Adwerx CEO Jed Carlson put a client’s toughest question to real estate agents: “Why do I need you?” His answer was that agents are like Sherpas: they reduce the risk of the transaction, they help carry the load and they comfort the client along the way. With this mindset, no amount of technology or automation can ever disrupt the role of a real estate agent. “Be the Sherpa,” he said.
We asked leading real estate agents to share a particular moment when they got to #BeTheSherpa.
#BeTheSherpa
For Florida agent Kevin Johnson, well-informed clients are great clients. But he does worry about the source of the information.
When one particular couple found Kevin, they came fully prepared.
“They were already approved for a mortgage through Quicken Loans and had found a good list of homes on Zillow they wanted to see.”
On paper, these clients had done a lot of legwork on their own and should have been ready to go. But Kevin quickly found that the reality was very different.
“What they wanted in their home just didn’t exist for the budget they had,” he said. “The mortgage they were ‘approved’ for had an inflated interest rate and other fees. Not one of the homes they found on Zillow was actually available for sale.”
In fact, three of listings they had selected had been sold within the past 60 days and the fourth had sold over a year before.
Kevin Johnson rolled with it, then he rolled up his sleeves and got to work. He sat them down and helped them to find a different lender. “I used a lender that was local and that could meet with them in person. That saved them literally about $25,000 over the course of the loan, saved them $4,500 in closing costs.”
Then Kevin found them some great homes that only had a few issues in them. He showed them how the money he’d saved them could then be used to fix those little issues, creating — and living in — the home they dreamed of all along.
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