Real Estate Agents can get designations, like titles after their names.  Are these designations good?  Do they bring something to the table for you as a client?  The way we describe designations in the profession is to say we “earn designations,” which means we pay to go to a class for an afternoon or a day or a week, and then we get a certificate that shows that we attended the class.  What are clients to think of these designations?  I’ll tell you what clients actually do think (because I’ve asked many), and I’ll tell you the truth about designations and whether they have value to offer you as the client.

Real Estate Agents and Designations

Real Estate Agents and Education

My 15 year old daughter uses facial scrub and other cosmetics so she will look good to her friends and piers.  Of course, I know she is beautiful without any cosmetics at all, but I understand and support her desire to use some cosmetics.  Hence, I was shopping today for her facial scrub, also known as a facial exfoliate.  I was dumbfounded by the choices.  There used to be two or three brands, but now there are dozens, and the variations in titles made it very confusing. 

There’s morning burst facial scrub, deep action exfoliating scrub, deep clean long last shine control daily scrub, invigorating foaming scrub, clear pore daily scrub, detoxifying facial scrub, positively radiant skin brightening scrub, resurfacing scrub, carrot exfoliating scrub, refreshing citrus recleanser, and there are entire shelves of scrub with more names that I don’t understand.  I will admit that there are some that smell really great, some that feel like they would do a good job, and others that are tinted tantalizing colors.

Real Estate Agents Designations Like Exfoliating Scrub

What does this vast variety of facial scrubs with so many fancy names have to do with real estate agents and their designations and certifications?  A lot more than you might think.

Here are a small handful of designations that real estate agents pay to get (they also have to sit in a classroom for X number of hours).

ABR (Accredited Buyer Representative), Cost:  $300
ACRE (Accredited Consultant in Real Estate ), Cost:  $500
ACR (Accredited Seller Representative), Cost:  $300
AHWD (At Home With Diversity), Cost:  $50
CRE (Counselor of Real Estate), Cost:  $2,500
CRS (Certified Residential Specialist), Cost:  $150
E-PRO (Certified Internet Professional ), Cost:  $400
GRI (Graduate Realtor Institute), Cost:  $1,900

And there are hundreds more, kind of like facial scrubs at the mall.  So do clients really care, and do they even know what all these designations are?  I’ve asked many clients over the years, and they all say the same thing.  They don’t know what the initials are after all the real estate agents’ names, and get ready for this–they don’t care.

These are the clients themselves talking like this, not me.  Education is good.  In fact, I went overboard on my own education.  I have not just a day’s worth or a week’s worth from a quick seminar, but a college degree in economics, a law degree specializing in real estate, and 20 years of real estate law and hundreds of seminars.  So I’ve been there, done that.  But I don’t do the designations now.  They are, in my humble opinion, good for a little education and help, but mostly worthless.  (I’ve spent more time in classrooms than any Realtor I know, and far too many hours are wasted.)  Does anyone else get the idea that all these classes, all these designations and certifications may just be part of a large racket to make money by schools and associations?  Hey, I’m just asking.  I wouldn’t blame the instructors, because we have some great instructors, and they are enjoying teaching, and they deserve a paycheck for their time.  [This article will not be popular among Realtors who place so much value on their designations, even if their own clients do not.  But if you read my articles, you will notice that I am very consumer oriented and focused on the best interests of my clients.  I look to the substance, not the appearance.  I constantly ask how I can actually help my clients, not just how I can look good to my clients.]

For real estate agents who do not have college or law degrees in real estate, I would encourage them to get as much education as possible to do a better job for their clients, but I would also say don’t count on the designations doing anything to impress anyone.  No one is impressed by our degrees or designations.  Clients want the substance, not the appearance.  [No one knows what the J.D. stands for after my name.  Very few even ask.  Now that you're curious, I guess I'd better tell you.  J.D. stands for Juris Doctor, or in plain language, Doctor of Jurisprudence.]

