It Ain't All Big Hair and Cadillacs

Ok - I have to admit it - I am finding that I have more idle time in my day - clearly my time blogging has not yet resulted in the deluge of qualified buyers and sellers that are promised by the "experts". So, as a social experiment, I have decided to blog more in the attempt to attract more buyers and sellers -

here goes...

Aside from being a self-subscribed caffiene addict, I also realize that I have become unhealthily (is that a word?) addicted to LinkedIn, Twitter, PropertyQube and Trulia - as well as additional social networking sites that serve the real estate community. Facinating! I continue to be drawn into the discussions and quite honestly, I am learning some really great stuff.

In my idle boredom, I decided to throw out my own questions because I am excited about the prospect of learning from my peers as well as possible clients.

I threw out a few questions - what sites do consumers like most when searching for property? - what's the most creative marketing you've done / come across in marketing a property?

and - what I felt was a fairly innoquious question, "What are a real estate agent's core competencies?" I wanted to hear what other agents had to share regarding their skill sets - what ultimately creates value and makes them money. Many of the responses were great. I was surprised, however, that I received so many responses that I honestly felt simply missed the mark. I received one response telling me my question was "odd".

Disclaimer: I do not know everything about buying and selling real estate and I do not profess to be the source of all information. Ok - now that I have that out of the way - people - core competencies are the value-added activities we do - many of which are intangible - that justify getting paid for what we do as real estate practioners. Cha-ching.


I am a practitioner - I continue to practice until I get really, really good at what I do. But practicing is an appropriate word, because as the landscape of the real estate environment changes, we must continue to hone our skills and knowledge. But key to all of that is - finding the intersection between our core competencies and meeting our clients needs.

I referenced the changing landscape of real estate because there are an onslaught of technology solutions hell-bent on eating our lunch. Many of these solutions are meeting the needs of the consumer because we have either failed to understand the need or have neglected to tell the consumer how/why we're valuable.

If a client wants to search for their own property - let them - or perhaps we may be able to do a better job sifting through the rift. If a client wants to do the analysis of the comps - let them - or perhaps we need to expertly assimilate the data in a way that imparts our specific knowledge of the property types, the neighborhood and the specifics regarding where the market is headed.

Sometimes experience and intuition is worth something.

If a client wants to negotiate their own contract - let them - or perhaps we should share with them the skills required to provide a win-win for both parties - so after the ink has dried, the deal still sticks.

Maybe the commission based model isn't in our best interests as real estate practitioners because it fails to articulate the real value-add of the many things we do to get the job done.

Ask yourself - what is at your core? Anyone? Buehler?