We’ve Seen The Enemy
May 13th, 2009 categories: Military Installations, Real Estate News, Relocating
One of the benefits of being a teacher or instructor is the interaction with peers. The opportunity for feedback is almost limitless. Discussions with students are almost always entertaining, and hopefully instructive. And the “instructive” aspect goes both ways. As many teachers will tell you, we, more often than not, learn more from the students than they do from us.
This column has been in the works for weeks. Well, at least I’ve mentally started it on various occasions. But, as life tends to do, other, more pressing tasks have, in the meantime, overtaken my schedule. But, yesterday, after coming across an article on the Real Estate blog, Agent Genius, written by our local Association’s Education Director, Matthew Rathbun, I was reminded of my article-to-be . Our director’s article echo’s the many complaints I’ve heard from students since stepping into the classroom as an instructor a little over a year ago. Their biggest complaint isn’t about the real estate process, or the contracts that they have to use, or the mortgage industry, or even the erratic appraisal business. Their biggest complaint is about other agents. And, it isn’t even close!
Complaints about agents aren’t something new. We’ve heard it for years from home buyers, home sellers, and yes, other agents. But, it reminds me of the outrage and uproar about members of Congress. How they are all crooked and self serving. Well, all of them except my Congressman or Representative.
What are the complaints about Realtors? They run the entire gamut, from lack of communication to various forms of “unprofessional” behavior. These include, in no particular order:
- Lack of communication – Difficult to get ahold of, not updating clients or other agents on the status of a property, not returning phone calls or e-mails, etc (you get the picture)
- Unaware of what real estate contract verbiage says or means – Unable or unwilling to explain what contract documents say to their clients, negotiating contracts based upon false assumptions or a misunderstanding of what the contract says (Do you know what broom swept or clean means?….and that’s the easy part)
- Not showing up – have you ever heard the term, “required formation”?
- Not being on time – agents are notorious for being late (and, yes, so are clients)
- Others….
Every profession has its share of complaints about the way business is conducted. But, normally, the majority of the criticism comes from consumers, or from the “cheap seats” (those critical of the business but not involved in it). But, our profession, the real estate industry, probably hears more criticism from its’ members than it does from outside sources. Are we just a profession of whiners or is the criticism justified? More importantly, if the critics are even close to the mark, how do we improve the way conduct business?
We’ll get into that on Page 2.
