Donald Trump, Real Estate Agents and Ethics
Donald Trump is in the news every day as we all know. You don't even need to watch the news, just jump on Facebook and read what all your friends are posting - whether they love or hate him, Trump is heard every day. Recently Trump referred to real estate agents at one of his campaign rallys. The real estate industry is totally disgusted over Trump's reference as he compared us to "bloodsuckers" and agents all over are mad, disgusted and offended by this remark. Now whether you support Trump is not the conversation here, what is the point is that real estate agents have one of the lowest ratings of trust and what Trump said pretty much sums up how America feels about agents. Take a look at Gallup and their honesty/ethics poll on career industries. Real Estate Agents don't rank that well. We can't get over 20% of Americans to say they have a high opinion that we are honest or ethical. And 20% have a low opinion on our trustworthiness and ethics. So what the Donald was referring to was nothing but the truth according to Gallup. Who the real estate industry should be mad at are those agents and brokers out there destroying our overall reputation.
I know this is true. When I meet someone new and they ask what I do, I cringe inside when I say I'm in real estate. You can almost see their mindset immediately start having that ugly predisposed perception: "Oh no, she is going to ask me for my email or phone number, she wants to know the names of everyone I know who may be thinking of wanting to sell or buy, etc."
Now I will admit I do my traditional marketing pieces and the majority of my business (95%) is through referrals but I don't want to be labeled a "real estate agent" that brings on the associations of "pest, beggar, etc" with it. There's more to me than that - I own a business so I'm a business owner, I volunteer and am on the board of directors for a 501c3 nonprofit so I am a philanthropist, I'm a writer and consultant. I don't live by real estate alone and, yes, there are times I really don't want to talk about real estate - kind of like how a doctor doesn't want to be asked about your symptoms at a cocktail party.
Those in the industry who think like me, those who are good, ethical and trustworthy, we don't want to be put in that pool of bloodsuckers. We know who the bloodsuckers are and, believe me, we don't want to work with them either. We are in real estate for different reasons beyond the commission.
So I'll wrap this up and bring it back to Trump. What he said should be a wake-up call for the real estate industry. The good agents and brokers need to start calling out the bad eggs and push to get rid of them - or at least be able to redirect sellers and buyers away from the unethical scams and empty promises (i.e., I'll buy your house if it doesn't sell in 30 days.)
Instead of our posting on Facebook how dare Trump say those things, the Brokers should be doing their jobs and supervising their agents and their activities. It's the Broker's legal responsbility to oversee their agents' activities but many turn a blind eye, especially if that agent is a high producing agent - because that means profit for the broker. It is up to us in our own industry to clean up after ourselves. We are pointing fingers at the wrong guy.
