When a Salesperson is representing a product, whether it be a suit of clothes or a house, they are acting under Agency and their fiduciary duty belongs to the party paying for their services unless they have a contract that says otherwise. If you walk into my Open House and ask me questions about the property, like “what will they take?”, it is my duty to tell you that “they will take the asking price.” 

I’m not trying to be smart or glib, but the seller has signed a contract with me and the Company, to sell the property at a price they have chosen under the listing agreement. My duty to counsel is to the Seller, not the Buyer….

If I enter into a Buyer Representation Agreement with the Buyer then, I can offer counsel to the Buyer. I can give information about recent sales in the area, market conditions, my thoughts on the market etc. but only when a relationship has been established in writing between the parties, much as a Listing Agreement sets out the relationship with the Seller and their agent.

There are times, of course, when Multiple Representation occurs. That happens when a property listed with my Company is of interest to a Buyer under contract to our Company.  An open discussion can be held with the exception of two major areas:

1. If I know what price the Seller would accept or the Buyer will pay, I cannot share that information….
2. If I know the motivation for the Buyer or Seller in Buying and Selling, I cannot share that information…

Those are the two restrictions…and must be adhered to under Representation or Agency.

Recently, the Toronto Real Estate began a campaign to try to explain Representation and the need for Buyer Representation especially to the consumer and their Realtor. You can check it out at  www.BRAFirst.ca.

The idea is that the Seller and Realtor bring a property to the market through the TorontoMLS system with a note in the Broker’s remarks that although showing can commence at the time of listing, offers, if any, will be reviewed at a later date.

What is the reason for this? Are the Realtor and Seller manipulating the market to force multiple offers in an Auction-like scenario? Could be…but that can also backfire…What happens if, at the end of the time period, no offers appear or an offer appears that the Seller is unwilling to accept.

In the last case scenario, if a Realtor advertises a property on the market, knowing that the Seller has seen a full price, unconditional offer and not accepted it, then there is a case for “false advertising” that can be forwarded to the Real Estate Council of Ontario . The Seller and Realtor then should increase the listing price to a price that they know the Seller will accept. This can affect the marketing in a negative way.

I always counsel my Sellers that the list price must be a price that they would be okay to accept. It may not be their goal…mine is a 27 inch waist but that ship has already sunk.

I am a big supporter of holding off offers but let me tell you why:

1. The market has been very fluid over the past few years with comparables selling all over the map. Pricing is not an exact science and if you were to ask five Realtors for their thoughts they would probably all be different….as would the Seller’s.
2. Pricing has a lot to do with how many Buyers there are in the marketplace for that kind of property at that time. One week there might be five Buyer for a type of property and the next week, there might be one. Timing is everything and sometimes unexpected prices are reached because of the scarcity of product  that week.
3. I want to make sure that my Sellers and I are not left with the thought that there might be more money on the table; that we could of had by more by waiting for another offer.

By bringing the property to the market, advertising on all the channels that are available including Agent’s Open Houses as well as Public Open Houses (Answering The Commission Question ) and then looking at offers a few days later, the Agent has done his due diligence to make sure that the property sells for the best price possible and the open market will set the price.

So I have been home a week and trying to make sense of all the information that I gleaned in the four hectic days of meetings in New York City. Instead of the usual “Blow by Blow” and who said what, I will just give you some of my impressions:

First and foremost, the four days were all about Social Media . Like it or not, just the way we used to say that Realtors with Technology will replace Realtors without it, now, Realtors and Brokers who have a Social Media presence will replace those who do not. As one of the speakers said, being a “Geek” is the norm and fashionable. Grandma’s are on Facebook , tweeting  and showing off their new IPhone !

Two years ago, consumers “got” Social Media and some of the Realtors joined in the conversation. Now Brokers, Brands and Associations are scrambling to reign in the herd and jump on the bandwagon. Guidelines  are imperative and education is needed. There will be a race to keep up the demand for more Education and tools.

