In my journey through the world of real estate agency and investing over the past few years, I have noticed that buying and selling real estate is not about the property being bought or sold. It's about marketing. More specifically, I've been told it's about marketing myself as a brand that is set apart from other agents and investors; because the real estate business is saturated with competition and if I don't have a unique selling proposition I'm not going to get clients.
That self-oriented approach always seemed counterintuitive to me as an agent. Aren't we supposed to be putting the client first? Then why are we told to promote ourselves so much?
As many people know, recently there was a lawsuit against The National Association of Realtors (NAR) and several large brokerages. The settlement, which came into effect in August 2024, prohibits brokerages from setting standard commission rates. The rate has to be negotiable, and agents have to clearly communicate that to sellers. There's a bunch of other stuff, but the focus was on transparency regarding commissions and representation.
This lawsuit was bound to happen, because it was becoming increasingly apparent that many agents were marketing themselves in ways that compromised their fiduciary responsibility to their clients.
I say "many" because not all real estate agents promote themselves excessively. There are exceptions, but the popular trend in the real estate culture today is for agents to sell themselves in order to justify their commission rate, prove their value, and ensure future business for themselves.
However, to simply sell a home an agent doesn't have to market themselves. They have to market the house effectively. Same goes for getting a buyer to make an offer. I'm not being a very good agent if I get a client to make an offer through my effective marketing skills, but the house winds up being full of problems or something they weren't looking for.
Selling myself only becomes a smart strategy when I am looking for continued business. It's more about my next move in my real estate business, and less about my client's move. As agents, I'm expected to put up signs on the lawn of the houses I list with my name and face on them to market myself. I'm expected to build websites and social media pages that revolve around me, my marketing skills, my expertise, to market myself. I'm expected to memorize scripts that present my unique selling proposition, to market myself---not the house I am trying to sell.
Take, for instance, this statement in a recent brokerage course on scripts that I took:
"When working a listing, in addition to the sale that will take place when the listing closes, you also have an opportunity to bring in buyer leads and advertise for additional listings in the area… which means more future business!"
The statement is focused on the agent's business, not the clients or real estate. It's a strategy on how to get more "leads", who are actually people, by the way. Calling a person a "lead" reduces them to what they are to me, and how they can benefit my real estate business. It's putting me before them. It doesn't matter what language I use when I speak to a client when I'm taught to think of them as a "lead" and not a person.
This all-about-me business approach isn't just a lazy summary of what I've learned through my real estate training. Trainers and mentors have literally said, "It's all about you."
It's actually about real estate
What if, when promoting a listing, instead of putting up signs with my name and picture on them, I put up signs with a picture of the interior of the house and maybe even mentioned the number of beds and baths and square footage? What if, instead of giving my unique selling proposition, I researched everything I could about the home before reaching out to the seller? Then, while talking to them, I could explain specific ways I would highlight their house's special features, and the factors that would work to their advantage in their campaign to sell their home with me?
What if agents actually tried to sell the house, and not themselves?
There is some value to selling ourselves, but we do that by proving how well we know the house, the neighborhood, current market trends, the advantages the seller has, and other factors pertinent to the property and our client's situation.
During my time in the real estate business, I've heard less talk about the actual real estate we are trying to sell and more talk about revenue shares and commission splits. I understand that being a salesperson is a large part of being a real estate agent. In the beginning I really wrestled with that because I never thought I had the right personality to be a salesperson. The whole profession seemed sleazy and cheesy to me.
But having a Christian background, I've noticed that being a salesperson can be like evangelizing when done right. Salespeople are spreading the good news about their product or service (in real estate, it's both), and if they're doing the business right their work is a kind of charity. As real estate agents, we're looking out for our clients, helping them make good decisions regarding what is or what will become possibly their greatest asset.
That's all great. But in my time within the real estate business, I've found that I'm learning much more about how to be a good salesperson than I am about actual real estate. I can know all of the ins and outs about doing business and learn all the universal skills necessary to sell anything, but I still need to learn my business. I still need to learn real estate. I still need to know housing marketing trends, local market factors, real estate laws, and concepts specific to the business. I need to know about plumbing, electrical, construction, masonry, zoning laws, septic tanks and wells. I need to know how to complete a transaction.
