An open letter to real estate agents

Dear Real Estate Agents of the World,

I know that you have a tough job, sometimes clients are demanding, you work crazy hours and deal with all kinds of weird stuff.  I know that you probably know more than many of the clients you work with and that most don't listen and that you may find that frustrating. So your MO may have slipped into something akin to bullying aloofness.  But during "these tough times" we all have to adapt, and most clients don't find your I-know-better-than-you attitude all that appealing.  I sure don't, so I have some advice that might make life a little bit better for everyone.

1) Get over yourselves.  You were not the victims of the housing melt-down. Yes, you suffer with less commissions since less houses are sold. But, you were also complicit in creating the housing bubble, wether you knew it or not, you drove part of the frenzy that made people buy houses faster then they could learn how to spell escrow.  So stop blaming the homeowners, who are after all the ones who pay you those commissions. They don't really want to hear it, they're actually pretty tired of hearing it.  Generally the rules of the sandbox are that people are more willing to negotiate and listen to your advice if you didn't start off by throwing sand in their face to begin with. Take a step back and remember what it is you are trying to do, not what it means only to you.

2) Stop lying.  I know. It's hard.  You probably don't even know that you are doing it anymore because you've started to believe your own BS.  But, if you don't have comparable to help decide on a price, just say so, don't pick random houses out of thin air and claim they are comparable. We're not that stupid, and if we are, we'll catch on when two months later you suddenly want to adjust the price by $20K. Just be honest from the start.  It's less frustrating that way.

3) Shut up.  I know. This one is hard too, you like to talk and so may clients don't want to listen to all the knowledge and experience you have.  Yet somehow, you are going to share it anyways, you may feel the urge to continually remind clients that you know best, you have the experience.  Suppress that urge.   No one has experience in a market like this, there has never been a market like this.  So just shut up, we know you don't know what you're doing and we're tired of listening to you say you do.

4) Listen. Again, not a skill you have necessarily honed over the years.   But, here's a little hint.  If someone is trying to sell a house, that means at one time they bought the exact same house.  They are in effect the very same kind of people you want to market the house too.  Trying to find out why they bought the house in the first place might give you some clues on what aspects of the house to market.  If they say it's a quiet and safe neighborhood, then for crying out loud put that in the listing.  Even if you think you know better, you might not, and the process would be a lot smoother if the clients felt that you were actually doing what they asked you to do to earn that 6% commission rather than just phoning it in.

5) Show a little compassion. Almost every seller is facing the same harsh, terrible reality that they are going to lose tons of money.  Life-savings levels of money.  Knowing that it's happening to everyone doesn't make it suck less.  Maybe sitting at closings all the time where large checks are written has made you numb to numbers in the tens of thousands changing hands or vaporizing into thin air.  Most people only write checks that big once or twice in their lives, so they aren't quite as numb to it as you might be. Try not to forget that you are delivering the kind of news that brings on anxiety attacks and soften the blow a little.

There you have it, 5 simple rules to a more pleasant client/realtor relationship. Let's face it, this process is going to suck, so the least you can do it try to make it suck less!

Sincerely,
A homeowner just trying to get by

Here we go again...

Remember this.  Well I've finally worked up the courage to try again.  A friend got sick recently, and it reminded me that I needed to get a checkup.  I related my experience and she told me what a wonderful doctor she had, so easy to get an appointment with, really nice and respectful and what great care she was getting.  Call him she said.  You won't be disappointed.

So yesterday I called.  Here's how it went.

Call #1: There is an automated system, you pick numbers to get you to the right person.  When I get to who I think is the right person there is a voicemail box.  I start to leave a message and the system hangs up on me.

Call #2: I call back and choose the option to "speak to a person".  Someone answers, I tell her my plight and she transfers me to the same voicemail box that hung up on me 5 minutes before.  Hang up again.

Call #3: I call press 4, press 1, I'm in and this time, it let me leave a message!

I sit in my office by my phone for an hour.  During lunch I go for a walk.  During the hours that the automated message say is lunch for the whole doctor's office. I miss the return call.

Call #4: repeat call #1

Call #5: repeat call #3

Wait, 30 more minutes and I have to go to a meeting that lasts the rest of the day.

Return to a voicemail that says:  "I have tried to call you several times today to make a new patient appointment with no success, please call us back"  -that is a direct quote, I have the google voice transcript to prove it.

GRRRRR.  Here's what I think:
When I've had to leave as many messages as you have you don't get to express any type of annoyance. 
When part of your job description is to answer the phone and you don't,  you certainly do not get to imply any annoyance when I don't answer the phone.  I don't get paid to do it.  In fact during your working hours, I get paid to work, not hang around waiting for you to call me back.

Well, call #6 was placed to the voicemail box again this morning, I (possibly not so) politely asked if there was a specific time I could call and expect to reach a person since I have many appointments and meetings today.

If I don't have an appointment by the end of the day I guess I'll just randomly start calling doctors from the phone book. 

Hello, April

Well, it's been a super busy semester and teaching two new classes is keeping me quite busy.  So busy that I don't have time to read, write, knit or even sit.  I'm most definitely not complaining.  It's been a long, but good semester. I mostly have good students and I'm enjoying the new job. 

So, to give you something to ponder I'll just comment on a few things that I have read about in the last few weeks that might be of interest.

--> FSP writes about this Ms. Mentor column.  My first impression was very negative.  Based on what I read over at FSP I thought: Fantastic, Ms. Mentor just freaked out a bunch of already stressed out PhD students by telling them they now need voice training.  And that pissed me off.   Being a formally invisible female assistant professor, myself, I know that often the problem has absolutely nothing to do with the pitch of your voice, or the ageing ears of your colleagues.  I wasn't invisible just in faculty meetings, but in email correspondence and other written communication.  My thoughts or just about anything related to me was also invisible, even it was spoken by the correct timbre of a male colleague's voice.  The bottom line, if you are invisible, go get another job.    Then I read the article and I was less angry, it's not as bad as what I was expecting, but I still don't think that it was exceptionally good advice either.  My (untenured) advice would be the invisibility is indicative of a bigger problem that needs to be addressed in whatever way it can get resolved.  In my case, that was leaving. If that is not an option, find the ombudsman, let people know what's happening, find an advocate, or a real life mentor.  (Ms. Mentor is good for somethings, but I don't think she'll argue your tenure case for you)  If they are ignoring your voice, they are also likely ignoring your publications, grants and teaching reviews, and that's a dangerous situation come tenure time. 

--> Dr. Isis tells us about extremists.  Yikes, just yikes.  Here's the deal, extreme activism is not ok.  I'm not saying you shouldn't stand up for what you believe in.  Stand and be heard.  Speaking out is one thing.  Bombs and threats of violence are another. That crosses the line and  these people should be arrested for impinging on the civil rights of others.  Period. 

--> Jezebel reports on a new study finds why women leave engineering.  Really? Seriously?  Get with the program people, this is old news.  I left 10 years ago for these reasons, I was 22, "family" didn't have a thing to do with it.  I guess, it's good we finally have some numbers to back up what most women who've been through it have been saying for years...maybe now we can do something about it.