Corporations are monitoring Web 2.0 . Twitter comments are being seen and reviewed in the Head Office. Customer’s Social Media Clout (Klout.com ) is being measured to gave the level of service provided. Someone with heavy clout is being upgraded in the hopes that they will “Twitter” their great customer service experience.

Traditional Media is in its death throws. Print Classified is dead. Newspaper advertising has become almost strictly Brand based. “The Digital Handshake”  by Paul Chaney . Consumer habits have and are changing faster than we are…

There is lots of new Technology on its way; WordPress  is getting strong momentum and amazing plug-ins and applications for small screen technology are becoming numerous. It is no longer enough to provide the data to the Realtor or their client; it must be formatted in an easy to use, fast and “cool” format.

Lastly, the US market is starting to move and the Real Estate Industry is much more positive there this year. Americans in general however are so focused on their own market and are so positive that they are the best, they don’t realize that there is a lot to learn from the Canadians or International Markets. They keep on referring to International attendees as being from “over the pond”. It’s too bad as they would learn from some of the Canadian experiences: Regulation is not all bad, Interest Deductibility creates entrepreneurs but a nation of debtors…Not-for-profit MLS owned by the Associations…

Inman Connect  and REBarCamps  are more valuable learning experiences and have more leading edge content than the NAR Conferences. Not that a National Association of REALTORS Conference  is not a great educational experience but it more about what is going on today rather than helping us be proactive for the future.

So this morning, I was taking a nice long New Year’s walk…around the deck of a Cruise Ship as we are leaving Antarctica (not a bad life!). I challenged myself, as I routinely do to try to decide on changes that need to be made in my life.

Clarity came to me after a couple of minutes: I think that the whole concept of New year’s resolutions means that last year was not up to snuff. Is there an assumption that each year must be better than the next? Last year was a great year; sure, my weight went up and down, the Real Estate market went up and down, my commitment to exercise went up and down and my bank account went up and down…but then there were lots of great moments with friends and family with some new arrivals…

Remember the movie where Jack Nicholson  walked out of the Psychiatrist’s Office, looked around the waiting room at the other patients, had an “uh-huh” moment and said out loud “what if this is as good as it gets ” (also the name of the movie). The other patients looked at him in horror…

What if this is as good as it gets? What if my five-year plan has me doing exactly what I’m doing today? Is that a bad thing? 

This year, my New year’s resolution is “more of the same please”!

Before I even “go there“…let me first say that I am speaking totally on my own behalf and not in any of the positions that I hold in organized Real Estate. This is just some of my ramblings that come in go in my mind and need a Blog outlet, so please bear with me.

I began in the business 30 years ago and when I say “the business” I am referring to Real Estate or any other service industry. We had all been trained to strive to be the best in our field. Success equates to the sale of property, a satisfied Buyer, Seller or both.

We have sales managers that create a competitive atmosphere in the office, offices that compete with each  other within a Company, Brands that compete with each other and a Government of Canada Competition Bureau that insists that the Seller or Buyer are getting a full choice of competitive options.

When we sit at the offer table with our competitors, we are sometimes successful. Of course, our clients want to work with a winner. In a busy market, a Buyer agent can be out on multiple offers almost nightly to fail and have the client hold them responsible for that failure, even when it was the client that decided that price they were willing to pay, knowing that four offers at the table meant that the buyer has a 25% chance to win the offer process. Go figure!

So Realtors, myself included, measure their own success by the number of sales we do, Offices do the same, Companies do the same, Boards and Associations do the same and our clients expect that a “Successful REALTOR“ and a “Good Market” reflects better on them.

So here is where the problem lies…REALTORS need to focus less on the deal. We provide many services to our clients,marketing, staging, advice, market history, etc. We must focus more on becoming the source of everything to do with home ownership, not just the transaction. The transaction is not the end of our relationships however, few clients ever hear from the Realtor after the deal is done. Becoming to “go-to” home ownership dude is what I aspire to…if I fall down on the job, remind me. Feel free to ask me for anything…within reason.

Recently in the United States, the National Association of REALTORS  created a web site called Houselogic.com . It is a brilliant move because it wants to make NAR and the REALTOR the go-to-place on the web for everything to do with home ownership. I applaud them and hope to offer that kind of service to all my clients.

