What Kind of Real Estate Agent Do You Have
There’s a colorful adage I strongly believe in that serves nicely as a topic for this article. It’s this: there’s a bolt to fit every nut. To me, the beautiful thing about developing a company is that I no longer feel the need to be a sort of “universal nut”, because I can get other nuts to work with me.
Alright, come to think of it, maybe that wasn’t the greatest adage to start with.
Let me back track. Early on in my real estate career, before I began to know what groove I fell into and what I’d end up good at, I felt I had to be great at everything. I was a kind of Jack of all Trades, because Jack didn’t know which trade would bring in the escrows that — at that time — were few and far between. So I did things at the time that I wouldn’t dream of doing now. I hadn’t yet learned what I now take to be a sort of formula for success in this business: Don’t do everything, but instead, find out what you do well and keep doing it, and be congenial as heck to the folks who are good at something else.
For my first example, I’m going to let you in on a secret: You shouldn’t hire me as a listing agent. I don’t mean you shouldn’t hire my company to list your home. On the contrary. I have two simply outstanding listing agents on my staff. I have seen them spend hours and hours and hours working on getting their listings sold — advertising, holding open houses, etc., etc. If you call me to list your home and you get me on the phone, guess who’s going to get the listing? It won’t be me. (Well, by way of full disclosure, it will be me indirectly because I’m the broker, which means I get part of the dollars but 100% of the buck, which by law stop here.)
If you want your home listed by an outstanding listing agent, you shouldn’t hire me, but you definitely should still hire my company. I recommend you pick up the phone and call either Bridget Felmley-Gay at (530) 306-9111 or Vicki Babcock at (530) 409-1100. Then start packing.
If you’re an investor, I’m pretty good at that myself, but my real superstar is Susan Norris, and she’s at (916) 849-6421. Susan is an investor herself, and she loves finding investors homes that will make them money. Susan’s also the Queen of the Duplex. (We should get her some kind of blue and gold robe for that).
There are other things I’m not the superstar of, and that’s fine. Take land, for instance. I’ve done land, and I’m actually pretty good at it, but it’s not my first choice. So if you call about land, I’d try one of the handful of agents on my team who really love land — or I might even make a referral outside the company.
Wait a minute. I think that’s called customer service. Well hey, good for me. My job is not to be a superstar of everything, but to find someone who is and have them on my team for you, so when you call, you always get the person who’s outstandingly well suited to the job.
Then again, there are some things I am the superstar of. I could work with first time buyers all day long and twice on Wednesday. Also, I love helping people from out of the area to get a sense of the market, prices and schools and so forth in the different neighborhoods, so if you’re not sure if you’re moving yet and you want to kick some ideas around, call me direct at (530) 672-9160. As for Internet Marketing, that’s my real Superman category. Get my a blue shirt with an S on it and I’m good to go. And like all the agents on my team, I’m very good at working with buyers on general residential sales, though once you get past about $600,000 or so and more into the luxury category I have agents who are somewhat stronger in that area than I am.
Fortunately for me, I don’t think the Peter Principle has kicked in yet, so I consider myself quite good at the thing I am: the broker of record. I love looking and staying current on real estate law and procedures so our agents — and more importantly, our clients — will be safe and protected from problems and litigation. I’m a detail guy, a former computer programmer. You know, a nerd. I think nerds make good brokers, because we’re used to sitting in cubicles and sifting through details.
Another person who’s outstanding in that area is Becky Nagel, our transaction coordinator. Becky is one of the best file reviewers around, so I always give her first dibs on the files before I look them over. (I’m no fool, letting Becky do it first usually means I end up having nothing to do!) By the way, if you’re an agent in California who needs someone excellent in this category, Becky’s an independent contractor and I’m not yet keeping her busy enough, so let me know if you want me to introduce you. But you better call me before Elite Properties gets big enough to hire her, because when that happens I’m going to try to hire her directly and you’re going to find someone not so good.
So anyway, that’s what I think we’re good at, and who’s good at what. I don’t know that I addressed finding the agent that’s right for you — there are all sorts of articles about what questions you’re supposed to ask you’re real estate agent. As you can guess by now, I recommend that you add to those lists the following: “What things are you really good at in real estate?” If your Realtor doesn’t know or answers “everything”, chances are he or she is new. If they say “X” and you need a “Y”, then ask for a recommendation about who a good “Y” is.
