If Jim Duncan sold real estate in the greater Seattle area, we would recruit him for Agent Match. He’s good.

Here’s one of his clients:

We overlooked this home because it only had a photo of the outside, but the home next door to it was for sale and I found a virtual tour through Trulia- it is beautiful. Depending on the shape this one is in, we could go in at $240-250 and have some cash left for renovations. The outside looks well-kept.

The realtor is doing his client a disservice by only having one photo, but the resultant lack of interest may work to our advantage.

And here is his response:

I like to show properties that have one or fewer photos - it usually means that the Seller will have had less traffic and will therefore be more willing to negotiate a lower offer.

If your Realtor has actually seen every property you clients might want, you can seriously leverage bad staging, no staging, bad photos and inept marketing to find gems in the rough. If you’re selling, take a look at your Realtor’s past and current listings and ask yourself “would I want to check out that house?”

I keep meaning to post an update to Estately Agent Match, but I’m going to put it off for another day.

People often ask us how we differentiate between great agents and the rest (and let me tell you, there are a lot of “the rest”). I usually say something about client recommendations and a certain feeling we get with respect to how they talk about clients and their work. Some talk about clients like they’re cattle to be herded and some talk about them like frat boys talk about the sorority girls from their last party. But some agents talk about clients as though they actually like them; they talk about the joys of finding the right house and bringing the knowledge from hundreds of prior experiences buying and selling to help their clients avoid common and not-so-common pitfalls. They often end up describing themselves more like coaches and less like sales people.

But Jeff Kempe actually puts better words to it than I can (emphasis mine):

“Selling isn’t about glib one liners, happy hour entertaining or pat answers to pre-conceived objections. It’s considerably less about form than substance. It’s about having the knowledge and developing the trust in order to fill the real needs of your customers, better than anyone else.” LOVE parental mode.”

…

Learn the difference between ACTING like you care about your customers and ACTUALLY caring. That one thing changes everything. Actually caring means thoroughly knowing customer needs and adapting to them, not expecting them to adapt to yours.

Michael Cook been hitting on this too (emphasis mine):

Great sales firms engender consumer loyalty because they are a consultant first and a salesperson second. While working for Procter & Gamble in sales, I learned early on that no one likes sales people, but everyone likes free, knowledgable consultants. When I learned to be both, I started setting sells records and my customers loved me.

Know a real estate agent who fits this description? Send us an email to agent_match (at) estately.com telling us why they were the best for you and we’ll consider recommending them to our clients. We already have a team of great agents working with clients, but we could always make it better.

I was interviewed by Joel (Inman News / Future of Real Estate Marketing) for Inman TV a little while back they just posted the video this morning. It’s a quick overview of what we’re about and how Agent Match is different (and better) than other ways of finding good real estate agents on the internet. So without further ado:

There is an ongoing debate over divorcing commissions in the real estate blog world that hasn’t yet jumped into the mainstream media. Divorced commissions doesn’t refer to the consumer divorcing the agent of their pay and it will certainly need a better name to get any traction (pay for representation?). In a word, it means you as a consumer pay your agent for representing you as a buyer or as a seller.

As it stands, sellers pay both their own agent and the buyer’s agent. They typically pay 2-3% to the agent who helps them put their house on the market, advertises it, advises them on offers, and negotiates on their behalf at closing. They then offer 2.5+% to the agent of the person who wants to buy the property. That’s to pay the “buyer’s agent” for dragging you to a bunch of properties, helping you figure out what’s right for you, advising you about each property, helping you put together an offer, and negotiating on your behalf through closing.

I’ve been racking my brain trying to find an appropriate analogy for this. Maybe it’s like bringing your lawyer to a divorce hearing (real divorce, not commission divorce) and having your soon-to-be ex-spouse pay your lawyer’s bill.

But it’s not really like that, because you as a buyer end up paying the commission. Say you just paid your agent yourself: The seller would probably pocket some of that 2.5+% they were offering your agent, but they’d probably also reduce the price of the house somewhat, leaving you with a choice about how much service you wanted from your agent and how much you wanted to pay for that service.

So when will commission divorce be just as common as the marital variety? Probably no time soon: banks are not used to it, so they would be wary of paying your agent from your end. Additionally, no one is going to go first: if you’re selling your your house, you don’t want to be the cheapo who offers $0 commission to buyers agents (because some of them will discriminate against you).

Jeff Kempe cogently argues that the perception of free buyers commissions makes consumers lazy about finding a good agent. Since divorced commissions are really an academic discussion in the short term, buyers should focus on finding good agents who will work on their behalf regardless of who is paying. Like in any industry, there are good real estate agents who focus on the long-term business and there are not-so-great agents who focus on the best buck today.

Interview a couple of great agents who can meet your needs and really know their stuff, describing what you need from them and what you’re looking for in a property, ask to talk to previous clients, and figure out if they are someone you would want to work with. Ask questions and ask more questions.

Today we’re launching Estately Agent Match, a program to help Washington State home buyers and sellers find the best real estate agent for them. In a nutshell, you tell us what you need in an agent and we match you with 3 real estate agents who are a good match. Each agent will send you a personal introduction and you’ll be able to see reviews and ratings from their past clients. You interview your favorites and you’re ready to pair the power of Estately real estate search with expert advice from a great agent.

Why Agent Match? Ever since we launched the best Seattle-area real estate search site in December, we’ve had users emailing us asking how they can visit properties on the site and wondering if we could recommend any great agents. We had a great search, but at some point our users wanted to bridge over into the real world and get some professional advice. Since then, we’ve produced some happy beta testers and selectively recruited some of the best agents in Western Washington to partner with us. They come from big-name brokerages and small, intimate brokerages and have a variety of approaches to buying and selling properties, but they have some things in common: a commitment to their clients, businesses built on referrals from previous clients, and passionate clients who have nothing but good things to say about their agents.

Why do we match people with three agents? We’re confident that we matching each client with great agents, but personality is important in buying or selling a home. You should be really be able to trust your agent, so we want to be sure that you really get the right agent for you.

We’re excited to be the first site to really focus on helping people find the best agent for them. We’ve recruited a rock-star team of agents, many of whom do so much business from past clients and personal recommendations that we’re the first site they’ve worked with.