1. What have realtors done for you that really stood out My first ever piece of real estate owned was a 1-bedroom condo in Eau Claire (Downtown Calgary). The agent who I listed with did a great job. He`s a hard-working guy, consistently bringing his own clients to view the property (rather than just uploading it to the MLS and waiting for the showing requests), and he actually ended up finding me a buyer one night at about 10:00 PM, called me while I think I was out partying with a group of friends. It was good timing
He also would call me quite often, but not to the point where it was unreasonable/annoying. He kept me informed as to the feedback from what the potential clients were saying after the showings, and he was brutally honest and didn`t try to dance around any questions. I`m sure the fact that it was sold fairly quickly (3 weeks, I think) also increased my perception of the realtor (It was January of 2007, and the market was hot, hot, hot).
2. What do you wish they would do
I had a bad experience with a realtor this past summer and will share some of the things that he did which are pretty obviously not ideal:
[*]Zero personal attention. Almost literally. When he was listing my condo for sale, he did his "analysis" of what to list it at over about 15 seconds on the phone. This proved to be a bad price, and it only yielded 6 showings in the first 6 weeks. Throughout this time frame, I got not a single phone call from him. Probably due to the combination that I was 24 years old and relative to his other listings (mostly Mount Royal, Elbow Park, etc. - high end inner-city real estate) my condo brought him a much less commission. Either way, I had to contact him to ask what the hell was going on, and his response was "uh....lower the price". Gee, thanks. How insightful.[*]Zero pulse of what was going on. The guy outsources his showing requests to a call centre, which benefits one person - HIM! He had basically no idea of when showings were, no idea of any feedback, and no idea of how better to sell my condo - and he didn`t even care. It was a completely hands-off approach. Upload the listing to the MLS, sit back and hope & pray that it sells.Overall, he was just a complete a**hole. An arrogant, my-time-is-too-valuable-for-your-phone-call kind of guy. Needless to say, I made a huge mistake and learned a major life lesson by not staying loyal to the individual who had provided me with a good service before - I just never even thought to call him (which, I guess, can be a word of caution to realtors - stay in touch with your clients!)Best of luck in your new career. I`d suggest just being innovative in your sales approach. Each property appeals to a different demographic, and it`d be great as a seller to see a specific marketing/action plan for the sale of my property. Each listing should be like a "Project" with a definite end goal and a definite sequence of steps to reach that goal. That`s my advice.
