[Music] Hello everyone and Welcome to another episode of Selling Greenville your favorite real estate podcast here in lovely Greenville South Carolina I am your host like I always am Stan McCune I am a realtor here in Greenville South Carolina mhm that's why I know about real estate and you can find all my contact information in the show not I would love to be able to help you with your real estate needs buying selling whatever those needs may be I can help you I can even connect you with people that potentially might be looking to rent there's a lot of things that I do because I have my my foot in the door and a lot of aspects of real estate so feel free to hit me up look up my contact information I'm really easy to reach I try to answer my phone whenever it rings and if I don't then I will call you back I promise but you can text me or email me as well and just a reminder please give this show a rating or a review I'm trying to get as many of those as possible subscribe to it if you're not subscribed you don't want to miss episodes you might be on my email list but I would still rather you subscribe to it so that you don't miss it and and I would appreciate that I notice when people do that I notice when people leave their the ratings or the reviews so thank you very much to those of you that have let let's keep that going and feel free to let me know if this show isn't on the podcast platform that you use someone asked me recently if it was on Spotify yes it is on Spotify you just search selling Greenville and and you'll find it on there it's on AUD boom I believe I'm on Stitcher radio Google play a lot of different options we're on there today we are going to talk about the values of a good realtor the Val the values that a good realtor I should say provides and this might not be the most exciting topic to a lot of you and this might seem like a little bit of me patting my s on the back I'm not trying to do that you guys know that that's not the type of person I am or or I I try not to Pat myself on the back too hard let me say it that way but I hear a lot of times people will tell me why they chose a realtor and oftentimes it's not for very good reasons might just be you know that they like their personality and granted personality is is a big factor but it shouldn't be the only Factor it might just be that Realtor had a listing on a property that that they wanted to buy and so they called that Realtor up and without giving thought towards being represented they they just went ahead and went with that Realtor it's kind of like a a car salesman calling up a car salesman that that has a car at his shop and saying hey I I want to buy that car except that in cars sales you don't get represented by parties and there's no fiduciary relationships car salesmen only represent themselves in real estate you actually have an opportunity to be represented by someone and you should take advantage of that because it's for a lot of people their biggest investment they need to make sure they've got someone on their side to actually help them out and make sure that they don't make a mistake or get into a legal issue or whatever the case may be and and so there are a lot of different reasons that people will select a realtor and and I respect that and by the way I just want to say if if you've used a realtor before and you had a great experience with them then stay with them I'm not I don't ever ask someone to leave a realtor that they loved and come to me just because I want more business there's a lot of great Realtors out there and I always encourage anyone to be loyal if if your realtor did them did a good job for you reward them for that and I want my clients to do that and I want the clients of of the other good Realtors out there to do that as well but we have more Realtors more active realtors in the Greenville Market in the upstate then we have homes for sale so that means that there are a lot of Fly by Night realtor out there the average realtor in their entire career in in this market sells dramat hardly sells any homes I can't remember what the exact stat is but I think the average realtor sells in their entire career in this market less than 10 homes something crazy like that and that's because they there we have a lot of people that will get the realtor license and and never sell a home or they will just do it part-time for a little bit and then they'll realize oh actually cost thousands of dollars a year potentially to be a realtor this doesn't make sense unless I'm closing have several closings a year and so there there's all all sorts of things that factor into this where we have a lot of people getting the real estate license and then not actually making any money doing it and or they might get some clients but perhaps they they shouldn't maybe they don't have a lot of qualifications for being a realtor so I I respect anyone that gets a real estate license but there are some things that a good realtor provides that the the bad ones don't just quite frankly and and I know because I have to deal with realtors that aren't very good I I I was amazed just recently I had a situation where I asked a realtor who hasn't been especially good to work with in my opinion I asked this realtor who is representing the buyers for a listing that I have I asked this realtor to just send me the name of the appraiser and the amount of square footage that the appraisal listed my listing as having and and there's a very specific reason why I need that information because when we get to closing I have to enter that into the MLS and that data is actually very valuable down the road that data is what other appraisers other realtor Realtors will end up using it's been multiple episodes now that I've had a hard time with the word realtor but in any event that data is actually used by by