Real estate brokers are discovering that their entire industry is changing.  The real estate recession has certainly been a major factor, but the underlying tectonic forces have more to do with changes in consumer preferences.  Consumers are using technology to find their homes and their real estate brokers.

Consumers are no longer willing to be sold with obnoxious advertising and told what to buy and when to buy it. Consumers are sick and tired of interruption advertising, of billboards, of high pressure salesmen, of telemarketing, and of misrepresentations and boldfaced lies. Real estate brokers are right in the middle of all these changes.  I believe it was Seth Godin who first coined the phrase, “interruption advertising.” It’s a very descriptive phrase of traditional advertising that interrupts your favorite movie with an ad for a product you don’t want and don’t care about, or a large obnoxious page in a magazine or newspaper that interrupts your reading experience.

Real Estate Brokers – Not Business as Usual

Consumers have also had it with professional conflicts of interest, especially with real estate brokers. They’re fed up with only getting partial information upon which to base their most important decisions. Consumers want and demand freedom to control their own destiny. They don’t like being controlled. They don’t like being manipulated. I write here about changes in consumer behavior and preferences in the context of buying real estate, but isn’t it interesting that the same could be said of consumers’ feelings about politicians, Wall Street, and salesmen in every industry? This tectonic shift in consumer behavior is changing the world.

The catalyst that has empowered consumers and is forcing these changes that are the death knell of traditional real estate brokerage is . . . advances in technology. (more…)

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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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Sequim real estate agents come in all sizes, shapes, backgrounds, educations, experiences, and personalities.  This is no small issue, because when you buy a home in Sequim or Port Angeles, you want to be certain that you have a professional who is competent and experienced.  Right?  Absolutely!  But you also want a buyer’s agent with whom you feel comfortable.  You are about to spend a small fortune, and you are about to make a commitment to a home that will mean you live here for the rest of your life.  At least that’s your plan, right?

The landscape of Sequim real estate agents is interesting.  Let’s have some fun with this.

Sequim Real Estate Agents

We have Sequim real estate agents who are very young and some who knew Moses personally.  We have agents who have college degrees and some who had trouble in Kindergarten.  Some are tall and thin while others are not so tall and not so thin.  Others are bald (mostly the men), and the females tend to have a variety of hairstyles, like curly (not the three stooges guy), stringy, fuzzy, and up high.

And then there are Sequim real estate agents who have a lifetime of experience in real estate, marketing and sales, legal contracts and drafting language, and in recent years technology and Internet marketing, and others who . . . have backgrounds as varied as retired military, school teacher, McDonald’s manager, housewife (an honorable profession), preacher, home builder, Starbucks coffee expert, waitress (waiter), construction worker, mortgage rep, and car salesman.

And it will be no surprise that the variety does not end there.  We have Sequim real estate agents who are straight laced with no sense of humor and who even walk as stiff as a board.  And we have agents who are as gay as the sunshine (no judgment here).  I presume they are proud of their sexual preference as I am of mine.

Sequim Real Estate Agents – Personalities

And the shades of personalities among Sequim real estate agents is also entertaining:  quiet and reserved, bold and loud, humble and respectful, arrogant and demanding, expressionless and cold, and warm and smiley.  I love the variety of agents in this business.  But then again as I reflect on these variations, it just reminds me that real estate agents are as varied as the general population itself.

One suggestion for selecting one of the many Sequim real estate agents:  select three, interview the other two and then come interview me.  Chose the one you think is best suited for you personally.  Go with your gut feeling as much as with your intellect.  After all, this is one of the most important decisions of your life.

Here’s another article about the future of real estate:  Sequim Real Estate

Sequim real estate agents . . . are buyer’s agents like me.

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Have you done a search on the Internet for Sequim real estate agents to help you buy your retirement home?  Back in the day buyers had to walk into a brick-and-mortar and sit down with some agent, any agent, it didn’t matter who to people back then, and you would find homes to look at by paging through a book of listings.

Sequim Real Estate Agents

Can Sequim Real Estate Agents Help?

Beginning the process of finding a home has changed so much in the past 20 years (in the last 5 years), that it seems like another life time since that 300 page MLS blue book.  This cork board is what I think many buyer’s cork board might look like, if they used one.  There are a hundred unanswered questions, and trying to do it yourself, especially if you are from outside the Sequim or Port Angeles area can be daunting.  I recommend hiring an agent from among the long list of Sequim real estate agents.

Are Sequim Real Estate Agents Old School or New?

I marvel at how buyers in the ’70s and ’80s didn’t give much thought to who they hired as their real estate agent.  They just hired whoever answered the phone or whoever had floor duty.  But times have changed, and buyers are much more aware of the need to be well represented, and who hasn’t heard stories (or had a personal nightmare) with an agent who just got their license or had little professional experience to do a good job.  And we won’t even get into the heavy subject of unethical agents and self-dealing agents, and there are plenty of those stories.

My perspective on Sequim real estate agents is that they are good people but mostly old school.  I say this with a smile on my face, because I’m 55 but I think I’m new school.  There are many reasons I say that, but that’s beyond the scope of this little article.  (Just browse this blog for an hour and you’ll see why I say I’m new school.)  But I think you can understand that small towns tend to be behind the times, and business owners, including Realtors, tend to be slow to pick up on new trends or new technologies.  Sequim is an agricultural community and largely old school.  That’s not bad for the community, but when you are looking for real estate, you’ll want new school in your buyer’s agent.

Looking for the right agent out of the couple of hundred Sequim real estate agents ought to involve more than the flip of the coin, or simply hiring the person who answers the phone first, or just hiring whomever has floor duty at the front desk.

There are serious questions you need answered.  Just click on the cork board above (first and then again after a few seconds to enlarge it), and you’ll see some of the relevant questions buyers are asking of Sequim real estate agents, and as a buyer, you’re probably asking these questions, too.  Can you answer all of these questions for the Sequim and Port Angeles areas? If not, look for Sequim real estate agents that can help.  Do your due diligence on the Internet and hire the best.  I hope you hire me, but even if you don’t, the questions on the cork board are still relevant, and there are more questions you need to get answered before you finalize the purchase of your retirement home.

I recommend someone who can not only answer your questions, but a Sequim buyer’s agent who shares questions you haven’t thought of, and then helps you answer them.  Remember that the answers you get are only as good as the questions you ask.

There are many good Sequim real estate agents and I recommend you hire one to help you answer these questions.

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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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As a Realtor I get all kinds of spam email from so-called real estate gurus who teach seminars to agents on how to get listings and how to capture buyers.  This real estate recession has starved many real estate agents and put some out of business, so this is the perfect storm to sell “guaranteed programs” to Realtors.  I simply delete those spam emails, because I’m busier than I’ve ever been in 30 years in the business.  But even if I wasn’t, I’m not interested in gimmicks to “capture clients.”  I think you’ll see what I’m thinking when you see the titles of some of the emails I get:

• How to list expired listings with our guaranteed program [which consists of letters, knocking on doors, and telephone calls]
• How to list FSBOs every time [which consists of letters, knocking on doors, and telephone calls]
• Listing foreclosures was never easier with our foreclosure system [which consists of letters, knocking on doors, and telephone calls]
• Short Sales made easy with our super short sales system
• How to capture 80% of all the call-ins and make them your clients
• How to give a winning listing presentation every time
• How to hook walk-ins and reel them in just like fish [Okay, I made this one up, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a program like this.]

And so on.  Gimmicks and more gimmicks!  What’s wrong with all of these approaches?

(more…)

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