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February 2008 As an opposing view to the article by Lew Sichelmn HOUSING SCENE “The Team Approach scores points with realty agents.” of Sunday January 27, 2008, Real Estate Section page K5, I hereby present these views to you, and would be interested in hearing your feedback on this subject. sanda@SandaAlcalay.com As a Real Estate Agent I am very confused by the all the teams, groups, associates, assistants et all proliferating today in the Real Estate World. My question to all of us is “who is minding the store?” But I am not the only one, the clients are wondering also. Until recently, I started my career in 1989, the broker provided all the support, and to this day they still do and very beautifully I might say. I can only talk specifically about my office, the Brentwood West office of Coldwell Banker in Los Angeles California. I moved to this office 7 years ago because of the excellent Manager and all the staff that comprises her team of many years. They provide us with everything from a 7 days a week receptionist who answers the phones, a Manager who is hands-on and solutions oriented, 2 Office Administrators, an MLS Coordinator, a Marketing Design Coordinator, an Advertising Coordinator, the Attorney Team of the company, the Broker of Record, and all the janitorial staff of the building we are in who keeps our wastebasket recycled. Who says that you cannot operate as a single practitioner anymore? Of course if it means one person in a 2nd bedroom somewhere, then the statement is correct. But that hasn’t been true for a very long time. To say that there are surgeon teams, and attorney teams, and accountant teams. That is correct. However to this day if you hire the # 1Divorce Attorney, or the Top Orthopedic Surgeon at UCLA, or the Latest Entertainment CPA, you would expect to be talking with them at length initially and throughout the entire process to devise strategies, to solve your problems, to congratulate you when you win at the end. Wouldn’t you? Even when you go to your internist you talk with them, and after all the tests are done, it is with them you discuss the course of your treatment. I wouldn’t think that you would want to hear from the X-Ray Technician about the state of your lungs, or of your heart for that matter. Not that they are not knowledgeable, but in the medical profession it is the doctor who interprets and relays that information to you. Not so in real estate. Let’s leave aside that when I am in a transaction I usually do not get to talk to the Real Estate Agent whose listing I just sold, but to a “team” of their people who do not know any of the details even though they are there to take care of the details. But neither does their seller talk with them. We all talk with the assistants who in most cases are “new” to the team. Or we talk with the Buyer’s Agent, a brand new licensee, who has never done a transaction before. I kid you not but there is a Business Coach out there who tells his clients that it is ok to talk with the clients once a week. The rest of the time it is ok for their assistants to talk to the clients (“just hire experienced assistants,” he says) so the Real Estate Agent can continue taking listings and feeding the pipeline! It is the duty of the assistant to be at the inspections, and it falls on their shoulders to negotiate the items to repair or the credits during the contingency period. At the cost of thousands of dollars to the clients! Now it is true that as a Real Estate Agent I do not need to take the time to Xerox all the paperwork, someone else can do it. Also an assistant can make the appointments for the trades people to be there at inspections, but we have that all built in at our office with our Broker. And yet now we duplicate it and instead of Real Estate Agents we become managers and team builders. What about the buyer’s concerns? Who reads their non verbal communication? Who is there to protect the seller’s interests? In today’s Real Estate world it is the “team” it is “the assistant” it is “the group.” And we wonder why the sellers don’t want to pay us a full commission! And we are surprised that our reputation leaves a lot to be desired! What we have ended up with is an agency within an agency with the Broker like Coldwell Banker and The Smith Team ABC getting in each others way. I saw a vignette once on a bulleting board that described a real estate transaction as 10 people in a canoe all rowing in different directions! In reading this particular article one gets the impression that the Real Estate Professional who has a one-on-one relationship with the seller or the buyer, who has a professional office that backs them, who takes the time to listen to the heart so to speak and the lungs like a good internist would, is obsolete. But that’s not really true because clients are clamoring for the professional, and now that a house does not sell in 1 1/2minutes, and creative strategies on pricing and condition need to be devised to be able to sell the home in question, now I venture to predict that at least some sellers will demand better “brokerage”; a professional that takes their responsibility seriously, who make themselves available and doesn’t delegate the negotiations to their team. In my opinion the time has come to see these teams, groups and assistants for what they really are (there is nothing wrong here), which is ways to make more money and get more sales under one person’s name so they can say they’ve sold $ 300 Million dollars worth of Real Estate and made commissions in excess of 3 Million dollars and receive top honors for doing so from the company they are with. Now there is nothing wrong in finding ways to earn more money and to increase our business, but let’s not kid ourselves that by becoming managers and team builders we retain the classification of Real Estate Agents. Since there is no benefit to the client in this, it is time for the Buyers and Sellers to stand up, to ask for and receive what they are paying for. The views expressed here are mine and mine alone; they do not reflect the views of other agents or brokers. |