By most measures, it’s been a tough year. Our economy took a nosedive, unemployment is up…well, you know all about it. Realtors aren’t immune, of course: our equity has taken a hit, too. Many have gotten out of the business and moved on to other work.

Praise be, we’ve been more fortunate than many so it’s time to say a word of thanks. Here are a few of the things we’re grateful for this Thanksgiving.

1. Our seller clients, who are quick to learn that we may not tell them what they want to hear but we’ll always tell ‘em what they need to hear, in order to get their home sold.

2. Our buyer clients, who know that we act like a bunch of Poodles around them, but fight like Pit Bulls when it comes to negotiating on their behalf.

3. Our families, who sometimes come up on the short end of the attention stick while we’re taking care of  1) and 2).

4. Our company, Keller Williams, for setting the bar high and creating a great company we’d never want to leave. They’re our second family.

5. For the agents we do business with who act like pros, return calls, don’t cop attitudes and act politely even if they’ve had a hard day, too.

6. For the technology that makes it easier to do our job…and that’s changed the real estate business like we never could have imagined. All the new gadgets, online tools and gizmos are great, but this will always be a people-first business.

7. For our industry colleagues – lenders, title companies, inspectors, lawyers and others – who understand that treating our clients with care, respect and professionalism is the best way to keep doing business with us.

8. For our coaches, mentors, trainers, accountability partners and others who always challenge us to be our best.

9. For our team mates - everyone on The Moss Haedrich Team - because we keep one another sane, supported and on track when we need it most.

10. For our past clients (our clients-for-life), friends, fans and colleagues who keep referring buyers and sellers to us because they know we’ll treat them well. That’s the greatest compliment you can give us.

Happy Thanksgiving from The Moss Haedrich Team.

They’ve actually done surveys to get the public’s opinion about how real estate agents measure up against other professionals. The results, I have to tell you, are not pretty if you’re one of us: in the public’s eye, we rank right up there with used car salesmen.

In our defense, being a Realtor is not an easy job. The hours and demands are many. Still, there’s no excuse for certain behaviors, as I mention here. Have a look, and let me know what you think.

We parted ways with a seller client recently.

These things are never easy, though there was a time when it would have been much harder than it was: the longer you’re in this business, the more you realize you simply can’t help everyone.

Ours was much pretty much a straightforward case of an overpriced listing in a range that is VERY price sensitive. Miss the mark by a little bit and you won’t get showings. Or you’ll get them, but only from a clever agent who’s out to demonstrate the value of ANOTHER home to her buyer client (we do this all the time with our own buyers.)

Miss it by a lot, and the silence of the market will be deafening. Which is precisely what was happening.

It’s perplexing how, even with the market correction and the economy on unstable footing, homeowners will cling to the hope of a sales price that they “could have gotten” – or a neighbor did get – three years ago.

That Market No Longer Exists

Today’s market is buyer driven and ruthlessly value focused. The buyer pool is smaller, money is tighter and neither buyers  - nor their agents – will so much glance at a home if it’s not priced to sell and in excellent condition. Make an offer on an overpriced home? Why bother, when you can make a better offer on one that’s priced to sell?

What sellers don’t often realize is that even if – by some strange fluke – a buyer WAS willing to pay more than market value for their home, no lender is going to finance it if the home does not appraise. And you can rest assured that it will not.

I wish it would have worked out with these sellers, I really do. But real estate agents are marketers and market experts, not miracle workers. We analyze market data for our clients, present and discuss their options and – ultimately – trust that the facts will guide our clients to do the right thing. For the most part, that’s the way it works out. Occasionally, it does not.

Getting lost is underrated. Hardly anybody gets lost anymore, thanks to Mapquest and GPS devices. But we managed to do so today, searching for a piece a property we were scheduled to preview. Our wrong turn landed us in a neighbor’s driveway, where we got talking to the owner who kindly offered us on a tour of her property.

The owner and her husband, she told us, have owned the property for nearly three decades and it looked as if they’d spent much of that time in the gardens. They were simply gorgeous – lush beds, stone pathways, a serene park-like feel. It was landscape as art. Have a peek.

The rains came to Annapolis this week, biblical rains. Like oil and water, any experienced Realtor will tell you that biblical rains and pending settlements don’t mix well. The combination puts us on high alert.

Which is how I find myself standing barefoot in 4″ of water on a client’s patio, coaxing a sluggish drain. It is 6:00AM and the client – soaking up the sun at her new Arizona condo – is blissfully unaware of my unscheduled visit, long since gone from here in both body and spirit.

They say that a lot of people think agents just drive around in fancy cars and collect big settlement checks. I wish those people could see me now, standing here in drenched jeans, my cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee tasting more and more diluted with every passing minute.

