I read recently that real finds estate salespeople rank only a notch or two above used car salespeople in terms of public perception of integrity. Wow --- that' pretty low! I'll admit, there have been occasions during the last 2 years when I've had a twinge of embarrassment in telling people I've just met what I do for a living -- as if the crash of the real estate market was MY idea!

Maybe a captive realtor who works in new construction selling for the builder/developer has to use high-pressure methods to "sell" customers on their particular development .. but that's not how it works with self-employed real estate consultants, either on the "buyer" side or the "seller" side.

If you are a buyer and we are your agents, our job is to find out what you want, to find it for you, and put the deal together. We don't have any incentive to "sell" you on any particular house -- one is as good as another -- but it better be the house YOU will be happy in. 

We do get paid when you buy, but we make our living by serving you so well that you feel compelled to tell your friends and family that we are the only realtors in your phone book! If we don't make you happy, that's not going to happen, so our job is to serve and to serve well.

If you are a seller and we are listing your home, our job is to position that home to be competitive. Out of the vast sea of people looking for a home in our area, there is a smaller group that is looking for a home similar to yours, and an even smaller subset who will find that your exact house is just right . The overwhelming odds are that one of the other 4,500 realtors in our area will be the one who is working with that particular buyer. So again, there is no place for sales as we think of it. The home must be marketed to other realtors and to internet-based consumers, but there is no place for high-pressure tactics -- just effective marketing so the right buyer finds the house.

We spend a LOT of time going to trainings, and it's not to learn how to "close" people or push them into signing the contract. It's about the technical aspects of providing high-quality service ... what do YOU need to know about insurance ... property taxes ... inspections, mold, radon ... title insurance ... and we'll be sharing that information here in the next blog post and the one after that and so on ...

The old saying is that EDUCATION is what you get when you read the fine print. EXPERIENCE is what you get when you don't! We read a lot of fine print, because we don't like surprises and we don't think our clients do either.

So are we in real estate sales? It doesn't seem that way to me -- we're in the business of serving people.