Paying it forward

I got an unusual call today. It was from another Real Estate sales agent.

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When I first started in the business, I got calls several times a month, particularly after I picked up a large listing (which never did sell). I used to get recruited often, as did many of the agents in my office. Even with signs of a problem with home sales, I still heard the old saws, “People have to live somewhere,” and “real estate doesn’t lose value,” and brokerages hadn’t begun the triage process.

This calling-to-recruit activity is much less prevalent now. Everyone is more concerned with mere survival, and I know it is on everyone’s mind, the question: “What is going to happen after this new buyer incentive is gone?” Sales are up, but right now we aren’t measuring apples to apples, and foreclosure activity is showing no sign of abating.  Offices are cutting non-producing agents- or thinking about it, anyway.

So the call- I was surprised. The agent said on my VM that he wanted to ask me a couple of questions. Fair enough; I called him back.

No recruiting. What he wanted to was if a particular REO site had ever been productive for me, as far as me getting any listings there. He was very nervous. He was out of my territory, and he had done his homework (I had seen his website and he had obviously done some research), so I pointed him down a couple of paths that had worked for me for listings. We chatted a while, and he told me that he planned on going to an REO conference next month. I knew that was the Five Star Conference, and had heard good things about it and told him so.

I didn’t hand him any closely guarded secrets or magic bullets, because I don’t know of any. I was just friendly. And when I said goodbye I could hear the emotion in his voice. I was apparently the only one who had answered his questions. Ever.

You know, I have been asked by agents about bank-owned property, and really- it’s a different animal than resale. You really need some kind of set-up to deal with it. And at least one of the companies that I had been working with has gone under, leaving me to eat the electric bills and unpaid cost of snow removal. I see ads sometimes that make bank-owned look like the easiest money in the world- no weekend hours- but that’s balderdash. You have 10 properties and they need a monthly status report on the same day, and you get a call for 4 BPOs at the same time, you get it done. If the people asking me are unprepared and looking for an easy 9-5 job, they should find something else.

But otherwise, we all have to help each other. That’s what I like about twitter and some of the other social media sites- you shoot out a question, and someone will answer you.

So, for the people who have answered my questions since I hae been in the space- today was for you. I tried to pay it forward. And the agent that I spoke to today will too.

It’s the difference between surviving and living.

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