Getting the Edge in an Ugly Real Estate Market

May 10, 2010 2:10 am Stephan Reference

It doesn’t really make a difference which survey you read, but similar to the annual poll done by Harris Interactive, real estate agents almost always find themselves at the bottom of the “most prestigious” occupations list.

The Ugly Truth
Why? It would seem that many of the best-paying jobs actually rank as the least prestigious -business executive, stockbroker and real estate agent – but to come in dead last with almost one-third of respondents rating real estate agents as having “hardly any prestige at all” is not good.
We need to collectively do something about it. And just changing our title from real estate agent to sales associates to Realtor(r) isn’t really going to make any meaningful difference.

As an industry we have to get out of the “selling,” “deal making” and “quick sale” mentality. We need to transform our image into that of home and lifestyle planners, real estate professionals, advisors and/or consultants.

Paradigm Shift
Remember that at one stage insurance agents sold us “death” policies. Now twice reengineered they are financial planners providing life insurance and estate planning. It may only be words but using the correct ones can and will significantly contribute to changing the perception of who we are, what we do and how much we should be paid for providing that service.

Real estate leaders and brokers need to drive this paradigm shift otherwise it may never occur. Concurrently this period of change needs to be accompanied by a significant increase in the level of education. During the last five years, with the influx of more than a million new agents, not enough time was allocated to education. Throughout the hectic hot property market the industry’s overall lack of emphasis on education has caused its already low perception and poor image to ashamedly become the “dumbest” bunch of agents ever. At the same time consumers have expanded their knowledge of buying and selling homes and so for the first time we find ourselves at the crossroads of being outsmarted on two sides – a more technology savvy consumer and by a new crop of smarter industry entrants.

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