REAL ESTATE AGENT — PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
As the ultimate goal of my blogs is to bring readers closer to the world of real estate and everything that happens around it and about it, I have chosen a topic for this blog that should break the prejudices about the profession of “real estate agent”.
Namely, through conversations with people, primarily users of our services, and then beyond, I encounter daily prejudices, which through each new purchase and sale business we have to refute and prove the value of this profession.
First of all, let me emphasize that the prejudices that users have did not arise without reason. They first found their foundation in the early nineties when this profession began to appear in Croatia, and the only knowledge that we all had about this profession comes from American films where real estate agents are associated with ruthlessness, fast hunting and enormous wealth. To dispel this prejudice, I will only say this... and we Croatian agents see these films as something imaginary and completely unfounded in our market.
The next prejudice came for the reason that there was no law regulating the profession and if we are going to be honest there were agents who worked for more than a decade under the system of “kidnap”, “cheat”, “agree” and “disappear”.
All of the above has led to the fact that the profession of a real estate agent in people causes disgust and the prejudices already mentioned earlier. Every profession carries with it some stigma, some burden, and I think this column is a good way to inform readers about our occupation, so that after all, in choosing “their” agent or “their” agency, they know how to choose the right one. So, let's go back to the beginning of the column and the first prejudices that arose from American films. Croatian real estate agents do not work on the coast of Florida or Miami Beach and do not mediate in the sale of properties valued in millions of euros or dollars, where the commission is calculated in hundreds of thousands of currencies already mentioned and where the market for agencies is so regulated that no one sells their property on their own. The Croatian real estate agent deals with commercial real estate, where on the one hand it struggles with insufficient ownership documentation and on the other hand with unfair competition. Although our profession has been regulated by law for the last ten years, one gets the impression that illegal competition and the black market are bigger and stronger than in any other profession. Mediation is somewhat dealt with by everyone.. a neighbor from the staircase, a pensioner who wants to fix his pension a little, or a housewife in the break between cooking lunch and ironing the laundry. In this way, I warn users of agency services to check who they are dealing with. Ultimately, we also ask a hairdresser, mechanic or plumber for a recommendation.. .then why not do it also with a real estate agent?!
And most importantly.. check the license!
Another prejudice that refutes the thesis of “snatch”, “deceive”, “agree” and “disappear” is the description of the knowledge that a quality agent must possess. So, having received a recommendation and checked the license, it remains for you to be convinced of its expertise, the amount of knowledge and experience. So a professional real estate agent is not a real estate pointer!! He must be a good, unobtrusive trader who is able to recognize the wishes and possibilities of the client. This brings us to the essential characteristic of an agent who must be an excellent psychologist and recognize the unspoken. If he has satisfied all this and found the property that suits the client, then his other knowledge comes to the fore, namely knowledge of tax regulations to warn the client what other benefits and in what amount they expect from the purchase of real estate, about the legal segments of the business to explain to the client the ownership structure of a particular property and at the same time guarantee a clean and legal business, about the possibilities financing in order for the client to go through the payment procedure as painlessly as possible and possibly save on the purchase price or on additional payments for accompanying services as such as bank commissions, the cost of a notary, etc., on offers of banks and their lines of credit in order to save the client the time of visiting banks, about subsidies from the state also for saving and using any benefits to which the client is entitled. If we turn it around and get a real estate seller as a client, this is where the agent is expected to be a marketing expert who will qualitatively and professionally “prepare” the property for the market and market it to potential buyers.
I hope that all of the above will unwittingly contribute to changing the perception of our profession. That our users will approach us with more confidence, that they will be more aware of what they can and must expect from “their” agent. I also hope that “semi-agents” and “hunters in the dark” will realize that among professionals with such a range of knowledge they have no place and slowly give up. And perhaps the most important thing I want to achieve is that some new young agents, who are just entering the business or thinking about it, are aware that their ranking has been raised high and that nothing less will be accepted by the market.I will end this blog with the words..
I am proud to be a real estate agent!
published on 28.06.2018 year