Having been a leader in the real estate community for the past 15 years I have seen about everything you can imagine when it comes to agents and this industry. I have seen a lot of great agents that I highly respect like Utah Dave Robison, Boyd Brown, and Josh Stern. And then I have seen a lot of terrible agents that maybe give the industry a bad name at times. Overall though the one thing I have learned is, “Who you work with Matters!” And this is why…
I literally got the following text from a friend just last week as he was trying to use a random realtor his wife wanted him to. Even though he was ok not causing a fight with his wife he was smart enough to know that he needed the experts opinion. That is why he reached out to me. I stopped him from overpaying drastically for a home that he would be upside down on for the next several years.
In real estate there are so many moving pieces
and unless you fully understand all of them you are going to be at a disadvantage. There have been a lot of “alternatives” to using a traditional real estate agent that have come and gone over the past several years but I truly believe that the agent will never be taken out of the transaction because of the value a great agent can provide. One such company that is trying to disrupt the industry here in Utah is called “Homie” You can see an interview that I did on my podcast “The Jimmy Rex Show” with their founder and CEO and a friend of mine Jonny Hannah
. On the podcast even Jonny agrees that the local expert can’t be replaced and that technology can never replace the human touch and element of the transaction.
I do think that as technologies keep advancing it will cause a lot fo the “Non-experts” in the industry to fail and they will be left behind. In the future people will want the best!
*The most knowledgeable realtors
* The local expert
* The guy with all the connections
* The agent that knows all the other agents and can help make sure they get the deal done when there are multiple offers on the property.
* The agent that is a community leader
* The agent that saves them money even while earning his commission cause he knows values and where the price should be
I think it is possible that we will see an 80-90% drop in the number of agents that we have today. As more and more the experts and the professionals rise up and stand out vs those that just took a test after 120 hours of study, we will see a drastic shift in what is now the real estate agent profession.
I used to go on a lot of appointments with people trying to sell their house For Sale By Owner. I know that 92% of these people eventually used an agent so I spent a lot of time cold calling them for appointments. There were only about 10 of us out of 2000 agents on the board that actually called them regularly so we often were interviewing for the same house. I had about a 90% close rate where I could get the owner to hire me even though they were interviewing 3 - 4 other really good agents.
One time one of the other agents ex-girlfriends ran into me at the gym and she said, “Jimmy tell me your secret cause my ex used to get so mad that you always got the listing over him and he could never figure out why!?” I told here the following:
All these other agents come in and give their pitch and then when they know I’m going to pitch after or that I already did my presentation they always end up saying things to the seller such as, “Jimmy won’t have time for you” “Jimmy doesn’t sell small houses like this one, he won’t care about you” or “Jimmy doesn’t really work in this area/ price range/ etc..” They would try and tear me down..
I always said something like the following, “Look Mr. or Mrs. Seller, there’s 2 ways to build the tallest building in town. I can tear down every other building until I am the tallest, or I can just build the tallest building. I don’t worry about the other buildings because I have built the tallest building. I would be a liar to tell you that those other agents aren’t great agents. They sell 10-15 times the amount of homes of a normal agent, they are hustlers, they are great agents. I do believe I am a better fit for you and here is why…..” Then I would tell them the benefits I provide. The sellers loved it! They saw my confidence, they realized I was the type of person they wanted to be in business with, and they realized too how ridiculous the other agents sounded trying to tear me down when I was one of the 3 top performing teams in the county.
The reason I share that story is because I am in an industry where you do have to prove that you are great at this profession. There is a drastic difference between myself and a “normal agent” and an even more drastic difference between me and a flat fee discount brokerage. But don’t take my word for it. Here is a link to my website as well as a link to my Zillow page with over 100 (5) star reviews from my great clients.