The real estate agent: advisor or order-taker?
Lately I've been pondering the role of the real estate agent. Is it simply to act as the mouthpiece—a transparent, unthinking, non-judging intermediary—for his client? Should the agent's attitude be, "the client is always right, and my job is only to pass on her thoughts to the other party"? Or should the agent take a strong advisory role, knowing that he understands real estate practice and etiquette far better than his client?
Need an example? Okay, let's say you're an agent, driving a late-model Mercedes and single-handedly causing real estate bubbles. Fun, huh?! Let's also say that, in the heat of a transaction, with emotions high (as they always are), your client becomes convinced that 1) the other side and their agent are pulling a fast one, and 2) those sleaze balls must pay dearly for their perfidy.
Let's also say that you're a savvy enough agent to know that the other side is well within its contractual rights, and that it's your client, not the other side, that's getting out of line. So do you dutifully communicate your client's overheated demands to the other agent, with maybe a sympathetic cluck now and then as he loses his patience and his mind? (For bonus points, gently chide him for being unprofessional enough to lose his patience.) Or do you calmly but firmly advise your client that she's not entitled to what she asks for or, better yet, make sure the moment never occurs by continually educating her so that her expectations coincide with reality?
Of the two roles, I suggest that advisor is by far the more challenging, since it demands these characteristics of the agent:
Order-taker, on the other hand, requires these characteristics:
In the biz it's sometimes said admiringly of an agent that "she's a strong agent", which means that she's known for keeping her clients focused and on track throughout the transaction, with tantrums minimized and bizarre obsessions conspicuous by their absence. Of course, "strong agent" plays to the stereotype of the domineering agent whipping her clients onward to their doom, but this ignores a key fact about any high-stakes business relationship: if the expert isn't in charge, no one's in charge, and if no one's in charge, the client's ship is heading straight for the reef.
Clients pay agents for their expertise and judgment. Agents, give your clients their money's worth.