Real Estate is a People Business

By Joel Persinger
YourRealEstateDude.com

When I started practicing real estate as a shiny new agent, still packaged in the shrink rap like a new Christmas toy, my grandfather took me aside and said, “Now, always remember, Joel, real estate is a people business.” That was almost eighteen years ago and many things have changed. My grandfather is no longer around to give me his usual great advice, I’ve got a lot more gray hair on my head and technology has changed the way most industries do business. But one thing has not changed; real estate is still a people business.

With the advent of technology many things that used to be considered services have been reduced to commodities. Just one example is the legal industry. It’s no longer necessary to go to an attorney to incorporate or draw up a trust (although, I still advise you to do so). You can find the required documents on the internet, fill them out yourself and download them for a fraction of the fee your attorney would charge.

The same can be said for a host of other “service based” industries, and real estate is no exception. As I write this article, you can go on the web and do everything from getting a rough estimate of your home’s value and searching for homes for sale to placing an ad to sell your home or watching a virtual or video tour of other homes on the market. There are even internet-based real estate companies that are doing their best to make sure that you can buy or sell a house without ever having to see another human being, or not much of one anyway. They are doing their best to turn real estate into a commodity business.

The problem arises when we try to take a home and make it into a house. A refrigerator has always been, and will always be a refrigerator. It’s a commodity pure and simple. But a home is not just a house. It’s the place where you live. It’s the place where you raise your kids, entertain your friends and create a haven from the challenges and difficulties of the world. As the old saying goes, “Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.”

I recently ask a client why he decided not to go with an internet-based, discount real estate firm since he had been considering one before he hired me. He said, “This is my home that I’m selling.” That simple statement said volumes. People need people they trust when the things they are trying to do run close to the heart or through uncharted waters. Such is the case when buying or selling a home. It is an emotional and somewhat frightening journey for many of us and we need someone who cares about our welfare and has navigated the treacherous waters to guide us along this journey.

Filling that roll of industry expert, trusted advisor and guide through difficult times is hard to do from a distance. I don’t know about you, but I need the people in my corner right next to me. I need to see them face to face and know that they are there when I need them. That’s why it’s next to impossible to guide someone effectively through one of the most difficult processes of life by email or over the phone, and why many people are not pleased with the experience of using a “virtual” real estate agent.

After all this time and all the technology with widgets galore and more information than any of us could every want or need, the truth of the real estate industry hasn’t changed one bit and Grandpa Charlie was right: “Real estate is a people business.”