Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
One of my best friends in RE became a millionaire times 5, flunked out of college. A degree in RE would mean nothing in my mind unless you know how to sell, something that can't be taught in the classroom. IMHO
There are quite a few very good experienced agents in my area and office without degrees. They have extensive professional experience that one does not learn in school.
I've seen many Master degrees that are clueless to the way of the world.
One of my best friends in RE became a millionaire times 5, flunked out of college. A degree in RE would mean nothing in my mind unless you know how to sell, something that can't be taught in the classroom. IMHO
That's why we need internships. Most professions require hands on experience to really understand how to do the job properly.
As a consumer, it would help me choose a realtor to know the agents' and brokers' sales history. For example, a table of agent name, broker name, price at which home sold, sold house address (+exterior picture), home zip code, condition rating (i.e. probably the same values the tax agency uses), square footage of home, number of rooms, number of acres, special features of house or property. Another key attribute would be if the agent worked for the buyer vs, worked for the seller.
I could sort then by year then zip code, then agent to determine who was active and effective in a certain area. I could see who worked primarily to sell houses and who to help buyers. I could search on who handled a lot of lakefront homes, or who handled a lot of million dollar plus homes. I could also see who worked with starter-level homes as well.
Agents and brokers could then have different fees that they asked for based on their accomplishments and the individual buyer requirements. Professional photos? Seller pays but gets to keep the photos. Improvement suggestions? Seller pays a fee depending on whether it is casual, staging, or pre-inspection. These might be flat fees or percentages of the asking/selling price.
High demand agents could raise their fees slightly compared to neophytes, but neophytes could word with an accomplished agent and share a higher percentage, as long as the fact of their share-strategy was part of the original contract.
Anyhow, I may just be dreaming, but it would be the way I would like to see it done, assuming there was heavy regulation of the industry to prevent abuse and to encourage 'fairness'.
As a consumer, it would help me choose a realtor to know the agents' and brokers' sales history. For example, a table of agent name, broker name, price at which home sold, sold house address (+exterior picture), home zip code, condition rating (i.e. probably the same values the tax agency uses), square footage of home, number of rooms, number of acres, special features of house or property. Another key attribute would be if the agent worked for the buyer vs, worked for the seller.
Redfin tried to do this but there were so many problems with the data they pulled it after a couple of weeks. The problem is real estate teams and co-listings. So when you hear that one agent sells 300 homes a year, they personally don't sell that many but the MLS records that they do. They have transaction agents that take over after the listing is secured by them and they often run the transaction from that point on. They don't get any credit in the MLS though so no one knows they were involved in that sale.
So we have a couple of agents here that specialize in short sales and other agents from different brokerages will often co-list with them for short sales. Who gets credit for the sale? The agent that took the listing from company A or the agent that actually negotiated the short sale from company B?
The only way to have pure data like you want is to not allow real estate teams and co-listings. Then you start to get into regulating business practices and such and that isn't a good way to go.
Silverfall, what if the agents associated with a given listing were to decide among themselves what the distribution of accomplishment should be? All of the proportions would add up to 1.0. For the short sale example you gave, 0.2 to the listing agent and 0.8 to the agent who followed the short sale through. I guess it would be up to the boker to decide.
Silverfall, what if the agents associated with a given listing were to decide among themselves what the distribution of accomplishment should be? All of the proportions would add up to 1.0. For the short sale example you gave, 0.2 to the listing agent and 0.8 to the agent who followed the short sale through. I guess it would be up to the boker to decide.
You are assuming that it is a democracy. It isn't. The team leader worked hard to bring in that much business and often expect the recognition for it. It's hard to explain the dynamics since I'm not sure another industry has a similar model.
What you end up with is a system where you have agents that are great at listing presentations but not at negotiation or paperwork since they don't really do that anymore. So what would that mean for a consumer? Some consumers love the idea that a team of people are working to sell their home. Others hate it. They want the person who did the listing presentation to be the one they work with on the sale.
It would also require a complete revamp of the MLS system since it isn't coded to offer partial credit. Then there is the interpretation of partial data. So an agent that has sold 20.5 homes...what does that mean? If the agent has only worked on the process from offer acceptance to close that isn't the same experience as an agent that has gone from listing to close. How is a consumer supposed to interpret that kind of data? We'd end up with a ton of qualifiers that I think would be overwhelming.
Bill, my questions really had to do with the 'sales' process. Among other things, the perception of homeowners/buyers is that agents 'sell'. Well, we know that isn't really true. They list. The show. They advertise, but if i had to 'sell' my house tomorrow, at something other than a give-away' price, i don't know of any realtor who can 'sell it'. It is not like other 'sales persons' where they have leads for buyers and sellers, and they work those leads when need arises. My experience with some otherwise very good agents is that they are not very good at 'selling'. Especially in this market where they are scared of chasing away any sign of life.
As for education, i am sure many of you have a lot of miles under your feet. What i was asking is that does anyone offer a four year degree in Real Estate Sales? Or maybe four years of undergrad biz education, and a three year masters, like law, but the reward is a licensed real estate degree? That might help the industry a lot, and get rid of the part timers who spoil a LOT of things on both sides of the coin.
