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Because Real Estate Agents are Suckers and Low Hanging Fruit
Just ask Top100RealEstateAgents.com how much they think real estate agents are suckers. Because that group has got it figured out. Although, you can’t give them all of the credit. They simply borrowed ideas that worked well for other companies that collect statistics on top producers. I should clarify that a top producer doesn’t necessarily mean what you might think it means. You may think a top producer is cream of the crop, an agent who sells more than anybody else. But it depends on whose definition you lean.
If you lean on the definition of the Sacramento Association of Realtors Masters Club Members, those are people who have sold a minimum of 8 homes a year that total $5 million or more in sales volume. So basically closing one $625K house every 45 days. Eight sales a year can qualify an agent for Master’s Club. Once they suck you into membership in Master’s Club, an agent pays for a plaque or stickers or both. But that’s not the worst part.
That’s peanuts.
Not the worst part by far.
The worst part is when all the leeches come out of woodwork. By leeches I mean companies that profit by putting together their OWN lists of so-called top producers. This is why real estate agents are suckers. Because they can so easily be taken advantage of. If an agent wants to be recognized as a member of Master’s Club, then all of these news organizations and media publications expect the right to publish that name, but only in exchange for payment from the Sacramento Realtor.
They see this as win-win. I see it as since my name doesn’t get included unless I pay, well, that makes it extortion. I do pay for a couple of publications simply because I know my clients do not understand how this works. People in Sacramento still read the Sacramento Bee. They might wonder why my name is not included on a list it should be on. This is an irritation. But I refuse to pay every publication and I do draw the line.
Now the Sac Bee has decided it can make more money by getting agents to pay to be promoted as a Master’s Club member at different times of the year. Like over the 4th of July when nobody is reading the paper. Or, on Thanksgiving, LOL. I wish this would please, just stop. I say no. I won’t do it.
I also draw the line at real estate agent scams like Five Star Professionals, which seems like a big hoax to me. Top Broker Agent and Top Agent magazines are another example. They pretend you are a top agent and make you pay big bucks in exchange for publishing your air-brushed glam photo on the cover. Also, Real Trends has stopped bombarding me with spam to buy plaques, thank goodness.
But yesterday, I received a new example of how real estate agents are suckers. Some of those other real estate agent scam victims seem to work at Lyon Real Estate. I wonder, do they know they are being suckered or don’t they care? This is a new thing that supposedly ranks the Top 100 real estate agents, but only in certain areas. This company wants me to pay them $350.00 to “accept my award” of being named to that list.
On top of this, when I searched for a Sacramento agent on their website, the search for Sacramento turned up no results. Even if Sacramento agents were listed, I wouldn’t pay for this alleged privilege. On the home page, you can view the top 100 agents, of which there are only 57, LOL. Since I already rank in the top 10 agents in Sacramento, why would I want to be included in a top 100 list that only includes agents who pay for it? You’ve gotta ask Top100RealEstateAgents.com, how stupid do they think real estate agents are in Sacramento? I guess the answer is very.
Is it true that real estate agents are suckers? I have a dead ex-husband, a seminar hustler from Orange County, who firmly believed all real estate agents are suckers. He made a lot of money from agents.
Agents are always looking for innovative ways to promote themselves. But when the promotion companies that supposedly honor your achievements also demand payment to be recognized, you’ve gotta stop dead in your tracks. You should question this crap. Why is true that real estate agents are suckers? This stuff will persist as long there are real estate agent suckers to fund it. Here is the real kicker, those lists are not easily found by consumers. So, agents pay for zero return, zero branding.
Of course, there is also the possibility that some agents recognize the hoax and do not care. I imagine many “award” companies count on this attitude as well. They are no different, really, than the porn ransom email scam. Those crooks also attempt to extort money and give you nothing in return.
This is why I print my sales production directly from MLS and show it as proof to prospective clients. There is so much jaw-flapping going on in this industry, such puffery, it’s hard to tell who is telling the truth. Everybody wants to be a top agent. Few really are.
Top Sacramento Listing Agent Ranks #70 Nationally
The brokerage your Sacramento listing agent works for makes a difference — which is yet one more reason for sellers to interview agents from competing brokerages and not from the same brokerage. Some agent from Illinois wrote this morning to say she disagreed with an article I wrote for About.com — and that’s not the first time some agent has approached such an issue with disdain and horror, as though they were splashed by a spoonful of spaghetti sauce flipped off a spoon held by yours truly and directed with precision at the front of their white shirts.
