Concerned about Lower Real Estate Commission Rates?

Today’s real estate consumer communicates very differently with their agent than in past times. Unlike boomers who like to get to know their agent and work with them in person, Gen Y’s prefer to do most things electronically. They ask for you to send them an update to a contract via text. They want you to set them up on auto email from your MLS system to look for listings that match their search criteria.

Bottomline, they want to just “get it done". They don’t have the time or interest to really get to know and the true skills you provide as an agent. Gone are the days of riding around in the car for weeks looking for just the right home. They’re narrowing their choices online long before they get to you.

While this can be easier in some respects, it can also be dangerous. If they don’t really know what an agent does, why would they value the commission they pay for the services?

How do you prove your worth without building a strong personal relationship?

Here’s one idea to consider:

Clients need to know all of the steps you go through and all of the balls you juggle to close a sale. They don’t know how many times you interface with your title agent or how you went to the house three times before the home inspector actually showed up. They aren’t aware of the number of follow-up calls you have made to your escrow officer or how you reviewed the special issues on their disclosure with your in-house attorney. They don’t know that you stayed on your State Association’s legal hotline to be sure that all of the parties involved in their REO were legitimate and actually licensed.  They simply don’t know all of the hours it takes to create a successful real estate closing these days.

So what you do about it?   Have you thought about transaction management software?

Transaction management software has been touted for years as a way to become more “efficient” in your business.  While that sounds nice, studies WAV Group conducted about Transaction Management in 2005 and even as recently as 2009 suggest REALTORS® are not driven by their need to be more efficient. They’re driven by the need to be more successful selling real estate!  So let’s look at transaction management through a new lens. What if you thought about transaction management as the way to justify your commission?   These simple to use packages allow you to track every detail and every follow-up item you have planned and completed.  Most of these systems allow you to share these details with your client as well.  With some you can send them an alert every time a task is completed.  They can see all of the hard work you are doing on their behalf even if they don’t have any interest in talking to you. 

By the way, these tools can simplify your work for you as well. You can set up a template for all of the steps you normally follow in a transaction ONCE and then the system will build you schedules and action plans for every one of your transactions.  You can also coordinate all of your communications with home inspectors, termite guys, title agents, and if you’re lucky with lenders too all from one place.  If you focus on REO’s you know that they create a LOT of paperwork without a lot of return in some cases. By using transaction management you can save yourself time so you can maybe work 11 hours instead of 12 some days. 

So instead of thinking of transaction management as just one piece of technology you don’t want to learn about, think instead of it as a way to maintain and protect your commissions.  It may make more sense to use transaction management if you think of it in these terms. 

If you would like to learn about transaction management software available today, you can check them out at RETechnology.com.

To view the original WAV Group blog post, please click here.

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