Interesting topic. My thoughts from my side of the fence (the non agent side).

I’m a pretty straight-forward person (in the event you didn’t know that by now – smile). I get paid for what I do, and am not ashamed nor shy about that fact. I may or may not be a fit for some companies, and they may or may not be a fit for me. My motive is to enter into a mutually beneficial client engagement.

It seems like it should be the same for agents, no? Agents want to help a buyer/seller accomplish what they want/need. In turn they get paid for it.

Too many agents think being social AND Social Media is a billboard to ply their wares, so they do it wrong. It’s called “social” for the same reason as your coffee shop analogy. Agents reap much more reward from just being genuine and posting relevant stuff about themselves and their habits and hobbies. They get zero return from posting listings and shouting “hey check out my great three bedroom I just listed.” Blocked, done, gone. Amazing to me how many are still doing this, shouting out “look at me, look at me” ala don-key in Shrek – instead of doing a needs analysis of their target audience (and platform).

Navy Chief, Navy Pride

Ahhh…..to be idealistic, again. How wonderful to just go up to people willy nilly and try to engage with them in the hopes of starting a friendship for no other reason than they might have a nice face.

Yes, Matt, if you did the same thing that old woman did, the woman with the beautiful face would scream or get out the pepper spray. Peace, love, kumbaya and cheap, abundant marijuana ended with the 70s. Realtors need to understand they’re not pro bono social workers.

Maybe I’m just jaded.

Nashville Grant – What’s that you say? You need to sell your house in Nashville? Don’t worry, I’m from Texas, but I can put you in touch with a great Realtor® out there. whispers… Any agents in Nashville pay 50% referral fee? I have a hot lead.

(I’ve seen that happen all to often – spend 10 minutes watching agents on Trulia fishing for referral fees and you’ll see what I mean.)

If you read my previous comment, you should note that to me “knowing” doesn’t necessarily mean to have direct knowledge. Best thing I learned from my step-mother was that school wasn’t about knowledge, it was about how to find knowledge when you didn’t have the answer.

**Warning, what you are about to read are my personal thoughts and may prove to be rather unpopular. I mean no harm to the agents I will be speaking of, but I instead hope to encourage some honest thought on the topic. You’re been warned.**

Short sale agents need to come down off their high horse. Now before you fly off the handle and get angry with me, listen to why I dare say this.

Real estate is not a simulatable experience. We don’t spend hours in a transaction-simulator like a pilot does in a flight-simulator. Sure, we write practice contracts in training classes, but seriously, we all know they don’t really prepare you for the real thing. We study theory and test cases and although they are valuable, nothing prepares you like looking a client in the eye as they sign a contract.

With short sales, the cry lately has been, “everyone’s messing up the short sales because they don’t know what they’re doing.” That’s not an incorrect statement. I take no pride in knowing that there are agents out there right now screwing up someone’s life because they don’t know what they’re doing. Problem is, short sales are not the only cause. A bad agent is a bad agent, no matter what type of sale it is.

Yes, short sales are definitely a specialized field that take more know how than the base real estate knowledge. Yes, there are some classes and designations out there that can help you improve upon those skills. (Has anyone noticed that the new SFR designation could be read as “suffer” – for some reason that really bothers me.) I do not deny that a little education goes a long way. However, as I learned in my real estate classes from watching others, not everyone’s really paying attention. A designation doesn’t make you an expert (hotly debated topic on its own).

How does one become an expert? By doing. I know quite a bit about short sales from reading and listening, but haven’t done one. Do I know I could successfully? Yes. Why? Because I have the power to ask questions of my peers. Peers who have done them. Peers who could do them in their sleep. Peers who would be willing to help me understand some of the more complex issues that I might not think of right away. If the opportunity presented itself to me, I would be in Kristin’s office (she works with me) in a heartbeat, quizzing her about what I need to know.

What irks me the most is the attitude of “if you haven’t done one, don’t.” What does that say about the person saying it? To me, it says that they had to suspend their own beliefs and ethics at one point in their career. No one goes from zero short sales to a hundred without doing their first one. I wonder, did that agent on their first short sale tell the clients, “you shouldn’t do this with me, I have no experience and no idea what I’m doing.” No one gets to be an expert without doing.

Now of course, I am also a realist and know that some agents have blown it for their clients on short sales. I have spoken to consumers and heard the stories. I’ve seen banks and owners throw monkey wrenches into the process too. Short sales aren’t easy, even the experts seem to agree on that. Should that stop someone from learning? In some markets short sales account for a large percentage of sales – should those that haven’t trained for them step out of the way of the big boys? Instead, why don’t the big boys help the new guys (new to short sales, not new to real estate) and answer their questions, help guide them, and work to make the average Realtor® a better functioning machine – short sale or not.

**Thought over. Please return to your regularly scheduled comments.**