Have your heard this comment before? Real estate is a relationship business. This means the more people who know you and like you, the more real estate business you will receive.
And it’s true. The more people who know you and like you, the more real estate business you will receive.
But is real estate really a relationship business?
Inspired by the Bravo reality series, “Million Dollar Listing,” just one of the dozens of real estate reality shows currently gracing the television, it begs for this question.
The young male stars of this show seem to have an unending supply of “dear friends” with dollars to spend on real estate. “After all,” says Chad, one of the agents, “Real estate is a relationship business.”
If you’ve ever watched the show with a cynical eye, you might have noticed that these young men tend to give sometimes laughably self-serving advice. Such advice as their advice to their “dear friends” to make full price offers in a declining market before the house even hits the market. They allow their sellers to dictate the price and terms of their listings, whining all the while that the seller is being unreasonable. They talk their buyers out of even asking for repairs at inspection because the seller has already come down on his price (again, in a recessionary market).
So, what does this have to do with real estate and relationships?
Selling real estate is about knowing how to sell real estate. Let’s say that differently. It’s about knowing how to manage and facilitate the exchange of real property so that the buyer or seller who hired you is satisfied with the outcome.
Sure, building a real estate business may have everything to do with your relationships, but, as agents, that’s not what we do. Is tax preparation a relationship business? Is dentistry a relationship business? Is dog-training a relationship business?
No, we expect our tax preparers to know how to prepare taxes. We hope our dentists know how to fix cavities. We expect a dog-trainer to be a master in dog behavior. That’s their business.
Our buyers and sellers have the right to expect that we know our business. This means how to manage and facilitate the exchange of real property, not how to persuade our “dear friends” to provide us with easy paychecks.