Doing What’s Required? Or Doing What Needs to be Done?

We – The Moss Haedrich Team – look great on paper. We have a sheet that describes our Platinum Listing Services in detail, several more that list the 186 transactional items we will take care of for you. But nowhere on any of it will you see ”Stand barefoot on patio in rain and clean clogged drain.” 

That’s because Realtors, if they’re truly serving-based – and we like to think we are – do a lot of stuff we can’t anticipate needing done. We’ve learned to take these things in stride. Frankly, going above and beyond is good for business. People don’t forget the fact that you’ve gone the extra mile for them. They reward you with a lifetime of referral business for rolling up your sleeves and doing whatever it takes.

Some Clips from our Above and Beyond Files

-We once spent hours cleaning out an attic with a client just prior to settlement. The client would likely have done it herself, but she never knew she had an attic until the pre-settlement walk-through.

-3:00AM and we get a call from a client. Water is cascading onto the bed of his rented condo from parts unknown. We drive over, discover bathtub in neighbor’s condo upstairs is running over. Wake up neighbors in first floor condo and tell them to expect a flood. (Good ending: first floor owners become regular clients.)

-We’ve presented a contract at midnight, because that’s the only time the seller could meet us.

-We’ve taken phone calls during weddings from frantic clients, mowed lawns, shoveled walks, and babysat one home after a hurricane.

Heck, we’ve even donned bunny ears to help sell a home. I can’t recall exactly why I thought wearing bunny ears would help. But I can tell you that now, several weeks later, the home is under contract.

The rains have subsided and the weather is beautiful.  This afternoon we’ll go to settlement on the condo with the once-clogged drain. We can’t imagine being in any other business. Life is good.

The poll’s intent was to measure the trustworthiness of various professions; real estate agents came in near the bottom, right up there with lawyers, auto mechanics and stockbrokers.

Unfair? To those of us in the industry who put our hearts, heads and soul into this business, and work diligently for our clients – sure, it seems unfair.

But unexpected? Not really. The fact of the matter is, not all agents are created equal. Some set the professional bar extremely low and when they trip over it they make the whole industry look bad.  

Marc Davison, a blogger at www.1000wattblog.com had some interesting thoughts on the subject and those things that set trusted and untrustworthy agents apart.

“Are agents untrustworthy? Some are, some aren’t. But most paint themselves with the brush of mistrust by adhering to modes of marketing, branding and verbiage that fail to set them apart and distinguish one from the other. 

Untrustworthy agents hear what their clients say. Trustworthy agents listen.

Untrustworthy agents make deals happen. Trusted agents help people buy and sell homes.

Untrustworthy agents work hard and make a case for it. Trusted agents work smart. They perform magic and do it quietly, with grace.

Untrustworthy agents stress about deals. Trusted agents never lose their cool.

Untrustworthy agents are about me and I across all their brand touch points. Trusted agents place their entire emphasis on “we” on “you.”

Untrustworthy agents claim they got into real estate to help people. Trusted agents got into real estate to make a living. They are transparent about that.

Untrustworthy agents say what the consumer wants to hear. Trusted agents tell it like it is.

Untrustworthy agents work with anyone. Trusted agents hand-pick clients.

Untrustworthy agents hide behind templates. Trusted agents speak in their own voice.

Untrustworthy agents use platitudes to market themselves. Trusted agents have stopped marketing themselves in the conventional sense altogether.”

I like where he’s going with this. Part of the problem is that consumers, the public, don’t know who they can trust because the real who is often hidden behind a wall of polished image advertising, catchy slogans and templates. 

The wave of the future – and blogging is helping to bring about the change – is to become more and more transparent, opinionated, consultative, locally focused, and accessible. It’s about breaking down barriers so trust can evolve between agents and their constituency, rather than creating a slick brand that makes agents seem out of touch.

Our challenge to you: come to our blog often, comment, tell us things we need to hear or you want to know. Help us build your trust. That’s why we’re here.

(Note: If you want to read the entirety of Marc Davison’s post, click here.)

When we work with an Annapolis area homebuyer, the first step of the process is a meeting at our office that we call the “buyer consultation.”

It’s our opportunity to introduce ourselves, talk about how we work, and to listen. Listening is a big part of this business. My dad used to say that God gave us 2 ears and 1 mouth so we’d listen twice as much as we talk, and that’s a good thing for a Realtor to remember.

One of the things we ask our buyers is to describe, in detail, their dream home – number of bedrooms, bathrooms and all the other obvious stuff. But also the stuff of their dreams. White picket fence? Window seats? Arched doorways? If it means something to you, we want to know. Makes it easier to find you the perfect home.

