I do absolutely agree with your statement that the more exposure that you give to a listing, the better. This is ABSOLUTELY TRUE. Yes I do agree that one never knows when or where a buyer would come from.
When I go on listing appointments I also tell people that if they want open houses, they can hold them on thier own, I will give them signs, advertise in the San Diego Union for them in the Sunday open house directory as well for that open house. I also do hold brokers tours for properties that I feel will benefit more from that tour. Personally I believe a brokers tour will be more effective for a home in Rancho Santa Fe as opposed to a home in Lemon Grove. I feel that when you get into higher end homes that you tend to cater to buyers who rely more on buyers agents to find thier homes then the “average buyer”. I feel that the “average buyer” of today would be classified as follows:
– computer savy
– does alot of thier own searcing in realtor.com or similar sites.
– not searching for what I would call high end housing
So when I talk to leads at listing appointments I tell them my thoughts on this and let them make the choice accordingly. If they think that an extra 2% is worth paying for having someone else hold the open house or for a brokers tour, then they should at the very least ask for hard data to show that. If in your listings you have seen that over the past year that the open houses you held and the brokers tours you had contributed to the sales then that is great.
Doesn’t it bother you at all to have your own profession held in contempt by a large segment of the population?
No I do not have all the answers to fix the system but I do think that many of the postings that people make that are disparaging to realtors are more closer to the truth then not. I am not saying realtors don’t work hard because some of them do. However how has the industry revolutionized itself over the past 30 or 40 years? What has justified the tremendous increase in revenues of participants in that industry? While your commission percentage stays the same you would have no doubt made much more money year over year for the past 6 years if you made the same number of sales correct?
So lets run numbers… if you sold a 300k home in 1998 and you got to keep 1.5% so you walked with 4500… lets say you sold 15 homes that year and walked with 66,500. Now 6 years later you have doubled your salary if you did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING different. Your salary just floated with the tide.
This I think is what infuriates people so much. I am sure you are a great realtor. However, how many stories do you hear from clients who complain about thier realtor. How many transactions are you in where you are frustrated by the ineptitude of the other realtor. Yet they have had thier salaries rise with the tide like you have.
I think that you are correct, if the big boys used my there absolutely would be no niche to exploit. I would find something else. However, I also think we would not have as many people who view realtors as nothing more then overpayed car salesman.
Again, I do not discourage people from using Realtors who charge 1%, 2% or 3%. I encourage people to simply ask for hard data when interviewing thier realtor. No disrespect taken at all from your post or your implication that as a second business I provide my clients with substandard service.
