How we feed the public's negative view of real estate agents

I'm normally not the one to complain about my colleagues nor post anything negative online but my experiences this morning with so called "luxury listing agents" have me so disappointed in my industry that I've just got to vent!  It's no wonder the public often sees us as glorified used car salesman (no offense to my used car salesman colleagues; I know some darn good ones).

So I showed four luxury homes this morning and here are my observations:

• home number one- the listing agent opens the door, dogs barking, kids running around, house is dark, cluttered, and the owner is following us around
• home number two-the listing agent shows up in a low cut blouse and skin tight pants. Really?  Are we marketing luxury homes or going out clubbing?
• home number three-the listing agent doesn't even both to show up, the house is dark, the owner is home, the dog's running around, and the owner is giving away her bargaining position by simply talking too much!
• home number four-(and this one's my favorite) the listing agent opens the door, we introduce ourselves. Then the listing agent turns to the owner and asks her...................wait for it........................"would you like to show the house or should I?"

I guess today's showings leave me both sad and encouraged.  Sad because these folks have absolutely no clue the harm that they're doing to our industry.  And encouraged because if this is my competition, then the sky's the limit for me!

How Short-Sale Survivors Can Get a Mortgage

I get a lot of questions about this very thing....



How Short-Sale Survivors Can Get a Mortgage - Yahoo Finance

keeping Murphy in check!

We all know Murphy's law right?  If something can go wrong, there's a good chance it will.  Though like any risk, with preparation and due diligence that risk can be mitigated.  In real estate a big part of it is knowing your business, your business partners, and not freaking out when things don't go as planned.  And in today's real estate environment, things rarely go as planned.  Hurdles to reaching a successful conclusion of any real estate transaction are simply par for the course.  I found this online and thought it might be helpful to some of colleagues and consumers as well when it comes t keeping Murphy in check!  Remember: Concentrate of the ones where you CAN affect the outcome...as for the rest; as they say, "keep calm and carry on"