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When it comes to accountants, doctors and lawyers, people generally do a relatively good job of researching their options before making a decision.  These types of professionals handle important matters that involve risk – whether it be financial, medical or legal – and which need to be handled properly.

On the other hand, people often choose Realtors in a haphazard fashion with little research or background checking.  We all know people who sold their home with their “aunt that just got a real estate license,” or purchased a home through their “next door neighbor because he seems like a nice guy.”

I would argue that the selection of a Realtor to buy or sell your next Canton, Northville, Novi or Plymouth Michigan home can be as important as the selection of these other professionals.  Here are the reasons why:

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  The consequences – both legal AND financial – of a typical real estate transaction are usually quite significant.  In most cases, the purchase or sale of a home is the single largest investment transaction most people will ever make in their lifetimes.  The difference between truly professional representation and what passes for “normal” representation in real estate is often measured in thousands, or TENS OF THOUSANDS, of dollars.
• In public accounting, medicine and law, there are significant barriers to entry.  People must have college degrees, and they have to pass difficult examinations. In real estate, the barrier to entry is VERY low.  I’ve been selling real estate for nearly 20 years, and I’ve known only one – ONE! – person that has failed to pass the real estate test on their first attempt.  Contrast that with public accounting (I’m also a CPA), where only 10% of all people who sit for the CPA exam pass on their first try. We’re doing what we can to “raise the bar” in the real estate industry, but the sad reality is that *most* companies are built on an “any warm body will do” philosophy, the results of which speak for themselves.
• In public accounting, medicine and law, there are strong “self-policing” mechanisms in place. In contrast, the “self-policing” function within real estate is weak.  I can speak from first-hand experience, as I am a member of the Professional Standards committee of the Western Wayne Oakland County Association of Realtors (in lay terms, this means that I am a judge in cases brought against Realtors by the public or by other Realtors).  Here’s the bottom line: the perception within the industry is that the “bad guys” never get penalized, so people rarely file complaints.  Which means the bad guys can continue to be bad guys without much fear of reprisal.
• The “range of competency” in real estate is RADICAL.  While there are certainly outstanding professionals in most companies, the hard reality is that last year only 27% of all Realtors made the majority of their income selling real estate! The industry is loaded with part-timers and people who got a real estate license on a whim, in large part because it IS so easy to get a license.
• The obvious point:there are MANY, MANY people out in the world with real estate licenses that lack the experience to serve ANY client properly.  Accounting, medicine and law, on the other hand, are serious professions in which lower-end practitioners typically have very short careers.  In real estate, these people can hang around for decades, stumbling along doing one or two deals a year in an incompetent fashion.

I hope that I’ve at least made you think about this a little bit. I am NOT suggesting that you should work only with a Professional One agent. I AM suggesting that you should work with an agent who is a professional one!