What are clients really looking for in real estate agents?  Education?  Yes.  Experience?  Yes.  Professionalism?  Yes.  Designations and certifications are not quick solutions for the depth of education, experience and professionalism clients want.  But clients also want honesty, integrity, and trustworthiness.  Try putting those character attributes on a certificate. 

What do you as a buyer want in real estate agents, or the buyer’s agent you hire?  Do all those letters after a name mean anything to you?  Do those letters have value to you?  In the end, maybe all those designations real estate agents pay so much money for are like the many brands of facial scrubs on the shelves at the mall.  Some smell really great, some feel like they would do a good job, and others are tinted tantalizing colors.

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Are real estate agents a dime a dozen?  Maybe they are, but I’m reminded of something I learned many years ago in Alaska.  I had graduated from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks with a degree in economics, but I wanted to become a teacher.  I knew that teachers were a dime a dozen, and there were many applicants for every opening, so I asked my old high school principal, Gary Hebert, if there was room for another teacher.  His reply was full of wisdom.  He said, “Chuck, there’s always room for a good teacher.”

Real Estate Agents a Dime a Dozen?

I learned that rule applies to every profession.  I did teach high school business education for two years before deciding to go to law school and specialize in real estate.  As a teacher, I learned that many teachers are mediocre, some are less than mediocre, and a few are exceptional.  As a lawyer, I learned that many lawyers are mediocre, some are less than mediocre, and a few are exceptional.  Now as a full time real estate broker, I can say precisely the same thing about real estate agents.

Real Estate Agents – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Every profession has the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Sales pitches, bloviating, and hype on advertisements have gotten out of control, and people don’t know what to believe any more.  It takes a great deal of discernment and research to know how to find and select a great professional in any profession.

Who isn’t tired of annoying TV commercials after seeing them the 100th time, “My name is Doug and I am not an actor.  I have Mesothilioma.”  Are you tired as I am of the “Buy Gold Now” commercials, or how about the Viagra commercials?  Ridiculous and annoying!  But some commercials don’t even tell you what they do.  For example, a company called Insperity has a commercial in which their theme statement is, “Inspiring business performance, that’s what we do.”  Boy, when I saw that commercial I was desperate to hire them.  Not.

Real Estate Agents

Consumers are getting smart, or perhaps they’re just getting tired of the old tricks and gimmicks.  I’m a real estate agent, and this is a shameless plug, but I can tell you precisely what I will do for you.  There is no bloviating or hype or generic branding here.  As your buyer’s agent I help you negotiate the best possible price on the right home, and I help you handle all of the inspection and due diligence items all the way to closing.  That’s straight forward, right?  By the way, I represent you at no cost.  The sellers always pay my commission.  Isn’t that great?  I hope you’ll do your due diligence on Sequim real estate agents, and then I hope you’ll come back and consider hiring me as your buyer’s agent.

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Real estate agents are supposed to take beautiful photos of their listings.  Right?  After all this is how buyers begin to picture a home, and it’s a beautiful photograph that catches a person’s eye.  Stunning photos pull us into the listing for a closer look, and it’s these visual aides that encourage a buyer to add that listing to their favorites so they can view it when they arrive in Sequim.

Real Estate Agents and Listing Photos

I probably should show an example of terrible photographs of other real estate agents, but I just can’t bring myself to post one here.  First, some of them are so ugly, I can’t bare to look at them, and secondly, it would not be a good idea to share another agent’s photo disaster.  What I am showing here are examples of nice photos that help buyers get an idea of how beautiful this home is.

Sellers assume (do they not?) that real estate agents will do all this.  This is fundamental.  It is basic marketing 101.  So why oh why are about 65% of all the MLS listings missing photos of key sections of homes, or why are so many photos blurry or low resolution, or why are so many photos not accurately depicting the home?  In an earlier article I wrote:

You’re on your computer in California, or maybe you’re in Arizona or Nevada right now looking at homes on the MLS in Sequim or Port Angeles.   “Darn it,” you say to your spousal unit.   “There are no photos of the back of the house or the rec room or the garage or shop in this MLS listing either.  What are the real estate agents thinking?”   As your beloved multi-tasks from the kitchen, you hear this soft response, “Well, honey, we’ll just have to wait ’till we get there to see the rest of the house.”

