What makes a good estate agent?
Category Advice
Some members of the public see estate agents as fat cat parasites, who feed off the property owning fraternity and are exceptionally well paid for a service that requires fairly limited effort and skill.
"Nothing," says Rowan Alexander, Director of Alexander Swart Property, "could be further from the truth. The simple fact is that less than 20% of estate agents can be classified as really successful. The remaining 80% have either survived on very low incomes, or more commonly, have left the industry for good."
To succeed as an estate agent, he says, the practitioner must be entirely self-motivated and capable of independent thought and action. Although good estate agencies will provide training as often as required, possibly have certain back-up services such as stock finding and will always have managers on hand to give advice on difficulties, the agent is in essence a freelancer who is 'out there' on his own and has only himself to rely on.
It is for this reason that those from corporate backgrounds may find property selling far more challenging that they expected. They may have had a range of supplementary services, colleagues to help them and most major decisions made higher up. Often they look elsewhere for employment in the end. Those who have ploughed their own furrows from an early stage and have learned quickly how to cope on their own, are the ones who "make it" in estate agency work.
"Former schoolmasters and schoolmistresses," says Alexander, "are among the most successful of all agents because they have had to fend for themselves from the start. No amount of backup support or training will make a poor teacher an effective one. Teachers have to prepare their own lessons, discipline and motivate unruly children, attend to ancillary tasks such as homework correction and extra-mural teaching and at the same time be sympathetic to their pupils' problems. During term time they frequently work long hours and many have to be available almost round the clock. Good teachers are among the most self motivated and independent people in the South African work force."
The character traits and work habits outlined above, are those of every good estate agent. From day one, the good agent will realise that it is up to himself and himself alone to shape his future. He will quickly learn that he has to persevere for hours on end with boring work such as telephone canvassing, preparing valuations, sitting in at show houses over the weekend and carrying out knock and drop campaigns (in which pamphlets are left at every home in the area). He will also learn that to be acceptable and smoothly processed, contract documentation facts and figures must be correct and the data on which his sale pitch is based, wholly truthful. "Nothing," says Alexander, "arouses distrust among clients more surely than the suspicion that an agent is "trying it on", not being wholly truthful or has an agenda that is not wholly transparent."
Above all, the estate agent must learn that he can very seldom be 'off duty' His is a 24\7 job and he must be prepared to take and make cell phone calls and emails up to 10 p.m. at night and early in the morning . He must always ensure that his clients are kept in the loop even when there is nothing new to report. "Sellers in particular, are very upset if they feel that they have apparently been forgotten for three, four or more days."
In addition the good agent will be humane and compassionate. He/she will understand that both buyers and sellers may be ambivalent about the decisions they have to make. Those who are leaving a home in which they have lived for some time will be emotional about this, feeling that a part of their life is being destroyed. Those who are buying may wonder whether the area in which they are settling will prosper, will suit them and whether they will be able to continue to afford the bond payments in future. In short, the agent must accept that both sellers and buyers may be insecure and anxious and he must be able to calm and reassure them.
"The agent who is simply there for his own sake, for a fast buck, will never succeed in the long term," says Alexander. "It is the ability to empathize with others that makes a really good agent. Fortunately at Alexander Swart Property we have many such people Andre Swart began inculcating a service attitude in his staff way back in 2011 and I have always tried to do the same."
Periods like the present, when the economy is weak and business confidence is low, tend to result in the weeding out of those not suited to an estate agency career. This is always tough but it does mean that those who do survive will emerge even more competent than they were before. Recessions he says, are therefore not wholly detrimental to the property industry.
Author: Independent Author
