Yesterday I overheard a Colorado Springs real estate agent talking to a Zillow lead on the phone that she had just received for the downtown area. What followed was inspiring.
You may think what I’m about to say will be earth shattering, mind blowing or some other embellishment of reality.
No. It was pretty simple and yet revolutionary in our industry. Here’s what happened:
With no computer, no MLS access around her at the time, she starts (again over the phone) verbally walking the person through the house starting from the front door to the spiral staircase.
She brought them up the stairs to some of the rooms where walls had been removed from a renovation a few years ago and where the new ones currently are. She got down to the nitty gritty detail of the upstairs bathroom window sill being slightly chopped off because they wanted the cabinet drawer to open all the way.
Bottom line: she knew this house like the back of her hand.
Was this just luck that the address being inquired upon was one that she had been in before multiple times? Absolutely not. I know this because this wasn’t the first time this has happened before with this agent.
Intentionality
She lives and breathes in her expertise. She’s passionate about the area. She knows her inventory. She understands her market and her audience. She knows about the random community gardens going on downtown. She knows about the rehabs going on down the street and the little areas that the general contractor may have cut corners.
This agent is legitimately a downtown specialist and focuses her attention on being the best damn agent in the older neighborhoods of Colorado Springs.
Brian from 1000watt talks about this in his article, Online real estate listings: It’s time to clean up our act. In reference the “premier” buyer’s agents suggested on ZIllow for the neighborhood he lives in, he mentions this:
“But then there’s problem #2: None of these agents truly knows this neighborhood.” (for problem #1 go read the article… it’s worth it.) He knows this because it is his neighborhood and he’s “Never seen a for sale sign with their name on it. Never seen their card at an open.”
We need to think of this industry in reference to the people we are serving and treat them like we would like to be treated if we were in their shoes. Let’s not kid ourselves into thinking we are really experts in everything Colorado Springs regarding buying and selling properties because we have access to the MLS data or something.
If you were a person living or looking in downtown, who would you want to work with? The agent who is a generalist “expert” in Colorado Springs, or a person who lives and breathes the type of real estate you’re potentially going to be involved in?
In the words of Brian again: “let me be clear: this has got to stop. These are homes, folks, not sweaters. Having your inventory shit together matters.”
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