Worth a thought.
If you do not think the agents have to sale anything then you must be dealing with the wrong agents, the house is a secondary part of the sale, the listing agent and the buyers agent both have to sale their clients on the idea of working with them to either sale or buy the house they want. They must create trust from their clients, as any Realtor in the area can help either party, and their are plenty of realtors in every area.
As for education, personally I think requiring people to go to college to sale real estate is a waste of time. As a mortgage broker that works primarily on purchases I deal with agents on a constant basis and have gotten to know many of them over the years, taking college course on real estate, or even college degrees as a whole are not an indicator of who is the better agent, in fact the 2 best realtors I have met, both in the top 1% of their market, have no college background but they built their business by working harder then many of the rest of them.
The beauty of the real estate business is that anybody that can pass the test and background check can get in it, it is also a bad thing. However the way to weed them out is to make it less worthwhile for the Brokers to bring in anybody they can charge desk fees too. Make it where the brokers only get paid when a realtor produces and things will change quickly.
Val Vista Lakes and Maricopa County real estate statistics
I thought I would look at some MLS stats for some of the larger players in Maricopa County where Phoenix is located. I started with my 2,000 home community where I'm starting a large marketing campaign.
Val Vista Lakes Year to Date total transactions 149 x 2 = 298 Total transaction sides
Keller Williams......24 (numerous agents)...........8.05%
Home Smart.........18 (numerous agents)...........6.04%
Remax.................15 (numerous agents)...........5.03%
Captain Bill............5 (one agent)....................1.68%
5 agents..............31 (five agents inc Cap Bill...17.55%
(The other 4 agents have 7,7,6 and 6 transactions sides. The majority of the rest of the agents have one transaction. Two of the 5 agents are independent brokerages; one is with Home Smart, and the other two are with other companies.)
Zip code 85234 Year to date (11 months) total transactions 960 x 2 = 1,920 Total transaction sides
Keller Williams.......46....2.4%
Home Smart..........68....3.54%
Remax..................78....4.06%
Maricopa County Last 30 Days (the download for 30 days was 57 mb, so I wouldn't do the entire year due to sheer size of the download)
Total Closed Residential Transactions past 30 days = 12,104 x 2 = 24,208 Transaction Sides
Remax had the largest percentage in zip code 85234 for the 11 month period; but it only had 8.8% of the total Maricopa County market in November, while HS and KW market share was double that of Remax.
If you do not think the agents have to sale anything then you must be dealing with the wrong agents, the house is a secondary part of the sale, the listing agent and the buyers agent both have to sale their clients on the idea of working with them to either sale or buy the house they want. They must create trust from their clients, as any Realtor in the area can help either party, and their are plenty of realtors in every area.
As for education, personally I think requiring people to go to college to sale real estate is a waste of time. As a mortgage broker that works primarily on purchases I deal with agents on a constant basis and have gotten to know many of them over the years, taking college course on real estate, or even college degrees as a whole are not an indicator of who is the better agent, in fact the 2 best realtors I have met, both in the top 1% of their market, have no college background but they built their business by working harder then many of the rest of them.
The beauty of the real estate business is that anybody that can pass the test and background check can get in it, it is also a bad thing. However the way to weed them out is to make it less worthwhile for the Brokers to bring in anybody they can charge desk fees too. Make it where the brokers only get paid when a realtor produces and things will change quickly.
J, you're saying on one hand that college (education in real estate) is a waste of time, yet you say that anyone can pass the test and get in is a bad thing, and you describe one way to weed them out.
Why should they be allowed in, just to be weeded out?
One needs a high school education. So a 19 year old high school graduate gets a real estate license, and once s/he is in the real estate license class, they tell him that they are going to teach him to pass the state test. They are not going to teach him how to run an independent contractor real estate sales business. (That is exactly what they are told---after they are in the license class)
Ok, so she gets her license; now what? She needs an education that she doesn't have.
How to operate their independent company
Record keeping
Bookkeeping
Salesmanship (to get the listing or buyer)
Marketing knowledge (to be able to market the listing)
Market knowledge (to be able to interpret market data
Negotiation skills (how to negotiate with different cultures, different generations, other agents, buyers and sellers)
Public relations skills
Customer relations skills
Construction knowledge
And much more
This high school graduate will have very few if any of those skills and will be learning them at the expense of any client s/he can get.
In my opinion, one needs to have the skills required to do a job prior to getting the job. A business degree with a real estate minor will prepare anyone who is willing to work hard, to get into this field and be successful. It will weed out the others by not allowing them in, until they have the education.
I can't think of any other profession that allows one to begin work before getting the education.
I have a great reputation with my clients, and so when they refer folks to me, there's a level of trust and professionalism already built in.
When I do deal with "blind leads", I have found simple things like being on time, truthfulness, and again, professionalism (showing competency) make a world of difference.
The people that STILL don't want to trust me? I let them work with other agents.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Val Vista Lakes and Maricopa County real estate statistics
