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RE/MAX Founder Brokers says: "Long-term relationships is the name of the game"CAPE TOWN (November 11) - If there is one clear message emerging from the helter skelter real estate downturn that has mercilessly wiped out about one third of its players is that the only sure way agencies will survive is to change the mindset of the way they do business.
And that change, according to RE/MAX real estate pioneers, should be the establishing long-term business relationships by relentlessly adding genuine value to their services.
Showered by success from rampant demand during the past four or five years the industry has failed to deliver the value deserved by their clients and this, according to Graham Gavin (left), has now cornered them in a survival attitude where many are factoring in silent desperation to conclude the next sale.
Gavin, a 28-year industry veteran and trainer and founder of RE/MAX in KZN made clear at the group’s recent broker owner convention in the Drakensberg that the future lifeblood of both agency and agent will depend on its depth and quality of service that must be nurtured into long-term value of service given the client.
“We have to move from chasing a transaction to the mindset of building long-term business relationships to the point that the client becomes as dependent on his estate agent as he, or she, does on their doctor or lawyer. “Sound advice based on in-depth market knowledge and not self-interest is paramount, just as honesty and absolute integrity should be a given and not an afterthought.”
Nic van den Berg of Pretoria’s RE/MAX Jowic, highlights three golden rules for estate agent’s survival as: principals genuinely looking after their top agents; manage their businesses and particularly advertising and marketing on a cash basis and to avoid any form of credit and revert to basics, that includes working harder
Van den Berg, a rock-hard industry veteran who has roller coasted the real estate troughs of the seventies, eighties and nineties and has not lost one of his 48 sales staff in the present depression, says it is vital that principals help overcome their agents nervousness. He swoops on staff members at the first sign of negativity, often apparent from body language, wasting little time in driving home his unquestionable Dale Carnegie talents.
“Sellers and buyers are quick to pick up an agent’s stress or anxiety when they deal with them and this is often the reason they move onto other more confident agents.” Van den Berg, also believes survival depends on the old fashioned street or phone canvassing and of course “boards, boards and more boards” With probably one house in four selling as a result of board exposure he has a point, but he also places strong faith in the pull of well presented newspaper advertising.
Another RE/MAX pioneer, Gavin Bouwer of West Rand-based RE/MAX 2000, also pledges his faith in the back to basics approach while seeing underscoring merit in the critical evaluation of both seller and buyer, either of whom he says could be only half serious or acting on a whim and therefore destructive of an agent’s time.
He also advises agents to concentrate their energies on urgent sellers, particularly in the presentation and right pricing of their home from the first day of listing rather than gradually reducing the pricing or the holding of sporadic showhouses. Bouwer also hammers the value, particularly in this market, of an agent’s good local standing “the bigger the reputation the better chance of survival”
Jan Grove, another founding member of RE/MAX SA and highly respected on the East Rand, rates “systems, disciplines and attitudes” as vital survival tools in the current tough operating climate. He also places an agent’s courage to be honest to both sellers and buyers as priorities, even though their recommendations may fall upon fallow ground. “Creating false expectations for a seller in any market, but in this particular market when an urgent sale may stand between bankruptcy and financial survival is vital, it is absolutely immoral and should be widely condemned by the industry.”
Grove also highlights a positive in the current market with the reduced levels of activity giving agents far more quality time to concentrate on building lasting relationships with their existing client base. “If an agent can produce five star service in this market, then he or she, are well on their way to securing a client for life.” << Back to news section
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