But 90 percent of what I've been learning is about marketing myself. The actual real estate business is like a walled city that doesn't let people in unless ... unless ... well, I actually don't even know how to get in.
Following the advice of real estate advisors has helped me learn how to sell just about anything, but obtaining the knowledge and skills necessary to actually help people make good real estate decisions has been a hard nut to crack. How am I supposed to convince a potential client that I can sell their house or find them a home if my knowledge of houses and the housing market is limited?
Well, I can spend my time prospecting, going on appointments, coming up with systems for managing my customer relations management software, and attending meetings about how to more effectively do these things. I can practice scripts designed to convince people that I know about real estate, when I've really just spent my time learning the above.
Marketing has become so dominant in our society because, sadly, we are more concerned about ourselves than we are about bigger things like our community. As agents, we're told to listen to our clients' concerns---no matter how selfish or unreasonable they may be---because that's what we're doing and we can't expect them to be any different than us. Real estate professionals have told me that prospective clients only care about themselves. They're not interested in bigger things like building stronger communities, for example. That's a very cynical, condescending mindset to have, especially when we're claiming to be working for the client's best interests. It is possible that a seller has concerns other than getting the most money for their house, concerns that transcend their own interests. Money is not the solution to every problem. For instance, a seller often regards expediency and convenience as more important than money
True, if you appeal to a client's avarice and selfishness they may be persuaded to become so. But if you appeal to their good will, you will get much further in building strong relationships. Making deals happen is a fruit of that labor. But there is a need to focus less on making money ourselves and more on getting people moving when the circumstances are right, because right now the real estate market is in a stalemate. People are afraid to sell, and as a result there is a housing shortage, leaving many eager buyers out of the housing market because they can't afford what is available. The goal is to get the seller's house sold, and help people find the home they need.
More on the lawsuit
This is just a theory, but I think agents' concerns for their own commission has led to the housing shortage. I think the housing shortage instigated the Department of Justice's investigation into real estate transactions, and this led to the discovery of what they deemed to be collusion. I have to admit, in my experience in the real estate world, I have gotten the sense that all the important transaction stuff is done behind closed doors, leaving a lot of room for brokerages to disregard transparency. This, over the years, has bred a general distrust in agents and brokerages, which in turn has made sellers and buyers reluctant to make a real estate move with the professionals most qualified to help them: real estate agents and brokers.
So, I have mixed opinions about the NAR settlement. It is causing agents to rethink their approach to marketing. That's a good thing. The settlement is ensuring that agents are transparent in all communications with clients. It's demystifying the real estate business by giving clients more information about commissions.
Nonetheless, the whole lawsuit is very tiresome to me, mainly because it highlights issues that shouldn't have existed in the first place. If real estate agents embraced the subject of real estate more than marketing, everyone would more easily see their value. Then there wouldn't be so much talk, confusion, suspicion and distrust surrounding commissions.
Ugly capitalism
The lawsuit is a typical case of government watchdogs tightening the leash on capitalist business owners. Real estate agents and investors are, afterall, business owners. Most small business owners love the business they're in more than business itself. It's a shame that we have to know so much about business to run any kind of business these days. This makes our business more about money than about the actual product or service we're offering.
If I'm a barber who owns my own shop, its success should depend more on how well I cut hair, and less on how business-savvy I am. If I own a restaurant, its success should depend on the quality of the food and service, not the effectiveness of my marketing strategy. But I'm seeing more and more businesses prevail simply because they're good at doing business, even if the product or service they offer isn't that good.
This is all the sad consequence of too much capitalism, which leads to the government trying to fix the problem, which just leads to an even bigger mess. As American citizens, we need to show that we can solve our own problems. We can start by having better core values and principles. One of the strongest foundational values we can have is in Jesus' words:
“If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all” (Matthew 9:35).
A Better Way to Do Real Estate
I aim to put my service before self-promotion and concerns about money. In fact, I propose a new approach for agents and investors: sell for less. You may think there's no way doing this can help the seller, but serving sellers alone hurts them in the long run and negatively impacts their community. Here's how.
The real estate market is a huge part of our economy. By driving up the cost of homes, seller's agents aren't really helping their clients or themselves. That higher sale price is going to raise the price of other comparable homes in the area, making them harder to sell. When home prices go up, it pushes many homebuyers out of the market.
