I’ve written before about why consumers trust Zillow more than real estate agents. In that article, I stated that Zillow isn’t the pushy salesperson that many real estate agents are — and that’s what’s given our profession a bad name.
Last week, I visited the Raise The Bar In Real Estate Facebook group and found the post below. (Names and photos have been removed for privacy reasons, but the group is public, so it wouldn’t be hard to find this thread.)
I would like to preface this by clearly stating that I have the utmost respect for this group, and the administrators of the group are people I admire. The original poster clarified that this was being posted as a “conversation starter” about how to raise the bar stemming from comments made in another post. The fact that someone may need to ask this question in the first place was a bit striking, especially given the name of the group. What was even more striking, though, were some of the comments.
Thankfully, these comments were the minority, accounting for only a few of the 88 comments on that thread. Most of the comments said, in essence: Keep walking, don’t knock on the door, and “raise the bar” by following the clearly posted requests of the homeowner. Many commenters made superb points.
And someone sees this issue very much like I do:
If you are tired of real estate agents being disrespected, undervalued and underappreciated, then an effort needs to be made to bring some actual ethics and civility into our profession. If you don’t want to be thought of as a slimy used car salesperson, then don’t act like one — and call out those who do.
Brian Rayl is a Dallas real estate agent with Keller Williams and the co-founder of Home Value Leads, where he teaches agents how to generate real estate seller leads quickly and cost-effectively.