New Agents Working With Buyers: It Takes A Commitment

Posted by Mike Farmer on May 12, 2008

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Working with buyers is difficult. It’s no wonder most real estate agents would rather list homes and avoid spending a lot of time dealing with buyers. Home buyers are demanding, fickle, sometimes emotional, sometimes unrealistic, but always there waiting for an agent to help them.

Even though many home buyers think they want to do it alone, I’ve found most eventually ask a Realtor for help. They may not want a contractual relationship with a buyer agent, but they want assistance.

Many have gone from listing agent to listing agent and they are tired of looking for homes that way, so the buyer is in between, they don’t want to sign a buyer agent agreement but they want guidance.

If you decide to work with home buyers you will have to capture them soon and you will have to impress them with service. Most buyers don’t know what they can get from a real estate agent until they get it—then they like it.

Buyers now are going online and making a request to an agent with a website, or going through a company like HomeGain that offers help—they want listings or information about a listing or area—they are sticking their toes in the water, to see what the response will be.

If the response is immediate and it offers help, then the buyer will likely go further.

Upon the first significant contact is the time to impress the buyer with service.

  • Offer gobs of homes to consider.
  • Offer an automatic notifier of all new listings.
  • Give them links to informational sites.
  • Offer them information on the homes they like and offer to make showing appointments.
  • Offer everything you have of value without being pushy, demanding or overwhelming.

Then follow up—nothing impresses a buyer more than following up.

Working with buyers can be rewarding if you get into the mindset of a buyer agent—and it is a different mindset than a listing agent. There will be times when you have many buyers and they are all asking for something, and perhaps none of them are making a decision—this is a crossroad, because the temptation is to call it all a waste and go back to strictly listing, marketing and waiting on a response.

However, if you stick with it and fill your pipeline, you will begin seeing results year round—those home buyers you’ve been sending information to for 4 months will finally come in to town and buy, then the pipe starts flowing.

But it takes awhile to get results and this is where agents have a problem because it’s not producing immediate income like a listing might in a normal market.
Be sure you want to work with home buyers because it’s a big commitment and the payoff is not immediate—and it’s a lot of hard work.

Doing both is what many agents do—there aren’t very many exclusive buyer agents anymore, but you will probably find yourself leaning one way more than the other, this is why to be effective you have to commit to working with buyers.

If you’re doing it half-heartedly because you have a few listings to depend on, then the results will likely be poor.

Comments

  • My view is that a lot of agents are lazy and/ or incompetent.

I expected brokers to WORK for their commission – 6% on a +/- avg priced home of $350,000 = $21,000

Am I missing something – earn your commission and get on with it – work with every lead – there is no excuse to generate rapid sales, even in this “challenged” market

Posted on May 12, 2008 by MDL

I have seen only FEW agents actually work for their commissions. Many rely on the seller and the buyer to do all the footwork. Most people are educated buyers and sellers today and I believe commission should be negotiated based on the sale price of the home.

Posted on May 13, 2008 by SEL

One of the good things about a declining market is that the agents that are not serious about making a long-lasting carreer in real estate, based on hard work and trust, are getting out of the business. It’s too hard to make a living at this for people who want to skate. I, for one, won’t miss them!

Posted on May 13, 2008 by Karen Highland

It’s amazing to me how lazy many Agents are that are trying to make it in this business. Firstly, most Agents don’t look at themselves as a business but they look at being a Realtor as a job. I’m a big believer that as a business, I must generate leads from many sources and give them all the best customer service possible. I understand the quick hit mentality, but it’s not something that I believe in. I have dealt with many of those sales people over the years… once. Buliding a business is all about understanding your customers needs and helping them every step of the way. If you don’t treat your customer like they are valued, you won’t be in this business very long.

The beauty of Internet leads is you usually have a 6 month or more time frame to show your customers your stuff! We are constantly doing things for our customers and sending them stuff. We call it “Over the Top” customer service. My entire staff buys into this process and it pays dividends.

In end, if you want to stay in business and earn a good wage regardless of your market, then you must start thinking about this as a business. You must be the best at customer service. There has to be a reason they use you instead of the 4,000 other Realtors in your area.

One of the reasons we developed our 100MPH Marketing Software was to insure that we are offering our customers the best customer service even if my Agents aren’t the best at giving it! As the Broker, this is the only way I can insure my customers are treated the way I want them to be treated. It’s also a means of helping my Agents succeed which keeps them from leaving our office. The thought of relying strictly on my Agents to earn me a living is scary. By supplying them not only with leads, but a system that will help them convert the leads, creates a win win situation.

Ok, I’ll stop rambling! Have a great day!

Posted on May 13, 2008 by Mitch Ribak

“Offer everything you have of value without being pushy, demanding or overwhelming.”

Offering your services without being pushy is one of the hardest things for agents to learn IMO.

Posted on May 13, 2008 by Ken Smith

Great comments. This messgae of hardwork is hitting home in slow times. Hopefully it will stick.

Posted on May 13, 2008 by Mike Farmer

Yes, Ken, and it boggles my mind sometime that they haven’t gotten the memo about pushy. I guess brokers still train them that way, or it’s their misguided idea of what a salesperson should be.

Posted on May 13, 2008 by Mike Farmer

Coining Howard Behar from his book Its Not About The Coffee, “We’re not in the coffee business serving people, we’re in the people business serving coffee.” Swap the words coffee with “real estate.” I’ve seen too many who forget the service. Especially the little things.

Posted on May 14, 2008 by Douglas Trudeau

Mike a good friend of mine just left an office after the owner tossed a stapler at him. The owner then proceeded to yell at my friend for not “closing the deal”. Amazing that this type of bs is still around these days.

Posted on May 14, 2008 by Ken Smith

Douglas—yes, service is king!

Dang, threw a stapler at him! That’s real motivational.

Posted on May 14, 2008 by Mike Farmer

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