I saw this post recently on social media and it hit me in the gut. Sometimes we as agents have a hard time communicating our value or what we do in a day. I didn’t write it but, it’s worth sharing and I hope it helps you, my friends and clients, learn what all I do in a day and how much goes into putting food on the table for my family:
Friends, before you go and ask for a discount on the commission paid to a Realtor for helping you sell or buy your home, please understand what you're truly asking for them to do ... and ask yourself this question: If your boss came to you and asked you to work overtime, but wasn't going to compensate you for doing so, would you still do it?
A few things to consider:
Real Estate Agents don’t get to keep all the money they make on deals. You see 3% on a $400k home is $12k.
That commission is paid to them:
- Before taxes
- Before broker splits
- Before marketing
- Before board dues
- Before office bills
- Before professional photographs on your home
- Before all the other costs of doing business
Then they begin paying for everything else - things you enjoy at a 9-5 job.
They don’t receive:
- Employer healthcare
- Employee matched retirement accounts
- Paid vacations
- Weekends off
- Nights off
- Maternity leave
- Bereavement pay/leave
- Company car
They pay for all of this out of their own pockets. Every single penny.
THEN they use what’s left to support their families.
Yes, they did choose a career in real estate. It’s a career which they love and it allows virtually uncapped growth and income potential. But they also have to often be available at any time of the day when needed. Whether it’s showing homes at 7pm, writing offers at 11 pm or doing final walkthroughs at 6am. They are there, available to help their clients when they are needed.
So before you tell another one of them that they make too much money and aren’t really needed anymore, I encourage you to do the following ...Get your real estate license, start lead generating on your own, find clients who like you and trust you to help them with the BIGGEST purchase of their lives.
Make sure you know not only what goes in the blanks of the contracts, but also what the promulgated parts of them say. Learn the legal steps of what happens once you write a contract, and what business partners are a good fit to help your clients and who’s a scam.
Try and keep deals together when they’re about to go south with critical thinking skills all while staying within legal parameters.
Educate your new homeowner clients about what’s gonna happen after they close and what to expect in the couple years to come.
Then listen, repeatedly, as others tell you the money you’ve been paid is WAY too much and they could do what you’ve done for much, much less.
Exhausting, isn’t it?
This content is not originally written by Sarah Whitely. Original attribution unknown.
