A friend of mine speculated that my motive for writing this book was to get rich. And I’d be lying to you if I didn’t admit that one of the reasons for writing it was to make lots of money. Because like most everybody else I want to make a few dollars.
Somebody else said that I probably wrote this book because I’m sick and tired of selling real estate and want to get the heck out of it. (Not true.)
I’m still having fun selling homes. What’s exciting now is that I’m selling homes to some of the sons and daughters of my past clients!
Actually, about a year ago, I went to a bookstore to find a book that would help a new, part-time agent start her career by working with buyers. When I couldn’t find one, I decided to write the book myself. Then a full-time agent read my manuscript and suggested that I change the title to include full-time agents too. But originally one of the reasons why I wrote this book was to help new people and part-time agents work with buyers.
I also wrote this book because I wanted to inspire and encourage real estate agents to do better. Not only do I want them to become better salespeople for the sake of their own clients but for other people too.
Now before I get on my high horse, I want you to know that I wouldn’t still be selling real estate today if it weren’t for the hundreds and maybe thousands of good people that I’ve met over the years. Good clients, good prospects, good real estate associates, and tough, but good competitors. The reason for my success is because I’ve been blessed to work with so many good people.
Recently though I felt embarrassed to be in real estate. Here’s what happened. My buyer, John, was a young man, age 36, who has been paralyzed from the waist down for the last ten years. Divorced, he’s sharing the responsibility of raising his eleven year-old daughter. He works as a professional fisherman and drives a specially-designed vehicle to pull his boat.
John wanted to buy a home that had a garage big enough to house his bass boat, and spacious bathroom entrances and wide hallways, to make it easy for him to get around in his wheelchair. In my area, these kinds of homes are fairly difficult to find in his price range.
My client fell in love with a home that was owned and listed by a young, top agent and wrote up a purchase agreement that was slightly less than full price. When I visited the agent to discus my client’s offer, he looked at the buyer’s pre-approval letter, he listened to me tell him how much my wheelchair-bound client liked his home and then he faxed me a strange counteroffer which he didn’t bother to sign. Number one: he asked my buyer to release an earnest money deposit of $2,500 unconditionally to him within two days. Number two: my buyer was supposed to close escrow within one week or he would lose his deposit. Now this wasn’t a loan assumption. My buyer was supposed to obtain and qualify for a new loan and close escrow within seven days. Not a normal counteroffer, wouldn’t you agree?
My buyer still wanted the home, so the next day he met with a loan officer. Afterwards the loan officer told me that he could complete the sale in one week. Upon hearing this news, the listing agent said, "I’m sorry, but I just received another offer. It’s from another agent, and the price is slightly higher than yours, so I’m taking it."
Now, did the listing agent use our offer as leverage to gain a higher price from the second buyer? I don’t want to speculate, but doesn’t it seem that way? It was almost as if he didn’t want my purchaser to buy this property and it made me shake my head in disgust. It wasn’t the fact that I lost the commission. It was the fact that meanness had triumphed again. My buyer was willing to do anything to get that home, only to have his hopes dashed. I mean it takes him one hour just to put his pants on in the morning and he met the loan officer at seven o’clock in the morning. Yet by eight o’clock that same morning, the top agent had received and accepted this other offer.
Another disappointment in a life filled with disappointments. My client felt bad too. I realize that we realtors live in a rough and tumble world and that rejection and disappointment are part of the game. And perhaps it was best that he didn’t get this house. That’s what I told him. "Hey, things will work out for the best." Still I kept saying to myself, legally this top agent has the right to break his promise to sell the home, but I don’t think that it’s right, or that it promotes a good image of what real estate agents are normally like.
Question: How could I turn this negative experience into a positive one? I started to think about what the lender had said; "Ninety percent of real estate agents would have done the same thing." But I don’t think this is true. Most agents would have written a counteroffer notifying each purchaser that there was another purchaser interested in the property. Most agents are considerate and don’t play games. Then the listing agent told me, "Bob, just shove it under the rug and move on. There’s nothing you can do about it." I guess he was right. I guess I should have just swept it under the rug. .
But see I’m the dumb kind of agent I figured that maybe I could do something about it. See I had started working on this book but I’d stopped writing. Suddenly I got inspired to finish it. Why not mention this incident? If nothing else, maybe new or part-time agents could learn something and become surprisingly better agents as a result.
But who am I to write a book? Who would want to read it? That’s why I’d stopped writing it in the first place. I’d said to myself, Who am I kidding? I can’t razzle-dazzle people with my sales achievements. How I sold seventeen homes with one hand tied behind my back, that kind of thing, because even when I had a good year there was always somebody else who did even better.
One time I went to a Mike Ferry seminar and he had everybody raise their hands in order to see who had made the most sales. To my surprise, I was the number one salesperson in the room of three hundred people.
So Mike walked over to me and he asked, "What’s your name?" I said, "Bob." He said, "Bob, do you realize that there’s a guy in Michigan who sold almost three times as many homes as you did last year?"
The point is, no matter how good you think you’re doing, there’s probably somebody, somewhere else, who’s doing it better. Then I realized that I’ve probably failed and gotten up from the floor more than the next person, so what the heck. Maybe I should write about my failures as well as my successes. So here are three reasons why I wrote this book.
One: I want to make lots of money.
Two: I want to teach you something about working with buyers. I work in Newhall, California where I managed to sell 29 homes in sixteen weeks after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, during a time when selling homes was probably much more difficult than it is today. I’m going to share with you some of my winning secrets and losing experiences. In fact, you might learn more from my failures than my secrets. I don’t know..
Three: I want you to learn that selling homes isn’t only about making the most money. I think it’s more important to lose a sale if it means doing the right thing. Who wants to be number-one, if, like the young agent in my town, you stomp the hopes of somebody less fortunate in order to make a few more dollars?
When I was new in real estate, there was a real estate broker who suffered a heart attack. Everybody in town went out of their way to try to help him out. Nowadays, most agents wouldn’t even send a "get-well-soon" card.
I think that we in real estate can do a little bit better than we’re doing. For our sellers, buyers and even our competitors.
So I’m going on my own little crusade. I don't know if there is anyone out there who feels like I do, but I think it's best if we all start doing something. For example, why not start by making some random acts of appreciation? Say nice things to people, or send notes or e-mail, not only to buyers and sellers but other agents as well. Believe me, many are starved for praise and appreciation. And just a few words is all it takes. "Thanks for your professionalism on Ermine Street." Give a person doing a good job some honest encouragement. You might be amazed at the results! What do you think? Are you willing to join me?
Good. Let’s get started.