Real Estate Values or Just Bad Habits

There are several small businesses that retain hundred year old traditions. Hand-dipped chocolates, fresh flowers and cloth napkins on every table in a restaurant, or mints and roses on a guest's pillow at a B&B. Loyal customers come to expect these little perks or tokens of quality in the product and changing your traditions might mean the loss of your evangelical customers. These are unspoken signs of a company's value system and devotion to the customer. Then, there are traditions that are a little harder to explain.

There are two curious habits in the real estate industry that have always baffled me. They are age-old traditions and the public has come to accept them as part and parcel of the product. But are they a reflection of company values or just a couple of really bad habits?

The first....Why do real estate agents put their picture on absolutely everything? Real Estate agents are there to sell houses, people come to the agent to buy a house not because the agent has auburn hair or because he is smiling. The image presented through this type of marketing is that of an egoistical, self centered, self serving person.

I have asked many agents why they do it...the answers range from; because the company requires it, simple I don't knows, to I need it to stand out from the competition. (If all the competition is doing the same thing, how does that set you apart?) There are many people who have their own businesses and are sole-propritors from hair dressers to contractors, pool cleaners, consultants and lawyers but they don't plaster their headshot all over everything that relates to their business. There could be some reasons why they don't. Sending the wrong image of self importance is one. Another reason is aging. As people get older they become less satisfied with the way they look, a little less hair, and few saggy chins, smile lines that have turned into furrows. Real Estate agents face this problem head on...they just leave the same picture on their business card for their entire 25 year career, a nice youthful look. Finally, since marketing materials cost money and space is at a premium maybe they think it is better to use that space showing the product or benefit to the customer instead of a self portrait.

The second tradition that seems more like a bad habit is to have flyers and doorhanger bags strewn all over a neighborhood, and scattered on your prospective clients front porch. If it is a particularly popular neighborhood this means you find this stuff at your doorstep 3-5 times a week thanks to 10 or 15 different agents! I've even seen this stuff delivered on Sundays. It's really convenient for thieves..they know you've been away on vacation even if the mail is being held at the post office. How many people pick up those flyers while vowing to NEVER do business with the agents who turn their yard into a landfill's delight! It also is baffling that real estate agents see themselves on the same level as pizza places, gardeners, and the local handy man, all of whom market this way too. I have never seen a professional lawyer, doctor or accountant, market themselves in this manner.

At some point one's values should win over tradition. Respecting the client (and their front porch), making the client's/prospect's priorities your priorities must become the focus of a successful career. Common sense and creativity should come together with customer service, and bad habits should be broken, even if all the competition plans to carry on.

I would like to encourage all real estate agents that might read this. Be a leader, put a picture of a door knocker or house on your business card. I know its a radical idea, but take the challenge! Wouldn't that space be better used talking about your specialties or how long you've been in business? Who knows, you might even generate some goodwill by not cluttering up a porch with flyers that go straight into the trash.

Meredith Gossland is the owner of Lasting Impressions 2, a small business marketing service, in Los Angeles.http://www.lastingimpressions2.com

More than 40 states signed onto a proposed $25-billion deal with major mortgage servicers over faulty foreclosure practices. New York, Nevada and Delaware joined California in holding out for better terms.

More than 40 states signed onto a proposed $25-billion settlement with major mortgage servicers over faulty foreclosure procedures, but California, New York and other key states were still not among them.

California has until Monday to share in a multi-state deal with banks to obtain mortgage relief and reforms. Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris, who walked away from talks last year, says the door remains open.

With a Monday deadline at hand, California officials have resumed direct talks with the Obama administration about joining a multibillion-dollar, multi-state mortgage settlement with the nation's largest banks, a source said Sunday.

The talk show host pays $12 million for the 4,088-square-foot house with four bedrooms and four bathrooms. The ocean-view home sits on 1.26 bluff-top acres with beach access.

In one of the more talked-about transactions in town, actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have sold their Malibu beach house to daytime host and comedian Ellen De Generes for $12 million.

The four-bedroom, five-bathroom house built in 1920 for industrialist James Wigmore lists for $2,875,000.

A decorative cast stone entrance opens to this restored Spanish Colonial Revival-style house in Pasadena's South Orange Grove area. Built in 1920 for industrialist James Wigmore, the house retains such original details as coffered wood ceilings and arched doorways.

They don't believe they can sell their property for what it's worth, so they're spending money on making their homes more comfortable.

Do you fit any of these descriptions?

A biennial research report by the National Assn. of Realtors indicates that a handful of real estate agents and brokers and their clients either don't know the law or don't care to follow it.

When it comes to lawsuits, real estate agents and brokers tangle mostly among themselves.

The president aims to help about 3.5 million people with good credit who are unable to refinance at historically low rates because their homes are worth less than their mortgages.

 

The White House hopes to help millions of homeowners lower their monthly mortgage bill with a $5 billion to $10 billion plan to set up a streamlined refinancing program for people who are current on their payments.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index of 20 large U.S. cities fell 1.3% in November from October as foreclosures continue to drag down the housing market.

Three straight months of home-price declines in the biggest U.S. cities showed that foreclosures remain a significant drag on a housing market that is entering its fifth year of deterioration.

L.A. Clipper Chris Paul may be quick down the court, but he moves pretty fast when it comes to buying multimillion-dollar real estate too.