Real Estate Agents as Listing Agents

You can see more photos of this listing at Sequim Water View Home for Sale. 

Real Estate Agents – Photographer for Hire (Free)

If you are are planning to buy a home in the Sequim or Port Angeles area, and you have found a listing online but the photos are incomplete, email or call me, and I’ll go out and take good photos and email them to you.  It would be my pleasure to help you filter through the MLS listings and ultimately identify the homes you want to see when you arrive in Sequim.  Meanwhile, I will continue to encourage real estate agents to take good photographs.

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Real estate marketing.  Where is the wisdom?  That is a question I have asked rhetorically in years past when I hear of foolish decisions or major blunders in real estate marketing or any part of a transaction.  I hate to see a real estate transaction killed because of inexperience or foolishness.  On a national scale, there are huge changes underway in real estate brokerage and in real estate marketing.  Most people are aware there are huge changes taking place in the real estate industry, but  the big franchises have made some huge blunders.  I found myself asking that question again, “Where is the wisdom?”

Real Estate Marketing

Consider a great leader of the real estate franchise movement, Gary Keller, the founder of Keller-Williams.  What a success story that company has been, until recently.  I picked up a copy of Gary’s book, Shift, and was surprised that the creative business genius was gone.  Here is the founder of the franchise rallying his troops to work harder and to hold more open houses.  He instructs his agents to take open houses to an entirely new level with colored balloons and mailings to 100 adjacent homes.  What?  Did I really read that?  Did Gary Keller really write that?

I stopped to look at the date on the book, because maybe it was published in the 1960s.  No, it is a new book.  Our own National Association of Realtors tells us that only 1% to 2% of homes sell at open houses, and I am certain that statistic is valid only in a healthy real estate market, not a recession.  Holding more open houses and taking them to new levels is not exactly wisdom shouting from the rooftops.  This is not advise that will help Realtors sell those homes, nor is it sage advise for homeowners who need to get their homes sold as quickly as possible.  This is not exactly the cutting edge of real estate marketing either.

Where is the wisdom?  Once you start asking this rhetorical question, you’ll find yourself asking it often.

Real Estate Marketing Gone Wild

Gary was a national hero to thousands of Realtors who got rich with their revenue sharing program.  I have always thought of Gary as a genius, but in my humble opinion (and I truly mean humble, because I could be wrong) Gary suffers from the same handicap that so many of the other franchise and bricks-and-mortar brokerages suffer from:  they are stuck in an outdated business model that serves their own financial welfare more than it serves consumers.  Consumers are done with old ways of doing business.  They want and demand change, and Realtors are leaving the franchises in large numbers in search of a new business model.

Homeowners who want to sell their homes, who need to sell their homes, don’t need platitudes.  Homeowners want the truth.  They want to know about effective real estate marketing.  They want to know from their Realtor what actually works to market a home effectively today.  They don’t want false promises, pie-in-the-sky claims, or gimmicks that Realtors use to get listings.

Where is the wisdom?  Today I think homeowners must take responsibility to recognize where wisdom is not, and pursue wisdom where it can be found.  In other words, the world has gotten so crazy, I think it takes wisdom to recognize wisdom.

Real Estate Marketing and Wisdom

If you have a home for sale, my recommendation is that you seek out a professional Realtor with wisdom, but realize that it takes wisdom to recognize wisdom.  And that is certainly true when it comes to real estate marketing.

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We have been taught in business that referrals are the most reliable way to find a professional, and we have been taught for decades that the best source of business is referrals from happy clients or friends or business acquaintances.  And that has been the teaching in the real estate brokerage business, at least it used to be.

Referrals are still an important source of business, and a referral from a credible person to a truly professional Realtor who knows what they are doing, has vast experience, is using effective marketing techniques, has integrity, and so on, would be an example of the rule that referrals are good.