Looking beyond the sale is what the Service Industries all need to do. I champion Social Media in my business because it allows for these conversations. I look forward to hearing from you with your thoughts and suggestions!

Any thoughts? Comments below?

The great news about Social Media is you have all these platforms to help get the word out…The bad news is that you have all these platforms to update. It forces you to rewrite or cut and paste updates into three,  four or more sites.

Then along comes Ping.fm  and I love it. It allows me to go to one dashboard, enter one update, and have it syndicated to all or a number of the Social Media platforms that you use (eight for me…at present). 

There is a warning however….just make sure that if you choose your updates to be ubiquitous, that you are comfortable with those updates being on all of your Social Media Platforms. What you post on MySpace  or Facebook  might not be what you want your LinkedIn  tribe to see; of course, that means you could group your platforms into groups but too many groups would definitely recreate the problem that first moved you to consider Ping.fm .

Anyway, Ping.fm  is great and FREE. Give it a try and let me know your thoughts!

We arrived a few days early and were able to take in some of the sites of San Diego and the REBarCamp San Diego  thanks to the great work of Jim Marks  and his team. REBarCamps are quite a phenomenon in the Real Estate Social Media World. They were begun by Todd Carpenter , Andy Kaufman , Mike Price  and Brad Coy , four energetic and crazy guys who decided that a “Un-conference” that gathered the best minds in the field in a large space with lots of viewpoints for a day of discussion might be fun. Little did they know that the idea would grow with BarCamps held across the States in one year culminating in the largest, held at the nightclub “Stingaree” in San Diego? It was my forth in the past year, filled with knowledge, networking and great conversation.

If you plan to attend an NAR Conference or an Inman Connect Conference , know that the REBarCamp is usually the day before so make sure that you add that time to your schedule. The REBarCamp is free to attend but to really benefit; you should participate as much as possible. I facilitated a group discussion on “How and if you could monetize Social Media”. The great thing about REBarcamp is that no position is right or wrong but great discussion brings great ideas…

Coming up is REBarCamp New York  on January 11^thand hopefully REBarCampTO on May 7^th or 8^th…more to come. 

NAR Conference San Diego 2009:

What follows is not all the sessions but highlights from them:

Max Pigman , one of the Social Media Speakers talked about taking a strong self assessment and growing your sphere of influence using Social Media. Those SM tools allow you to work smarter and leaner and suggested that REALTORS not spew Real Estate but also share personal information. He suggests short posts but ones that engage and that agents should leave comments and reengage old clients. He says that “commenting is like renting space in someone’s head” and that most would find greater success on Facebook than they might on email. He suggested using the chat on Facebook and make Facebook a major part of your marketing strategies.

He suggests that as well as a Fan Page on Facebook, you might want to create a neighbourhood page and invite your clients to share information about the “hood” that you work and live in with the odd listing being uploaded as well as specific content created for the community. I have created one on Facebook called the Cabbagetown Community Page and it is gaining momentum.

He pointed out something I love on LinkedIn which are the recommendations. Ask clients and friends for their recommendations and give them back.

For more follow Max at www.facebook.com/maxpigman

Another interesting session was on the Future of MLS:

A discussion of what the future holds is always interesting but the recent addition of RPR (REALTOR Property Resource) which marries parcel based information with Board/Association data makes the data richer than ever before and should help strengthen the REALTOR business proposition.

Jim Duncan of FranklyMLS.com  says that the consumer has good access to the data; REALTORS are needed to put it in context. The problem will come if the MLS is not perceived as the best data; the weak link is the Realtors.

I sat in on the Communications Committee of the National Association of REALTORS one afternoon.  

Interesting to note is that just before NAR San Diego Conference, Houselogic.com  was released in its Beta version. It is a public facing website wholly owned by NAR (REALTOR.com is not) that features all sorts of information about home ownership. I think it is a great move by NAR to try to make Houselogic.com the “go-to” location for homeowners.

