Time and again, we seek to shed light on practices in the real estate community. We lead by being transparent. It is nerve wracking that some of our colleagues are continuing to bend half truths in ways to make themselves appear more grandiose than reality would dictate. Our example in this post is about agency.
If you have interviewed any agents recently to list your home, you have been inundated with reams of data supplied by the franchise they work for. An example:
The pitch typically follows this template: ” Our office has more agents to work for you, more marketing, more keywords, more transactions…” This can continue ad nauseam. These facts and figures are real, but the presentation to earn your business is misplaced at best, unethical at worst. You aren’t hiring the entire franchise to help you find your dream home or sell your residence, no matter how many fancy slides or graphs are shoved in front of you. This is the half truth, in California you are entering into an agency agreement with two entities, the agent and their broker. (California Real Estate Loans, Inc. v Wallace (1993) 18 CA 4th 1575; Manning v. Fox (1984) 151 Cal.App.3d 531; Resnik v. Anderson & Miles (1980) 109 Cal.App.3d 569, 572-573; Gipson v. Davis Realty Co. (1963) 215 Cal.App.2d 190, 206-207; Grand v. Griesenger (1958) 160 Cal.App.2d 397, 406.)
California law is very clear, the only person you are hiring to represent you is the broker, with the agent in front of you acting as the broker’s agent to you, the principal. With that knowledge, do you really want to hire a broker who oversees hundreds or thousands of agents? Top 60 brokers in California:
Agents are independent contractors. They are not obligated to collaborate with interoffice colleagues on your behalf. Having a franchise pool with tens of thousands of agents is of no benefit to you locally. These numbers shouldn’t be touted as a benefit to consumers, the larger the brand the more cogs they need in their machine. Their resources aren’t ultimately geared to your personal success in real estate, but more to add notches on their brand’s belt. Real estate agents become their customers, not the home buyer or seller.
You are probably asking yourself, what does any of this mean? At 1850 Realty, you have the broker no more than one contact away. Any issues can be thoughtfully resolved immediately on your behalf, instead of waiting in a queue at corporate. We spent years in the corporate franchise model, and feel it didn’t allow us address our clients wants and needs as effectively as we know we can. We are proactive and nimble for our clients. Owning a brokerage allows us to pool all of our assets, resources and talents for you.
All real estate is local. Shouldn’t you work with a local company and broker?
