleasant to work with.  We are lucky in Sequim that way.  As has been said by many of my clients, “Sequim has so many genuinely kind people.”  And I think that is true of our Realtors, too, but you still want to choose the best Realtor for you, right?  You want a Realtor who is agreeable, but not milk toast either,  and you want someone who is willing to serve you faithfully, not out of his own self-interests.

Agreeableness is a tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others. . . . Agreeable individuals value getting along with others. They are generally considerate, friendly, generous, helpful, and willing to compromise their interests with others.

Disagreeable individuals place self-interest above getting along with others. They are generally unconcerned with others’ well-being, and are less likely to extend themselves for other people. Sometimes their skepticism about others’ motives causes them to be suspicious, unfriendly, and uncooperative.  (Quote from Wikipedia)

What do you look for in a real estate agent?  I’ve written elsewhere that it is important to do your due diligence on the Internet to find out if it appears your agent is competent, knowledgeable, and comes off as honest and trustworthy, but then I also recommend that you interview your agent (or several) and see if your personality meshes with your agent’s personality.  You’ll know the answer to that question almost immediately.

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• Search Sequim Real Estate: Port Angeles Real Estate

Search for any real estate issue with this specialized Sequim search engine and pull up the most credible and authoritative posts, articles, videos, and data from many Sequim websites and blogs directly answering your questions.

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Sequim real estate agents are wondering what Chuck Marunde is doing to sell so many homes and get so many qualified leads.   Neighbors of a home Chuck has listed in Sunland on the golf course are seeing the sign and the activity and wondering who this broker is.   They’re used to seeing the familiar franchise signs for sale on homes in Sunland.   So who is Sequim & Port Angeles Real Estate, LLC, and what’s all the hullabaloo?

“Back in 1995 I realized the Internet was going to be a major player in real estate, and I started a website then, but in the past two years the Internet has become the dominant tool buyers use to find a home,” says Chuck.   “So I built the largest Internet brokerage in all of Sequim and Port Angeles, and the results are stunning, but other brokers and many homeowners who are not paying attention to this Internet trend are still in the dark.   I don’t advertise in the local newspaper, because that is NOT where buyers from California, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, and Montana are looking!   And it’s not Sequim homeowners who are the buyers.   I am reaching out directly to the buyers from out of state.   It just makes sense, but many people haven’t thought this through, including local real estate brokers.”

In the biggest real estate recession the country has seen in decades, and the worst real estate market in memory for Sequim and Port Angeles, many real estate agents have left the business, and some have not sold anything in over a year.   Many are working other jobs, including washing dishes (literally) just to survive.   Not Chuck Marunde.

“I feel very blessed.   I sold a home in January, one in March, one in May, and I have two pending transactions in June already, and I’m submitting another offer today or tomorrow.   Here’s the amazing thing.   I don’t waste my money or my client’s money on things that don’t work, advertising that produces no results.   My Internet presence is producing buyers who are delighted to work with a Realtor who gets it.   Clients tell me they appreciate the fact that I was a real estate attorney, and tthe articles I post for them at no cost so they can make intelligent choices when they move here.   I would just call this basic customer service.”

“I’m so fortunate that the pieces of my chaotic life seem to have come together at this time and place.   I spent a lifetime in real estate transactions and law, marketing and sales, and technology.   I also love to write, so all of this somehow uniquely fits me, but most importantly it fits clients who are buying and selling.”

Most real state brokerages are operating under a 20 year old business model, but they are being left behind by the Internet.   Selling homes in Sequim or Port Angeles is no longer a simple matter of putting it in the MLS, running an ad once every six weeks in the local paper or the home sales magazine.   Agents who are sitting at the desk staring at the phone while it does not ring and waiting for buyers to walk into their brick and mortar offices are getting nervous, but more importantly, they are not producing sales for their listing clients and they are not connecting with buyers.

“Don’t be fooled by agents who tell you they have your listing all over the Internet.   There is much much more to the story about what works and what doesn’t work.   While I prefer not to reveal secrets that have taken me years and a wheel barrel of money to learn, I will share those with my clients.”

Sharp buyers and sellers are not just using the Internet–they are using it intelligently.   They know how to filter through the garbage to find a good agent, how to search for property, and they are discerning the   difference between agents who are blowing smoke and the agents who have real experience and professional knowledge.

So this real estate blog continues to help buyers and sellers to buy and sell in this market, but this blog also continues to be a source of professional education for real estate agents.   Everyone is welcome here.

At least one agent in Sequim and Port Angeles is having fun.   Chuck Marunde can be reached at his email, which is chuckmarunde@gmail.com or his direct phone, which is 360-775-5424.

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Finding a real estate agent who is good is not something some people consider important, or they don’t realize how to find a good real estate agent.

Pick a Real Estate Agent (Pick a Card)

A buyer decides he needs a real estate agent to buy a home, but this buyer makes a huge mistake, and the bad news is he has no idea he is making it.   He’s in a very respected profession, and he’s a mature and intelligent man.   He has a good friend, and his good friend’s wife is a real estate agent.   So when he wants to buy a house, he automatically hires his friend’s wife.   After all, she is a real estate agent.   Notice that word “automatically.”

