Full Service Real Estate
The word candor bears heavy importance at present. It is seemingly relevant to today's real estate experience. It is so critical because many agents have practiced the opposite for so long. We have presented to clients something we described to be "full service" for as long as any of us can recall. But many agents infrequently told consumers what this "full service" entailed. Consequently, these agents practiced unintentional corruption. Perhaps they never set out to hoodwink anyone. It is just that these agents erroneously assumed that everyone knew what full service entailed.

The difficulty was that most consumers never understood going into a transaction what would take place between placement in the multiple listing service and obtaining the closing check or the keys to their new home. Clients commonly imagine that agents do considerably less than we genuinely perform for their charge. "If you neglect to inform me what I am compensating you for, I am not delighted to shell out my cash." Yet agents have unintentionally asked clients to carry out precisely that.

What comprises full service differs vastly from one expert to the next. One could possibly include staging, and another might not. One might potentially include direct mail and Internet advertising, while some other might not. Some may incorporate all closing services, while others may require an additional charge. Regardless of what an agent is likely to offer or omit, one element is obvious: Clients in all probability do not understand what to anticipate. Occasionally a professional will present them with a marketing strategy on paper, or from time to time, clients are given a brochure on "what to expect.” More often, the client would neither understand this nor have a transparent concept on what they are paying for.

Combined with befuddlement the actuality is that the agents, as contending professionals, frequently hand over services freely hoping to succeed in obtaining the contract. These "free gifts" are on occasion services that go beyond the standard: staging, landscaping, interior restoration and mending are all details that have been given out as free services even though they were by no means components of the normal group of services. They were "invented" often to inflate agents’ individual offering to have a nose just a little ahead of the pack.

Agents place so much importance on extras in competitive plans, that consumers sometimes think of the extras as an agent’s service offering, missing the real important issues like marketing, negotiation, contracts, disclosures, inspections, closings, and so much more. So, listening to real estate consultants puff about these "put me first" ancillary services and not hearing much about critical services, it is no small wonder why consumers might sometimes think agents are overpaid.

It is high time to educate clients as to what it is real estate agents do for a living. The manner in which this information is delivered will speak volumes on an agents’ professionalism.  When offered the right way, agents are viewed as true professionals, skilled in all aspects of residential real state business. Do it some other way and an agent can become just like another discount shop: giving away services but never really performing to the consumer's expectation. Customers understand what they expect.

Candor is doing business, giving the consumer a clear understanding of all the services they will receive, and the costs associated with those services. It is allowing the client to understand these services in such a manner as to empower them to make correct choices about the services that they will want or need. It is then structuring the business agreement in such a way as to spell out in clear terms the expectations of both the professional and the consumer with candor.

Then, perform to expectations.