Realtors and more importantly future appraisers to assess home values because then they they base the value of a home based on the price per square foot and so the square foot has to be accurate if the Appraiser's name is in there then an apprais one appraiser might call that appraiser to ask hey how you know why did you come up with this value etc etc so that information is really valuable the long story short the reason where I'm going with that is that this realtor just sent me the entire appraisal which is a a major ethical violation like that Realtor could get in in massive trouble for doing that you have to get special permission that that appraisal is considered the property of the buyer and to just send that to the listing agent is is a big big deal and I can assure you based on the amount of time that that appraisal was sent in from the time I I requested that information till the time that it came in that that this realtor did not get permission to do that so my point is there are realtors that are doing a good job there are realtors that aren't doing a good job and here here's a few ways that you can assess a good realtor and and the value that they provide all right we talked about this a lot I like to use the term Rolodex it's just a great word even though now it's used metaphorically versus literally we don't have literal rolodexes on our desk where we go through people's phone numbers but the maybe I should say this the Network the network that a realtor has that is one of the the most underrated but one of the most powerful values that a realtor can provide his or her network who does he or her know I have clients all the time being like hey can you give me a good surveyor can you give me give me a good structural engineer can do you know a good inspector for this do you know someone that can do this do you know do you know a contractor an electrician a plumber I get people all the time time that are are constantly needing these types of things and not only do I know people that I've worked with in the past but I know some of the people that I would not recommend working with and I also know people that are more likely to take for instance smaller jobs than and and those that are going to be more interested in bigger jobs and so this is something you you can't understate this a realtor that you know just graduated from college and there were some that that I went to real estate school that were straight out of college had never owned a house themselves they probably did not have the right Network in order to be able to get that stuff done they were are going to be relying on other people you know they're probably going to be the ones going on Facebook and saying hey do you guys know a structural engineer I don't need to do that I I know people I know Structural Engineers and I can assist with that and help to get that set up if one of those is needed so their Network their Rolodex secondly understanding of current trends and and this is a very broad stroke I I recognize understanding current trends Trends related to what exactly that that's my point understanding I guess I should say particularly when it comes to real estate but just knowing what's happening what's happening in the world what's happening in the economy what's happening in the mortgage industry what's happening in the local real estate market what's happening in politics local politics National politics those are things that are really important a realtor that is disconnected from the current trends might be just stuck in their own little bubble and the more aware that they are of all of those different things the more helpful they can be for helping you to strategize for helping you to to know what you're doing because most people when they buy a house it's a big part of their Five-Year Plan their 10year plan whatever the case may be even if they don't in you know have an actual five or 10e plan spelled out in their mind they're thinking we're going to live in this home for this many years or we're going to have this as a rental property for this many years there are those plans that people have in their mind and you you need to have a realtor that understands what is happening right now and where things are going in the next 5 or 10 years in order to best serve you as you're trying to prepare for the next 5 or 10 years number three and we've talked about this before but the ability to accurately project real estate a lot of real estate involves projecting particularly when you're investing we talked about this before but when you're buying an investment property there is going to be something wrong almost certainly if if it's if it's a an investment property that is where you're getting equity in it or an investment property you know like a A quadruplex or something like that that's on the market and that is actually a a good deal there's something wrong with it because good investment properties in a seller's market do not come on the Market unless there is something wrong with it either it needs work or the tenants are are being a drag or you know it's it's having issues with flooding or or whatever the case may be it's going to need work and so a good realtor can project can project a lot of different things can project what what some of the rehab costs will be can project what the after repair value what some people call the arv what that will be can project what should Market rents be a lot of the best investment properties that come on the market oftentimes are are just properties that are rented for less than what they should the landlord doesn't realize that and the landler is like he gets to a point or she gets to a point where they're like we're just done with this we just want to sell and just get our money out of it they don't realize that they're they're renting it out for 