I have been struggling for several years to understand how to tell prospective clients that they need me.
Most prospective clients know what they know and usually do not want to know more (except how much is it worth?)
They do not know …. what they do not know. That requires humility and requires that we know our strengths and limits.
Do you listen to your doctor and lawyer and accountant? WHY? Probably because they have years of experience, not because they are smarter than you.
It is fair to say that if you have done 5 or 10 real estate transactions, you probably should listen to someone who has hundreds and hundreds of transactions of all property types.

Yes, there are personality types that need control and think they know more. That may be because of several reasons
Maybe I have not conveyed info about my years of experience and knowledge. You should review this entire website.
It is not good to tell someone to shut-up and listen because I know more. This might best happen … by me asking the right questions and encouraging the prospective client to ask questions and to express their concerns.
You might Ask about my service and about real estate generally and about characteristics of a specific property.

Frequently, I can avert your future real estate problems by
• Discussing your concerns
• Touring the specific property to find future challenges
We can translate your concerns and specific property challenges into contractual clauses.
This may require experience and knowledge to know where the snakes hide.
Make note, this is key….. Usually those snakes hide in institutional rules and regulations and policies and the changing personnel that make those changing documents.
Hundreds and hundreds of transactions helps me to know about bureaucratic institutional policies and regulations of lenders and title insurance companies.

Some real estate property characteristics and some attitudes of buyers or sellers or brokers, …. make it necessary to write a real estate contract to address future problems, before they become a problem.
Normally, the problem is NOT finding a property. However, I must admit that buyers and have to look at numerous properties to realize the market values. And Sellers have to emotionally be disappointed by marketing for months.
They do not listen to me …. and to speak fairly … clients should find out for themselves, as most people do when we grow.
But hopefully I can give them evidence to shorten their expensive learning habit.
A buyer’s time is valuable and sellers do not want their overpriced property to go stale on the market. (experienced brokers know that the first offer is frequently the best offer)

How did I get started on this rant?
Had a past prospect ask me to help him sell several properties. In the past he asked me to sell two properties that he did not own, so I am careful.
So when He asked for my help again and wanted the value of the 3 properties, I said “I do not know their value, Let me do some research and then we can talk again”.
I discovered that he owned one third undivided interest in each of the 3 properties. The other owner parties do not want to deal with him.
The solution is to swap and let each of the three parties to each own one parcel fully 100%.
Make three equal piles and let them go first to pick to pick a pile (property). He will need legal swap agreement. Then I will make a marketing agreement with each party to sell their individual fully owned parcel.
Problem solved.

I started  by saying “I do not know”.
This entire rant started because I watched a 2 minute video by David Burkus which you can watch below.

P. S. Concerning your normal first question about “How much is it worth?”
I have two answers.
• I do not know, it depends. If you are a buyer, please listen to our podcast entitled “How to find a good deal”
• I do not know, it depends. If you are a seller, I can get you any price you want, but it might take years. I will do research, however The market will tell you …. if you can wait enough months. ….. A better question is “When do you want the money?” Then price the property to sell.
Phone me so and we can both discuss what we do not know.
However, we do not know what we do not know.