Walk the walk: inform, advise, add value

Is the market up?

Is the market down?

Is it balanced?

What’s going on?

Anyone can read stories in the news or check out the statistics provided by various real estate industry associations, but what does it all mean?

What does it mean for a move-up buyer who just read that the average price is up 5% year-over-year but that the number of luxury home sales (over $1 million) has also gone up 20%?

What does it mean for a seller who knows that the property next-door sold for $500,000 even though other properties in the neighbourhood have been selling for much, much less?

This is where you come in—this is where you get to demonstrate your value as a licensed, experienced real estate professional. Sure, there is more information available to consumers now than at any time in the past, and a lot of that information is available at the click of a button, and certainly without hiring a licensed real estate professional. But, these are the times when licensed professionals can really shine as the experts they are. Consumers need help sorting through the noise and figuring out what really matters for them. Your role is to provide context to those numbers. Your role is to take those numbers and make them meaningful.

You’re a professional. And while the services you provide likely includes printing marketing materials for a seller and telling buyers what properties recently sold for, your real value proposition is in providing your clients with the valuable advice they cannot get elsewhere.

Explain what it is you bring to the table that they cannot simply get from a website or marketing company, and then follow through on it. First, tell your clients what you’re going to do for them—the type of valuable advice you can provide—then, go out and do it.

Talk the talk and walk the walk.