You Look Stunning!

Residential real estate was the first sales job I ever had. When I began my career, 32 years ago, it took me a little while to figure out my own style. I read some books. I heard little acronyms like “Remember your ABCs” (for those of you not in the know on this topic, “ABC” stands for “Always Be Closing”) and tried extremely hard to figure out what they meant. But over time I developed my own style. And that style centers around the notion of facilitation.

I don’t believe that I and my fellow agents actually sell property to buyers. Our job as buyers agents’ is guidance: awareness of the comparable properties, knowledge of the neighborhood and the building, insight into the market; our job as sellers’ agents, similarly, revolves around pricing advice, effective marketing, and a sense of market timing. On both sides, our clients depend on us for negotiating expertise. But I have a horror of being (or having Warburg agents be) the equivalent of that high pressure clothing salesperson who barges into the dressing room, looks you up and down in the outfit which you know makes you look like a sausage, or Al Capone, or both, and says with determination, “You look fabulous in that!”

That is to say, it’s not our job to talk people into liking things. That’s a decision they need to make for themselves. We can sometimes be helpful in pointing out a property’s features, although too much of that can be a hindrance rather than a help. I am a big believer, as either a seller’s or a buyer’s agent, in keeping the talk to a minimum during the first visit. Real estate, like most things, is in large measure about karma. I like to say to my agents “People usually don’t know in the first thirty seconds if they ARE going to buy something, but they always know immediately if they are NOT going to buy it.” Almost everyone knows if the feeling works for them from the minute they walk in the door.

So our work with buyers, first and foremost, is to help them listen to that inner voice. Then, as we refine criteria, we can actually zero in on the property which is right for them (another major early lesson for me: I didn’t have to like it! I wasn’t choosing it – they were). And then the facilitation begins. Once THEY have picked the property, it becomes OUR responsibility to make sure there are no major problems with it, and then that they actually get it. Here, as a negotiation advisor, I actually think it is OK to push. Years ago, a hedge fund manager to whom I was selling a property said to me, “Look, I am a salesman too. I also give the ‘Be Bold’ speech. That said,”  he told me, “if you give me the ‘Be Bold’ speech one more time I am going to kill you.” The next day we got a counter offer, he balked – even though he and I both knew the price was fair – and I gave him the “Be Bold” speech one more time. As agents, we don’t choose the property our buyers want, but once it is chosen we have to do everything we can to bring the deal home. THAT is our job.