But more and more referrals in the real estate business are turning out to be a curse rather than a blessing.  What do I mean?  There’s nothing like a true story to make the point.

I got a call from a gentleman who showed me his house many months ago.  He and his siblings had inherited the property, and it is a very special property.  He really believed in what I am doing in terms of marketing, and he appreciated my 20 years experience as a real estate attorney and my many years in real estate sales and how I am reaching buyers from outside our area on the Internet.  But heirs always have to work together in listing and selling a property, and while he may have felt I was the Realtor for the job, he had a couple of siblings from outside the are who had not met me, but who had received a referral to a “traditional real estate broker and agent.”  Understandably, they wanted to go with this credible referral.

After months of “nothingness,” all of the siblings agreed that their traditional agent was not the great referral they had thought or hoped.  The comment was that the agent put the listing in the MLS and then did virtually nothing.  I cannot tell you how many times I hear that same complaint, over and over again.  I would not write about this if so many people did not keep getting hurt (a delay of many months, especially past the selling season, can cost a seller a lot of money and stress).

What I do to market a property effectively is so much more, but that is beyond the scope of this short article.  The point here is that referrals are not necessarily reliable these days when it comes to real estate agents.  This story I’ve shared is not an isolated story.  There are many more stories just like this.

A gentleman called me to ask about a listing I had, which he had made an offer on through his own agent.  I immediately explained to him that I cannot talk to him as he is represented by his own buyer’s agent.  He was very kind and responded that his own agent was making a mess of things, including his own offer, and that was frustrating to him.  I told him I still must ethically ask him to work through his agent so long as his agent represented him.  Before we hung up, he volunteered that his agent was referred to him by a trusted friend.

While referrals to good real estate agents used to be a simple matter, it has dramatically changed as the real estate market has changed, as marketing has changed, as old media is collapsing, and as Realtors have had to re-invent themselves.  But the traditional brokerage is almost outmoded, which reminds me of print newspapers which are going out of business all over the country.  What is traditional real estate brokerage?  Here’s an interesting bullet list from one author.

• A real estate company that focuses on it’s brand more than the consumer.
• A real estate company that is highly leveraged with office space and expensive leases.
• A real estate company that hires agents blindly creating a revolving door that can damage the brand on which they are spending so much money.
• The real estate company that continues to make promises to it’s agents that it can’t deliver due to corporate bureacracy.
• The real estate company that decreases dollars spent on the consumer in an effort to maintain profit due to high overhead.
• The real estate company who is “trapped in the box” with no ability to truly see “outside of it.”
• The real estate company that defends a 6% commission while providing less service than it did 10 years ago.
• The real estate company that claims to embrace change all the while avoiding it like the plague.
• The real estate company that talks the talk but resists walking the walk.

Fascinating list, isn’t it?  This comes from an article entitled The Traditional Real Estate Brokerage Model is Broken.

Conclusion:  Accepting a referral to a real estate agent from someone today is not much better than picking a name out of the yellow pages (wait, who even uses the yellow pages anymore?), unless . . . the person referring you to that Realtor can speak from a deep foundation of knowledge about that Realtor’s experience and knowledge AND about their effective marketing techniques.  If they cannot do that, you are better off, in my humble opinion, doing your own due diligence to find the best Realtor you can find.

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True story.  Buyers arrive from the hot south to look at homes in the Sequim and Port Angeles area.  They’re excited about retiring on the Olympic Peninsula, and enjoy looking at homes with a broad range of features and prices.  After spending time with their Buyer’s Agent (that would be yours truly), looking at a number of potentially great homes, the list is shortened to . . . “the one.”   It’s no small thing to find “the one” in this life.  We start that search early on.  Grade school girls begin searching for “the one” out of ignorance, thinking that there really is a guy out there who is perfect.  High school boys commence their search for “the one,” only it’s not a girl.  It’s a beautiful car with loud mufflers.  Hollywood even made a movie about “the one” and called it the Matrix.