400 a month per door and they should be getting 700 a month per door me as a realtor that's one of the main things that I take pride in is that I can accurately project project those things and I can figure out okay here's what the situation is now here's what it would take to improve it and here's what the result is going to be once it has been improved that's that's a really important part of what a realtor is able to do fourthly all right we're going down the list here I'm trying to go through this quickly because I know that you guys all have your own opinions of Realtors I'm not trying to drag it out knowledge of the major companies real and by companies I mean real estate companies real estate firms Real Estate Investors real estate wholesalers and just the other big players in the market that's that's a big part of it and when someone comes to me and they ask me a question I I get questions from time to time about like large multif family type of deals which are more in commercial space or sometimes people will ask me about other forms of commercial real estate and I'll just be honest Hey listen I'm not a commercial realtor that's not the world that I live in I do know some things about that there are some similarities and some overlap between the small multif family and and midsize multif family deals that I do and some of the large multif family like apartment complexes I've been on the HOA board and I currently am for apartment complexes so I I I am knowledgeable but there are limitations to that and when it comes to the commercial real estate world I'm just going to be upfront about that but when it comes to residential I try to be as knowledgeable as possible I'm trying to Network all the time with lenders with Real Estate Investors with real estate wholesalers with inspectors and and and just all of the people that are involved in this industry I try to become knowledgeable about them so that somewhere down the road I can use that knowledge maybe I know that a certain appraiser is known for giving low appraisals and doesn't really do his or her homework and so when I see that that they are scheduled to be the the appraiser I push back and I go to the to the lender and say hey we don't want this appraiser you can you can do that it might it's can be sometimes a headache but you you can do that you know when it comes to the firms in the area the real estate firms the brokerages there are some brokerages that when their name comes across for instance when I'm listing a home I see their name and I just kind of kind of cringe and of course I'm very careful with what I do or what I say I I'm not going to discriminate from any offer or from any realtor or tell or withhold an offer from my clients or anything like that but I might have some some information on the side of like okay here is the offer now I did have a bad experience with this realtor one time but that may have just been an anomaly but here's the offer and then let my clients if they have specific questions they can ask me those questions well tell me more about this experience for my for my buyer clients as well same thing there are some realtors that just get it that are that if if I see their listing I know okay this realtor this is going to be a almost certainly a smooth transaction I'm I'm going to highly recommend this realtor to my clients and then others that might be like I'm I'm not going to say anything good or bad about this realtor my clients ask me I'll be honest with them but it it's you know my last experience with them wasn't necessarily good so I'm going to to to maybe add some extra language to the offer that we put in there because that Realtor didn't seem to understand some aspect of the last transaction that I did with them so I'm going to clarify some things I'm going to give them a call and ask them a few extra questions things like that that is part of what goes into this job is knowing all these different players ERS in the market and using that knowledge to to benefit my clients in my case or or for another realtor their clients fifthly having a team to support and assist is the fifth value that a good realtor to provides now I don't necessarily mean a realtor that has their team named after them I am on a team but it's not my team there's a variety of reasons for that I work currently I'm with the Morgan Group which is a team with Berkshire hathway Home Services cedan jiner Realtors being on a team gives me access to a lot of different things that we have a team assistant she does a lot of the the paperwork and house drawings and and different things for me to free me up so that I don't have to be the one that is constantly busy with all sorts of things that don't really help my clients she handles a lot of stuff like that for me other Realtors on my team they can show houses when I'm not available so I've got clients that need to look at a house well another realtor on my team they we have an agreement already set up they can go show them houses and we help each other out in that way additionally if something come if a question comes up that I've not dealt with I have people that I can go to that I where I don't just have to be posting a question on Facebook and getting you know what who knows what type of responses from different people out there I can actually go to to people who have been in the market for 20 30 40 years with a question of something that that I haven't run into before or that I just want to to make sure that I'm accurate on and get that help and of of course being on a bigger brokerage I've got a broker who is extremely experienced who can really assist in a lot of ways again this is me talking as of first quarter of 2020 if you're listening or sorry first quarter of 2021 oh no I did that this is in the first quarter of 2021 if you're listening to this