This is a true story.   As it turns out, his friend’s wife is not so competent and not so ethical or professional.   The details don’t matter for purposes of this brief story, but the bottom line is that Mr. Professional gets less than royal treatment, and that is the understatement of the century.   I’m being polite here.   At the time Mr. Professional had no idea how his own real estate agent sabotaged his transaction with her incompetence and unprofessionalism. He never knew, that is, until much later, when he subsequently finds out, and later tells me the whole story.

Real Estate Agent -  Dime a Dozen?

What’s the moral of this story?   Just because your friend’s wife is a real estate agent does NOT mean she is a great agent who will do such a great job for you.   Why in the world would someone assume they must hire their friend’s wife or sister or friend?   I’ll tell you why, and when you think about it, it just seems dumb.   They hire that person simply because of that relationship.   Period.   That is the ONLY reason.   It’s hard to believe, but this happens regularly, and I hear the nightmare stories.

[In my book on this subject I included this paragraph, and I included this in a response to a comment to this article:  "As a small but important point of clarification, when I use the term 'housewives' I’m really talking about people, men or women, who got their real estate license but have no real estate education, no business education, no sales education, no marketing education, no legal training to draft legal documents, and very little to offer clients except time and a smile. As consumers tell me all the time, there are agents just like this all over the country. I actually picked up this derogatory use of the word 'housewives' from consumers themselves over many years. Do not misunderstand me here. This doesn’t mean a person I call a licensed housewife (or househusband) isn’t a wonderful person and a good person. This is not a character issue. It’s a professional competence issue. It’s not about the person—it’s about their lack of education, knowledge, experience, and professionalism. I get along with almost everybody, and I love almost everybody, regardless of their background or history. Anyone who knows me also knows that I am a strong believer in extending grace and mercy to everyone."  See more in the comments below.]

Your Real Estate Agent and Professionalism

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with hiring a friend’s wife as your real estate agent, if she is truly competent, experienced, professional, and ethical, but for goodness sake, do some due diligence first.   Go out and interview at least three real estate agents, and choose those three carefully by filtering through the Internet to first read about them and find the one real estate agent with the best education PLUS experience PLUS a powerful Internet presence.   The first two should be obvious, but don’t forget that 85% of all home buyers start their search on the Internet today according to a national survey by the National Association of Realtors, so if your real estate agent doesn’t have a powerful Internet presence, go somewhere else.

Honestly, I have heard so many stories from good people who hired a housewife as their real estate agent because she was a sister of someone or a brother’s aunt’s daughter, and after they have made the same big mistake that so many before have innocently made, they shake their head in disbelief as they talk about it.

Why would I be so blunt and honest in this article?   Because I have seen this same scenario so many times as a real estate attorney and again as a real estate agent that I think I’ll scream it out–All real estate agents are NOT the same.   Hire a good real estate agent, not just someone who has a license and is your friend’s wife.   Many of these real estate agents have no business background, no degree in marketing or sales, no real estate knowledge, other than the little online courses required to pass the test, and virtually no experience in hard negotiating or legal documents, and you’re hiring this person to spend your $300,000?   Egad!

Okay.   I’ve said it.   Now you have some choices to make.   Hire someone who is professional, honest and has the experience, someone who will assertively represent you, or . . . hire Tom, Sally, or Jane who just happens to be a friend of a friend and got his or her license.

Not sure who to hire?   Call me and ask me anything under the sun, and I’ll answer your questions honestly.   Do the same with two other real estate agents.   Then judge for yourself.   If you don’t think I’m the man for the job, then hire someone else, but don’t you deserve the opportunity to find out for yourself before you hire Jane or Sally automatically?

Hire a good real estate agent, whoever he or she might be.  A good real estate agent is not easy to find.

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There’s a new Internet search engine in town, and it’s Microsoft’s search tool called, “Bing.” It’s easy to find on the Net, because it is simply bing.com. How does it stack up to the number one search engine, Google, which has about 64% of the search engine market? It is amazingly similar to Google.

Microsoft is struggling with only 8% of the market. Even thought Microsoft has been around a lot longer than Google, Google clearly figured out what consumers wanted, and Google continues to tweak and build to meet the cutting edge of consumer preferences. Microsoft has not done so well in this area, but their new search engine looks amazingly similar to Google’s.

Even the results are quite similar, although not precisely the same. Of course the results will not be exactly the same with different algorithms. But if you’re using Google already, you might wonder why you should shift to Bing. Other than a moment of “something new,” I can’t answer that.

“Nearly 98 percent of the traffic at Live.com is passive (coming from MSN, etc.) and Bing will be an attempt by Microsoft to establish its search offering as a destination Web site with high active traffic,” Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Agarwal said in a research note on Monday. “In our view, though Microsoft’s search technologies are ready for prime time, making a call on the success of Bing now will be premature.”

Most Microsoft searches have been the result of using MSN with toolbars and other methods, while just 1 or 2 percent come from people actually typing Live.com into their browser’s address bar. The rumor is that Miscrosoft plans to spend $80 to $100 million dollars to advertise and promote Bing.

Well, that wouldn’t be the first time Microsoft tried to buy its way into a market. We’ll see how it goes, but this author predicts that Google will remain dominant and Google fans like me will continue to favor Google.

For an example of the same search in Google and in Bing, take a look at these results with the search phrase “sequim and port angeles real estate news” without the quotes:

Bing search results for sequim and port angeles real estate news

Google search results for sequim and port angeles real estate news

Or have a little fun yourself and type in phrases like, “find an honest realtor in sequim,” or “port angeles homes price per square foot.”

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