If a buyer is urgent – and needs to find a home in short order – there’s a good chance they won’t have enough time to preview all the possibilities themselves. Or, the

client may have children, in which case the novelty of schlepping the gang around from house to house wears off pretty quickly for all concerned.

A good buyer’s agent – and we have 3 great ones on The Moss Haedrich Team – will preview homes for a client, screen them, compare them to a client’s “dream list” and take copious notes in the process. It’s very time consuming to do so, but, hey – this is why they pay us the medium bucks. It’s just part of the value we bring to our clients.

One of our buyer agents, Kathy Foy, has a great saying for this. She calls it searching for the “shiny pennies” – homes that show well, meet her client’s needs, and are priced competitively. Many homes don’t make the cut. The ones that do, she shows her clients.

One of whom took her aside last week and expressed his heartfelt gratitude for doing precisely that. He thanked her for previewing a lot of potential homes so he – a very busy gentleman – didn’t have to. That’s all – a heartfelt thanks. But it meant the world to her.

(Shameless plug: Moving to Annapolis from out of the area? First time homebuyer? We can help you find the shiny pennies, too. Just give us a call and tell us your story.)

Well, that’s it. This Realtor business has finally driven me over the edge.

It wasn’t the state of the market or another Annapolis area agent that finished me off, or even the long hours. It’s the sheer amount of stuff I have to lug around to  conduct business. So I’m shopping for my first man purse.

I have no other choice: the stuff has simply gotten out of control.

There’s my cell phone, wallet, compact digital camera, and business card holder. I have magnetic swipe keys for my office and lockboxes, and a jumble of real keys for the many doors in a Realtor’s life.

There’s my small calendar and my reading glasses, so I can see it, and a little notepad so I can remind myself what I’m supposed to be doing.  And a couple of pens. It’s gotten to the point where, if I carry it all on my person, I look like I’ve been shot with a semi-automatic bean bag gun. I need a man purse.

My Realtor-wife/partner, Bev, totally gets it: she’s got purses she puts into handbags that go into still bigger carrying bags and off she goes. So we spend Friday night, date night, shopping for a man purse at the Annapolis mall, where they’re outnumbered by woman purses 10,000 to 1.

Man purses, I find, are all variations on a single theme: the man’s toiletries bag. Call me silly, but I don’t think it’s prudent to show up a client’s home to sign paperwork looking like you plan to spend the night. Nor am I willing to pay $250 to give that impression.

We press onward. We see man purses that look like backpacks, others that resemble vests. But I’m not into the collegial look or the SWAT team thing.

We ask Gary, a hip fellow at Clarks, if they carry man purses. “Are you serious?” he asks, as if we’ve just dished the latest neighborhood scandal. I assure him that I am. He tells us there’s little demand, so they keep them in the storage drawers he’s now rifling through. The best he can do is a glorified passport holder that real European men favor.

I thought this would be simpler. All I want is something slim, small, with clean lines, that doesn’t look like a leather lunch box. But it could prove more difficult than I imagined.

Well, that’s it. This Realtor business has finally driven me over the edge.

It wasn’t the state of the market or another Annapolis area agent that finished me off, or even the long hours. It’s the sheer amount of stuff I have to lug around to  conduct business. So I’m shopping for my first man purse.

I have no other choice: the stuff has simply gotten out of control.

There’s my cell phone, wallet, compact digital camera, and business card holder. I have magnetic swipe keys for my office and lockboxes, and a jumble of real keys for the many doors in a Realtor’s life.

There’s my small calendar and my reading glasses, so I can see it, and a little notepad so I can remind myself what I’m supposed to be doing.  And a couple of pens. It’s gotten to the point where, if I carry it all on my person, I look like I’ve been shot with a semi-automatic bean bag gun. I need a man purse.

My Realtor-wife/partner, Bev, totally gets it: she’s got purses she puts into handbags that go into still bigger carrying bags and off she goes. So we spend Friday night, date night, shopping for a man purse at the Annapolis mall, where they’re outnumbered by woman purses 10,000 to 1.

Man purses, I find, are all variations on a single theme: the man’s toiletries bag. Call me silly, but I don’t think it’s prudent to show up a client’s home to sign paperwork looking like you plan to spend the night. Nor am I willing to pay $250 to give that impression.

We press onward. We see man purses that look like backpacks, others that resemble vests. But I’m not into the collegial look or the SWAT team thing.

We ask Gary, a hip fellow at Clarks, if they carry man purses. “Are you serious?” he asks, as if we’ve just dished the latest neighborhood scandal. I assure him that I am. He tells us there’s little demand, so they keep them in the storage drawers he’s now rifling through. The best he can do is a glorified passport holder that real European men favor.

I thought this would be simpler. All I want is something slim, small, with clean lines, that doesn’t look like a leather lunch box. But it could prove more difficult than I imagined.