NAR is also bringing Real Estate Today  to radio, another great move. They have also just released a Guideline for REALTOR Associations on Social Media. Feel free to email me and I will email you back a copy. It is the work of Todd Carpenter, the Social Media Manager at NAR and founder of REBarCamp.

There was a great Social Media course with Jeff Turner  (a perennial favourite) and friends: Amy Chorew , Dustin Luther , Rudy Bacharaty  and Daniel Rothamel :

As someone who has been involved now for a couple of years…the great thing about the SM movement is that the rules and ideas are still being defined and refined so that nothing is really hard and fast and few questions are considered “stupid”.

Some thoughts from the Friends:

• There are huge changes in marketing…
• The number of tools will expand
• New behaviours will be needed
• Keep your mind open to the new tools.
• Blog is hub…use the tools to drive people to the blog…
• Static has moved to interactive.
• Content gets pushed or pulled to other sites.
• The Consumer is the driver using it to search agents, communities…
• How do you connect and use the tools, how do you engage the consumer…
• Consumers are changing the way we interact…
• The consumer wants to be listened to by real people.
• Bring your personality online. It’s like having a beauty shot on your card and then showing up at the door…be real.
• Don’t allow a disconnect between online and offline.
• Develop a Social Media strategy. Think about it before you post.
• Every post should have a goal…
• Try to connect with friends of friends…F.O.F. marketing…creating content that friends would pass to friends is a huge game changer in Social Media.

Using Social Media to close more deals with Mike Parker  and Mark Porter . Some of their ideas:

•  14 percent trust advertising but 78 percent trust peer recommendations
• Make your Business photo pop: recently I had an Avatar created with the CN Tower in the background.
• You have to be true.
• Increase your friends every day by ten to generate more income.
• Not who you know but who knows me.
• Search for major employers in your area and add them as friends.
• Don’t post anything negative.
• Post updates 3 to 5 times a day

Going Beyond Listing Data:

• Listings are ubiquitous…now what else?
• Layers of data…communities, walk ability scores.
• Add video of the community and community photos.
• View and analyze your client actions on the web site.

Expanding your sphere of influence by using your Blog:

Here are some great Ideas from Ines Hegedus-Garcia , Teresa Boardman  and Mariana Wagner .

Ines:@ines

• It is ok to be yourself…
• Blog is the base.. it is the hub with “call to action” buttons on the site…
• Contact Flickr  users to post their photos, for permission to post photos of your Community.
• Anything you do online, be consistent.
• Social Capitol. The currency that you get online; your followers.
• Help put other businesses on the map.

Teresa:@teresa

• writes a blog post every day about the ordinary.
• It builds trust if you can be yourself.

Note: Teresa is admittedly anti-social but has built a great business from photos of her home town and engaging customers.

Mariana:@mizzie

• You have to be transparent…
• write directly to the target…
• think about what it is you want and write about it.
• Picture the perfect client and write like you are talking directly to them.
• Remember that whatever you put out there is there forever…

 The bottom line of a NAR Conference is that there is a huge amount of information, some great networking and a four day whirlwind that usually leaves participants reeling. This year there was a large contingent of Canadian REALTORS that contributed and as usual at all Conferences a lot of work happens behind the scenes.

Next year the Conference will be in New Orleans but San Diego proved to be an excellent location to get 20,000 REALTORS together.

It is not often that at this point in life, I can lose my Virginity but here is my very first Vlog.

Sorry for the production quality and the noise of plates being washed in the background but…there is a lot I want to convey and having the time to sit down and write is not always possible…Feel free to tell me if you think I should scrap the VLOGGING project and please let me know if there are subjects that we should talk about…

Comments are always welcome.

Seminar leader:
Richard Silver is a Salesperson with Bosley Real Estate Ltd. and an early adopter of technology and the Internet. He presently sits as a Director-at-Large with the Toronto Real Estate Board and is a member of the MLS® and Technology Council at CREA. He has recently been named to the Advisory Council for REBAC at the National Association of REALTORS®. His website is www.RichardSilver.com, Blog is www.Torontoism.com, or you can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.