Perhaps for retirees who have been down the road of life a little further, experienced some of the bumps along the way and had a few flat tires, moving to Sequim or Port Angeles to retire and find the ideal home is not so much about searching for “the one.”  Retirees have the advantage of a lifetime of experience and no longer wear rose-colored glasses.  Reality replaces fantasy, and one comes to realize there is no such thing as “the one.”  (Sorry, Keanu Reeves.)  What retirees do have is wisdom and rational thought, common sense built on a lifetime of solid experience.

So when the buyers from the hot south decided to make an offer on said home, aka “the one” in this story, they first inquired with their Buyer’s Agent at the county building department as to the date the home was built and other details about the construction and permits issued.  Alas, truth is stranger than fiction, and that is true more than once in this story.  Our good buyers found out that said home is completely illegal, never had a building permit issued, nor are any of the outbuildings permitted.

As my mother used to say, “Oh my!”  I suppose there are more popular colloquialisms that might be uttered, but not by me.  (I have no idea what those words would be.)  After much discussion with the kind county officials about what would have to be done to make the home legal, it was apparent that there would have to be thorough inspections from the crawl space to the peak of the roof, including concrete, frame construction, roofing, insulation, wiring, and on and on.  The bottom line is that the building department would issue a building permit if the owners went through the entire application and permitting process and proved all of the construction, electrical, plumbing, etc. complied with the building code.  The house would have to be inspected by engineers, electricians, carpenters, roofers, and probably by my mother.

Walls would have to be ripped open for many of these inspections, framing would be examined for code compliance, nails have to meet minimum specifications, flooring and carpet might have to be pulled, concrete bore samples may be necessary to prove the concrete will meet pressure requirements and has sufficient rebar, and so on.  You get the idea.  The cost would be exorbitant, and there is absolutely no guarantee that the county would issue a building permit and occupancy permit.  This home turned out to be an extraordinary disaster, and why someone would do such extensive construction, build a custom home with absolutely no permits, is really an amazing thing in 2010.

As the annoying late night commercials used to say, “Wait, there’s more!”  If you aren’t already shaking your head in amazement, as were these buyers and yours truly, imagine our amazement when we figured out the seller had never disclosed any of these things to his listing agent.  The fist time the listing agent heard the house was unpermitted and completely illegal was when I told her.  As the cell phone texters like to say, “OMG.”

What would you do if you were a buyer in this situation?  (I know you’re thinking “run.”)  The intelligent and reasonable buyers in this story who happened to be my clients (I always get the most intelligent and reasonable clients), decided to make an offer at a lower price that was well within reason, considering the circumstances, and they also required the seller to prove to the county that the home had been built to meet the requirements of the building code.  Not unreasonable at all, right?

Ah, but remember, truth is stranger than fiction (and this is the second time that is true in this story), and so the sellers (or was it the seller’s agent/broker?) came back with a counter that wanted the buyers to pay nearly full price and . . . no permit would be obtained by the sellers.  In other words, the seller (or was it the seller’s agent/broker?) was saying, “Buy this house that is completely illegal with no permits and which could be red-tagged because no occupancy permit has ever been issued, at full listing price (which is far above the fair market value for an illegal home that cannot be lived in . . . legally), and by the way, we’ll throw in the washer and dryer.”

Does the word “insanity” come to mind?  Or perhaps “irrational” is better.  Or “unreasonable,” “ridiculous,” or “unbelievable.”  The counteroffer was so extraordinarily ridiculous that my clients used the word “Saturn” to describe where the sellers must live.

This kind of negotiation can happen when one of two things happen, and they can happen independently or together.  First, a seller may actually be from another planet, which is to say they may be completely irrational.  Second, the seller may have an agent (or broker) who is completely irrational.  They make those kind, too.  If either or both are true, move on.  You cannot negotiate with someone who has both feet firmly planted in thin air.  There are many other homes, and most of those homes are owned by rational human beings who . . . actually got permits when they built their homes.  What a novel concept!

How did my clients respond to the counteroffer from Saturn?  They said, “Oh my!”  And then they decided to move on.  They had no interest in trying to negotiate with citizens from another planet.

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