years later I can't promise that I'm with this the same broker but I will always make sure that I have a team to support and assist to make sure that I even though I am kind of the spoke of the wheel that's how I see myself as a realtor the one through home through whom a real estate transaction goes through and I take that seriously I also have people to support me so that if for some reason I am not able to 100% complete a task for instance the other a couple years ago for my 10th anniversary I went to with my wife to pakana for 10 days well guess what I didn't leave my clients high and dry that was one of my best months I've ever had in real estate and that was because I had people on my team that could step in and do the things that I couldn't do and in person and then the things that could be done remotely I just got up a little bit earlier you know while my wife was still in bed and and just knock those things out no big deal I like I like what I do I don't mind working and punana it's just a little bit better view so having a team people that that can step in but also that don't interfere there are some teams that will actually interfere I I had a a friend of mine that was a realtor that was telling me the team that he was on during the time he attempted to be a realtor they just were keeping him busy and he wasn't able to to be going out there trying to get business and and doing his job because he was just constantly meetings constantly being being given assignments and being told do this and do that and the team actually interfered so I'm on a team and this is really important to me I'm on a team that that doesn't do that they don't interfere they allow me to run my business the way I want to but then I have Team resources people that can assist and and help me be able to to get my transactions to the finish line and to support my clients when they need it and so that's that's a big part of it and and number six and this is my last one a a good realtor provides an organizational system and at the end of the day you are probably going to lose your closing documents or documents that were important you might not even realize at the time that you're buying or selling a home what documents are important having a realtor that's organized and that can hold on to that stuff for you for a really long time for years later is extremely valuable I can't tell you how many times I've had clients come to me and be like hey Stan do you have that elevation certificate from however many years ago why yes as a matter of fact I do and here it is in your folder I can pull that out and email that to you in 10 seconds that's something that again you don't realize until you need it how important that is and the good Realtors they're all very organized they have a CRM they use you know DocuSign transaction rooms or whatever the case may be to keep all their contracts for years and years there's all sorts of things that they do for organization and and I think that that is is a really important part of it as well just to make sure that communication doesn't get dropped along the way it's very easy you know as a realtor I'm getting calls texts emails dozens of times a day how do I ensure that I can keep up with all that well I have a very rigid organizational system that for the most part I don't want to jinx myself but for the most part it keeps me from from failing to follow up with someone or from failing to do something that needs to be done because I have systems in place to to remind me and to make sure that I reach back out to this person or that person or whatever the case may be and it's easy to to ignore that to be to not realize how important it is for a realtor to be organized but let me tell you when you're busy if you don't have those organizational systems in place and you're in this business you're going to get overwhelmed very very quickly and and I hear stories of Realtors all the time like oh man I forgot to I forgot to schedule that inspection or I forgot to do this someone someone told me recently that I'm one of the few people that like schedules a certain type of inspection like several weeks before it's really necessary and I was like they were they were just telling me that that people TP Realtors they deal with typically do it at the very last second and then are like stressing them out saying hey I need you to get out there today and that stresses me out just thinking about that and part of why I don't do that is because I'm already I'm I'm not waiting until the last second I already have in my CRM a system to to tell me when to to do things in case I somehow forget it and so when we're when we're there at the last second I'm not having to all of a sudden scramble to get it done again I'm not trying to to just Pat myself on the back too hard here but these are examples from from my own career from my own experience that I can share with you guys to well quite frankly because I don't have a whole lot of other experience to share right I can't share a ton of experience from other people I don't want to share a bunch of negative examples from other Realtors I I feel like I've done enough of that that's not really my purpose of this of this episode but hopefully now you understand that a good realtor does a whole lot more a lot of people think that Realtors just show houses and then go to closings and collect their check but really that's not the way it is for good realtors that there there are some realtors that that do that I I hope and I I strive to not be one of of them if you have any questions about any of that please let me know my contact information is in the show notes as always leave us a rating review subscribe to the show all those good things I hope you guys have a great rest of the week stay safe let's buy and sell some houses together [Music]