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Why does it seem that
so many real estate agents are billing themselves as a "team?"
The answer to this question is actually quite
simple. The team approach is a better way to help people buy and sell
real estate.
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The next evolution
for the busier agents was the addition of a buyer's agent or showing agent.
Done properly, helping a buyer select the right home and negotiate for
a good price is a very time consuming, focused effort. It is good to have
a buyer's agent that is focused exclusively on that particular buyer's
needs.
As an agent becomes more successful, he or
she will frequently add additional members to the team. Many have a variety
of licensed and unlicensed specialists to help. Usually a team will include
several in-house salaried staff members to take care of the all-important
activities like making sure listings get marketed properly. They might
also insure that the details associated with closings - inspections, appraisals,
etc. - are handled properly.
In the top teams, the primary agent actually
does little traditional agent work. They have listing agents, buyer's
agents, closing coordinators, listing managers, field reps, etc. In essence,
they have a machine that knows how to help people buy and sell real estate.
In this case, the team leader functions as a manager of his or her people.
However, it is usually the team leader's reputation and marketing efforts
that bring in the clients.
The current theory with most "mega-agents"
is that a competent staff of experts will minimize the "little emergencies"
that arise and thus reduce the stress on buyers, sellers, and themselves.
The primary purpose of putting together a team is to serve the clients
better.
In addition to having more people to handle
the details, the agents are able to do the things they do best, and some
of them actually get to have something that resembles a normal life -
dinners with their families, weekends at the lake, etc. (of course, their
cell phones are still going off every five minutes!)
As the real estate business continues to
evolve, experts speculate that 80% of the business will be done by 5%
of the agents under the mega-agent or team concept. As consumers and other
agents get more comfortable with this approach, the systems will be perfected
and the result will be better lives for agents and much better buying
and selling experiences for clients.
As the number one seller of homes in the
30189 zip code, Gina's team members are recognized as the experts in helping
people buy and sell Towne Lake area homes. We hope that you love Gina's
magazine, The TowneLaker, and that you will think of us, CENTURY 21 Advantage,
first when you need to buy or sell real estate in the Towne Lake area.
Visit us at www.ginacarr.com.
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Due to the complex and litigious
nature of today's real estate transactions,
a lot of agents have realized that it is truly difficult for a single
person to fully serve the needs of his or her real estate clients.
In the old days, a single agent was expected
to list a house, market the house, show houses to buyers, write and negotiate
the contracts, and handle all the details necessary to get to a closing.
That system worked fine until real estate transactions became more complex
and clients became increasingly frustrated. Now days, it takes a lot more
time, effort, and expertise to properly lead a client through the myriad
of contract issues, inspections, etc. that result in a successful closing.
There are a lot of reasons that buying a
home and moving is known to be one of the most stressful events in a person's
life. And, although the life of a real estate agent frequently looks easy
and fun to the public, the truth is that it has become a 24/7 job where
the agent never knows what will go wrong next.
Agents are increasingly tense and short with
their families. And, when they actually sit down and total up what they
really made from the last sale (after mileage and advertising expenses
including the three other clients they worked with that didn't buy anything),
most agents figure they might have made minimum wage! (According to the
National Association of Realtors, the average earnings of real estate
agents is around $34,000.)
The career of a real estate agent is frequently
short-lived. It has one of the highest attrition rates of any field. Just
think about all the people you know that have gotten their licenses and
never even sold a house!
Out of this frustration of clients and agents
was born the team concept. Usually what happens is that a busy agent will
hire an assistant to do some of the things that they don't like to do
- paperwork, filing, computer entry, etc. Usually, the assistant will
handle the "in office" things while the agent continues to do the "out
of office" things like meet with clients, show houses, etc.
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