There are many reasons not to interview an agent from the same brokerage much less the same real estate office, but marketing provided by the brokerage is a strong reason. Sellers should see how other brokerages market their listings, and if all they’re doing is comparing one apple to other apples in the office, they won’t see the differences among brokerages.
This is not to say that all agents are the same because all agents are not the same. It’s like a bell curve. Plus, every agent offers a different education level, experiences, marketing, strategies, analytical reasoning and they sometimes talk to each other in the office about listing presentations. If you are a seller interviewing two agents in the same office, they might even talk about you, a common element they share. It’s human nature and to suppose otherwise is a bit naive.
It’s the same as believing that maybe Nixon was not a crook. Maybe Clinton didn’t have sex with that woman. Perhaps there is no revolving door between corporate America and government. Maybe the 99% are at fault and deserve what they get. Maybe the honeybees are dying because they’re supposed to. Maybe the world is flat after all.
Of course, if you’re listing with an agent at Lyon Real Estate, you’re getting a brokerage that ranks #1 in Sacramento. A brokerage that spends a ton of money on advertising and support for its agents’ listings. Real Trends issued a report this month showcasing the top 500 agents in the country. The Elizabeth Weintraub Team ranked #70 in America for last year’s number of sales. I never thought I’d see the day that I ranked in the top 100 teams in the country. That just blows me away. See what happens when you’re busy?
The downside is Real Trends and its affiliates now want to sell me every kind of statue, plaque and award thingie, and even Trulia has hopped on the bandwagon. Criminy.
Sacramento Real Estate Agent Award Scams
Being a Sacramento real estate agent with one ear to the ground for scams sometimes make me the lone real estate agent who will point out the emperor has no clothes when no other agent has the tenacity or guts. It’s one of the reasons why I was hired many years ago to be the home buying expert at About.com. I will tell it like it is. People count on me to give them the straight scoop. It’s in my nature.
Not to mention, I really detest being taken advantage of. Nobody likes to get dressed up on her day off, studiously explore a pocket of homes, pore over a comparable market analysis, drive to another part of town to meet a seller from the mountains and her Duck Dynasty husband, be given a tour of a home in which the occupant is baking cupcakes and not be offered one single bite, only to discover her sole purpose in that house is to confirm a sales price that the seller had already signed a listing at with some other agent. But it happens in real estate.
What I find more annoying is the clever schemes being carried out to supposedly honor real estate agents and their achievements. These scams are so clever they border on being evil. Companies exist that are making a profit selling awards they create in the form of plaques or advertising to agents they honor with an “award.” It’s kind of hard for an agent to complain about it when the agent is receiving recognition. That’s why I hold contempt for it.
Two such companies come to mind but there are others. The first is Five Star Professional. They claim that they select agents based on client surveys, but I have my suspicions. First, as an experiment, I wrote to Five Star to ask why I wasn’t listed in its 2013 agent list. Lo and behold, suddenly a survey appeared in my email in which I was asked whether I had closed a minimum number of transactions (it wasn’t very many, a bare fraction of the number I had closed last year). So, that meant the bar was relatively low.
Next thing I know, I receive an email saying I have been nominated to the 2014 Five Star Professional list. You know, I don’t even like the word “professional” as a marketing tool because it sounds so slimy. It’s not used for real professionals like a doctor or a teacher. People use professional when there is no actual business designation or the individual has no degree. So, let’s call it what it is: a real estate agent. No sooner did that email arrive than my phone rang, simultaneously, and my Caller ID showed it was Five Star Professional. They want to help me market my new award. They want to sell me advertising.
So does Real Trends Best Real Estate Agents in California. They named the Elizabeth Weintraub Team in the top 25 of all teams in California based on number of homes sold. I know how many homes I have sold and I probably do rank in the top 25, but so what? Soon I began receiving emails and faxes and voice mails from a company, evidently associated with Real Trends, that wants to sell me plaques to hang over my desk.
This is what happens to a top producing Sacramento real estate agent. But . . . these things also happen to agents who are NOT top producers. No wonder the public doesn’t know what or whom to believe.
You might ask how is this different than a newspaper or a magazine or an association that holds an award dinner, hires a celebrity speaker and then charges those who have “won an award” to attend? I’d be right there with you asking this question. But at least the winners don’t have to buy their own plaques.
