Evening Open Houses?

I have an idea on which I'm interested in input from the public. We have traditionally done almost all open houses on Sunday afternoons. That isn't true everywhere in the country, since I have noticed that, in Arizona, Saturday seems to be just as common as Sunday. There is an historical logic to the current pattern, since people were usually less busy on Sunday afternoons. The idea of going to open houses seemed to fit in with the practice of taking Sunday drives.

Today's world is different. Children's sports, in particular, take no holidays. Sunday afternoons may be as jam-packed as any other day. In addition, weather is a huge factor. All real estate agents know that there is a bell curve for attendance--if the weather is too bad, no one comes, and, if the weather is too good, no one comes. For busy people, a great day may just be too precious to pass up.

So why not vary the routine? If you are like I am, you may prefer to squeeze in all you can into the work week, leaving bigger blocks of weekend time for other things, especially outdoor activities. In this season of extra light, we could hold open houses late in the day, and interested parties could stop on their way home from work or picking up kids. Even for commercial properties, this idea has appeal. Many owners and managers are too busy to take time out to look at space during the work day. We could serve wine and cheese, and let people take their time after the end of the work day to explore real estate options. Even agents would benefit, as it would leave weekend time to work with buyers.

We have tried this a few times, at least in residential, but it hasn't caught on. I'm curious as to why it has not. What do you think?

Independent Contractors

Yesterday I explained to a client that real estate agents are independent contractors. I know that most people realize that real estate agents, and companies, only get paid when someone buys or sells a piece of property. But sometimes I doubt whether they know the full extent of what that means. It means that agents don't get paid for their time. Or their gas. Or the lunch that they might buy you when you spend a long day looking at houses. Or their cell phone. Or their car, car insurance, and repairs. Or their real estate license, continuing education, Board fees, and MLS fees. Or the extra advertising and marketing that they may do on your property (while our firm pays for postage, advertising, and training, many firms charge agents for those services). It's expensive to be a real estate agent, and even more expensive to be a real professional, with all the tools.

Indpendent contractors, who don't get salaries or benefits, deduct their business expenses themselves. In effect, they run their own small businesses. They affiliate with brokers, and use the branding and offices of those brokers, but they don't work set hours. We aren't even allowed to carry worker's comp insurance on them. They assume the costs of working, and, as I often say, they "eat what they kill" in terms of compensation. They get paid for what they do, when it goes well. When it doesn't, they bear the risks.

Why, you may ask, did I decide to blog about this now? The simple answer is that, when I was told by this client that he understood that an agent only got paid when he bought, and that those were the breaks, I'm not sure he really got what he was saying. I guess it gets down to the Golden Rule, as most things do. How much time would you spend doing work for someone and not getting paid, before you felt that it was unfair?

Clients didn't create our compensation system in the real estate industry, and I'm not asking them to be responsible for changing it (although I would certainly love to change it!). I just want them to understand that, if they aren't serious, or they aren't willing to stay with someone until the transaction is completed, then they are really asking for services for free. And the way you treat someone who is doing you a favor may be different than the way you behave if you think it's someone's paid job to help you. It's that simple, and that complicated.

Blizzard

We were closed yesterday. I was supposed to be leaving town, but that obviously didn't happen. When I woke up, I couldn't tell how much snow there was, because it had blown around so much. There is no school this week, so I couldn't use the school closings as a guide. It was Monday after a holiday, so I didn't have yesterday's news to go by. Since we'd already cancelled the paper and Comcast was knocked out by the storm, I didn't have today's news to go by! So how did I decide to close?

Well, real estate is almost always a delayable purchase. Many buyers, as well as agents, don't want to drive if they don't need to do so. Those warnings and pleas from the Governor's office, to stay home if you can? They generally apply to us. In addition, most people don't want their properties shown in bad weather, because they don't want to take the risk that a prospective buyer would fall or get hurt trying to get in. Most inspections, closings, negotiations, and other business can be delayed for a day. Everything else, including anything that can be done with a computer and email, will proceed as usual. It's one of the benefits of the change in real estate, away from bricks and mortar and toward clicks.

Of course, we always worry that we will inconvenience someone who expects us to be open. That's why it matters whether everything else is up and running. As far as I could tell yesterday, not much was. So why make employees struggle to come in, only to sit around without any calls or visitors?

Finally, I think a lot of people hoped that the Christmas spirit would linger one more day, if we all took a deep breath and relaxed. And, at least for us, it did!