This is, after all, a business. It’s not hard to think of real estate as a business. The business of the business has an office and a phone and some computers and in this, it’s just like all of the other businesses. We all understand that, the business of real estate. But it’s harder to think of Realtors themselves as businessmen and businesswomen. This is because I’m wearing jeans right now and there are some holes in them, and I’ve only discovered these slight oil spots in my t-shirt now that I’ve left my house and am at my office. These oil spots vex, because I haven’t been spilling oil on myself, nor have I been rubbing shoulders with those who might have done so. Still, jeans with holes and oily t-shirts and yet I’m at an office that appears to be functioning as a proper business. But I’m here, at this office and it’s seven something and the majority of the real estate world is still in their pajamas, sipping their coffee, cracking open their laptops on their breakfast room tables. You could argue that pajamas without oil spots are superior to t-shirts with, but that’s not the point.
In this business there are wins and there are losses. I’ve been fortunate to win a bit this year, quite a bit, really, and in that there is comfort. Not comfort that I’ll always be okay but comfort in knowing I’ve successfully pushed off failure for another year. There’s some struggle now, knowing that I must either keep producing or whither away, but there is mostly gratitude for this incredible base of clients that have chosen to trust me with their Lake Geneva maneuvering. This trust is important, in fact it’s everything, and trust placed in a guy with oil spots on his black t-shirt is a meaningful level of trust. But still, this business and this life and the facts of real estate. I continue to feel that there are misconceptions revolving around Realtors and this life, and while most of the cliches are actually true and damning, there are some things I think you should know. Consider the curtain drawn back:
When I interview with a potential seller for their potential listing, I usually want the business. In the event that I don’t get that business, and instead another agent does, I can admit to you now that I wish bad things to happen to that listing. I actively hope it doesn’t sell. I aggressively root against the success. Now, now, don’t assume that means I won’t bring in a buyer and sell that property, because I will in order to drive home the point that the seller made an egregious mistake in listing with anyone other than me, but I do wish ill for the property in general. Petty? Absolutely. This is a confession, but it’s not unique to me. Every Realtor everywhere feels the same, and now you know.
When I push a seller to take an offer that might be lower than what the seller wants, I’m not doing that because I want to get paid. I like getting paid, as does everyone who works at any sort of job, but when I urge a seller to accept a price I do so without any particular regard for a future paycheck. I do so because for every seller that refuses an offer and then, soon thereafter, ends up getting his price, I’ve seen 500 sellers who refuse an offer and are later filled with deep regret over their missed opportunity. Do I like making commissions so that my children might be able to eat their dinners of chicken, rice and corn? Of course. But do I tell a seller to take the money and run because I’m thinking about what I’ll get out of it? Absolutely not. The business is structured in such a way that compensation only occurs in conjunction with a closing, which leaves the interests of the agents subjected to conflicted scrutiny, but I assure you that I only push a seller because I know the seller needs that buyer far more than the buyer could ever need that seller. To put it more succinctly: Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
Agents are not always busy. They’re not. No matter what their Facebook or Twitter feeds tell you, they aren’t always on showings when they aren’t at closings. In fact, most of them are at home. That’s why I built this office to feel like a house, so that when the middle of winter comes and with it cold and dark and snowy, I can simply stoke a fire and work without feeling the need to drive home and do the same. Most agents work from home a shocking percentage of the time. So when you call them and they’re busy, they may be napping or sipping tea or they may be binging on House Of Cards because they assume it’s about real estate. I’m hardly ever at home, but that doesn’t mean I’m working 18 hour days, either. In fact, about once every 7-10 days I’ll go fishing and take that day mostly off, even though the cadence of my cast is continually disrupted by cellular notifications. And when I take a Monday or a Tuesday off and that’s the day you call me, don’t be upset, because on Sunday when you were playing I was showing houses to someone from Palatine.
The business is far more stressful than you might imagine. That’s because the agent is the cog that seems unnecessary and overpaid, but if the agent is doing this correctly the agent is also the glue that holds a transaction together. Being the glue is stressful, and it creates significant tension for the agent. The world loves to view agents as overpaid cheeseballs, because in fact we often are, but successful agents are often so because they feel the burden of knowing the deal rests of their shoulders, and without them, the deal would often fall apart. Bad agents know this but they don’t care, good agents know this and it causes them to wake up at 2 am because they’ve had a nightmare that your deal fell apart and it was their fault, even though it wasn’t actually their fault. Good agents are stressed agents, and I’ve often done my best work when scrambling and stressing, especially when I’ve already forgotten that I have oil spots on this shirt and I’m already late for my first appointment.