In our recent “World’s Best Real Estate Agent” class, we discussed all the tasks that a professional real estate agent performs in taking care of a client.

My point was this — You guys are wonderful.

For the work you do, the time you spend, the efforts you make for your clients, you are simply wonderful. You take one of the most difficult experiences in a person’s life, buying a home, and you guide them through that process. You manage that experience for them, and you do a great job of it.

Think of it this way. Someone wants to sell their home, and all they have to do is sign your listing agreement, and that’s it. That’s all they have to do, except disappear for a couple of Sunday afternoons while you do an open house. You do everything else:
• You detail and stage their house.
• You put up the sign.
• You take the pictures
• You load the pictures up into our system, and they go to dozens of websites.
• You enter the property into MLS, with that stupid grid.
• You write the ads.
• You write the property description.
• You write up the mailings.
• You spend however many Sundays you need to sitting at open houses.
• You manage the scheduling of showings.
• You obtain feedback.
• You keep the seller updated about what’s going on in the market.
• You keep the seller updated about what’s happening with the marketing campaign.
• You counsel your client through the feedback, and the offers.
• You negotiate the offer.
• You help schedule the inspection.
• You manage the relationship with the seller’s attorney.
• You schlep documents back and forth.
• You attend the walkthrough.
• You attend the closing.

And if you’re trying to help someone buy a house, it’s an even more extensive list:
• You figure out what the buyer is looking for.
• You look for properties online.
• You set up alerts for yourself.
• You set up alerts for the client.
• You send the client emails on properties they might like.
• You arrange showings.
• You attend showing after showing after showing for as long as it takes.
• You go to open houses.
• You preview properties.
• You’ll go see the same property again and again and again until they’re ready to make an offer.
• You counsel them on their offer.
• You counsel them on their next offer.
• And their next one.
• You negotiate the offer on the property they ultimately purchase.
• You write up the offer.
• You manage the relationship with the attorney.
• You manage the relationship with the mortgage broker.
• You help get your client all the docs the mortgage broker needs.
• You schedule the inspection.
• You attend the inspection, as Mark Rodi explains why they shouldn’t buy this or any house.
• You do everything you can to hold the deal together.
• You go to the walkthrough, and pray they didn’t take the refrigerator.
• You go to the closing.

Wow! That’s just a staggering amount of work. When you consider that other professionals are paid by the hour, it’s something we should actually consider, particularly since you do all that work for a LOT of clients that never pay you — because they never buy anything, or their property never sells. You do it all on contingency.

Some people in the class asked me to post this up, and I’m happy to do it. If you have other things that you do that you’d like me to add to the list, just comment and I’l update the post.