On top of that, other business owners are going to have to raise their prices in order to afford real estate. Next thing you know, as the price of homes goes up, the price of gas goes up, the price of groceries goes up, the price of services goes up, and the value of the dollar goes down.
Are you really helping the seller if you're making it harder for them to buy a home in the future? There is a need to prevent the rise of home prices so everyone's dollar goes further. There is a need to sell homes at fair market value, because the rising price of real estate is one of the main causes of inflation.
Many attempts to get a listing sold at a higher price are just putting lipstick on a pony anyway. The house could be fine, but lipstick is still just lipstick whether you put it on an old, fat, dirty hog or a thoroughbred. In other words, no amount of high quality photos and rearranging of furniture is going to change the true value of a home. Doing those things may help get the house sold for a higher price, but unless you make substantial improvements, like upgrade the kitchen, the true value of the home is the same no matter how well you stage it.
The Art of Subtlety
This is why I hate the real estate agent's designation as a salesperson. I wish I could just cross out that wording on my license. No one likes to be sold anything, unless by "sold" we mean actually going through with the transaction. Real estate sells itself. It is what it is. It doesn't need anyone to sell it. Agents complicate the whole matter with superfluous presentations, elaborate open houses, and intrusive marketing blasts. In the age of the internet, people know how to find what they're looking for. It's literally a matter of typing the specifics into a search engine. But, if I want to set myself apart and prove how I'm so much better than all the other agents, I should market, market, market until the little piggy goes all the way home. After all, it's all about me.
Also, as much as I hate to admit it, every town is already a marketplace. Driving into a town is basically the same as walking into a store. Every house may not be sale, but the houses are just the individual items on the shelf. Real estate today is built in districts, subdivisions, and developments. Buyers pick their house by neighborhood. They like a neighborhood, and then look for a house for sale in it. Agents and investors actually base their comparables on that factor more than anything: Is it in the same neighborhood?
It's kind of like going to a grocery store for apples, then picking the ones in the produce section that you like. You're probably not going to leave without any apples because the apples sell themselves. If a buyer is going to buy a property, it's because he already bought a similar one in his mind.
Finding out our work isn't as important as we once thought it was could be a rude awakening. We all want to feel important. It's a natural human desire because we're fallen and subject to pursuits of vanity. But really, agents don't have to be salespersons. We just have to be store clerks. If I walk into a store and see an employee, I'm hoping he or she doesn't walk over to me to try and sell me something. A simple, "Welcome, let me know if you need anything" is the most polite and helpful thing they could say. I know why I'm there. I don't want to be sold anything. I'm looking to buy something. Get out of my way ... please.
But, I'm sorry, from what I've observed in the real estate agent business, agents are so eager to sell their listing or get their client to make an offer that they disregard the art of subtlety. In the classes I took about how to promote a listing, I was basically taught to pry information out of everyone who walked through the door of an open house. I don't see the point. If they're serious about buying, they'll come to me. Then is when I'd ask the tough questions and offer all the knowledge I gathered on the house and neighborhood.
This subtle approach puts the agent in a position of power, and the potential buyer knows and respects that position: he's probably thinking, the agent has been given agency over something I want, so I should respect his answers, requests and questions. If I'm just bombarding everyone who walks into an open house with questions, that puts them in a position of power they don't even want to be in.
I've been persuaded to buy things that I didn't originally want, only to find that my original impulse was right: I didn't want it before the salesperson talked to me and I didn't want it after I bought it. I don't want to put others in that situation. I don't want that responsibility. That's not my job. The most I can do is help someone notice what they already want, and help them acquire it. I have no interest in persuading people to buy anything, especially a house. I have no scripts. That's my pitch. Take it or leave it.
I've spent a long time crafting a deeply convicting "why" in my real estate business. A "why" can evolve over time, but right now I aim to do honest, modest work by helping to keep home prices affordable, reasonable, and fair. If someone adds true value to a home by upgrading the appliances, fixing what is broken, and paying off liens---for instance---then it is fair and reasonable to raise its price. That is why I like working with flippers, or rehabbers, who add true value to a home before putting it back on the market.
My real estate strategy is eccentric, but I strongly believe it is what we need today. Not only does our economy need a more honest and fair real estate market. Our culture also needs a more genuine approach to marketing in every area of business, one where business owners love and embrace the art and essence of their profession and see it as a vocation, not just a money maker.
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