Indulge a father to make a point:
My youngest daughter is spending the next six weeks at a tiny hospital in northern Malawi, not far from the Zambian border. She’s there in one of her last rotations as a fourth year med student: The University of Washington recognizes that one of the biggest pitfalls for students is coming into a program with a passion for people and graduating with somewhat less passion for the cardiovascular system. The entire curriculum is centered on remembering the humanity of the patients, and encouraging students to get out of their comfort zones is of a piece to help drive that home. It’s a fabulous program, and she’s going to come back a changed person.
We – the real estate industry – have the same problem. We don’t have friends and family, we have a sphere. Clients are to be harvested from our farms. People aren’t people, they’re leads. Buyers, of course, are liars.
I just got back from a listing appointment; wonderful couple, I’d sold them their home a year and a half ago. For a number of reasons they’re now in foreclosure. The tension, the anxiety, the fear, the anger were all palpable: She was in tears, he was stoic and blaming her. I was part real estate agent, part marriage counselor. I tried to mitigate some of their grief by absorbing some of the blame myself, and pointing to one of the worst loan originators I’ve ever dealt with, but they wouldn’t hear it. They’d made the decisions, they’d signed the papers, they’d failed to meet obligations, they were the ones to blame. And it hurt. Deeply.
I can quote John Galt verbatim, but that doesn’t obviate empathy.
Before I left for our meeting I watched an on-demand training video on short sales, hoping for a little more insight on how I might help. The star was an overly made up realtor stereotype that each year manages to make it to the bottom of the Harris Interactive poll of respected professions, animated and delightfully giddy in the good news she had to deliver:
I can tell you very frankly that, at this particular time, this is the market you want to be in. … The foreclosure market is very good, getting into the short sale is DYNAMITE…
Helping clients? Pshaw. What’s in it for … ME?
Unchained has its work cut out…
DavidG from Zillow.com says:
Thanks Jeff, powerful post!
So jealous of your daughter. Malawi’s amazing – one of my favorite places on earth – a beautiful countryside but the people are the highlight. I was traveling on the North shore of lake Malawi with friends at the turn of the Millenium. Best memories. There’s something to be said for the simple life.
February 9, 2008 — 12:19 am
Chris Heath says:
I think it depends on who you are, most of my clients refer because we dont push them we are more interested in the long term relationship rather than a meal ticket
February 9, 2008 — 3:23 am
Jeff Kempe says:
Thanks, David!
Kelly’s still getting settled in – part of the simple life is getting used to sleeping under a mosquito net (it’s malaria season) and sharing the room with ants and Toyota sized ‘roaches – but she said exactly the same thing. I think one of the first impressions people have in visiting a third world country is: Wait. Don’t these people know how little they have? What’s with all the smiles??
February 9, 2008 — 8:35 am
Don Reedy says:
Jeff,
Very powerful, and quite a blessing. My prayers are with your daughter, and with you, hoping that as you age and your daughter moves into the anti-world of medicine, you will promise yourself to stop and talk with her every so ofter about how you’re feeling right now.
In our real estate world, the talking heads have figured out a way to separate our heart from our brain, and for the most part they have overwhelming superiority in terms of the number of them that come and go in our professional lives. This morning you’ve plucked your heart out and put it on display for all of us.
It’s a beautiful thing to see…..
February 9, 2008 — 9:43 am
Teri Lussier says:
Jeff-
Absolutely spot on. Dealing with short sales is so difficult for all the reasons you’ve so eloquently mentioned. It’s counseling as much as anything else and it can be heart breaking. For whatever reason sellers find themselves in this situation, they are extremely vulnerable. To look at these people as a market to be exploited… Well, I for one just can’t do it.
February 9, 2008 — 10:23 am
Trevor Smith says:
Fantastic post Jeff!
It reminded me of somethng that happened to me the other day:
I was at a restaurant and I watched an agent having lunch with what presumably was an “agent in training.” I heard the term “sphere of influence” come up and my ears immediately perked up. I then listened to her go on and on about “sending your family letters letting them know you’re in the business”, and loads of other outdated marketing crap from the 1980’s. My heart ached for the twenty-something year old agent in training. I wanted to say, “Run. Run far away! There is a better way to conduct business, where you don’t have to use your friends and family as sales leads.”
February 9, 2008 — 10:49 am
Jeff Kempe says:
Don, thank you for the kind words; and prayers are always welcome!
I live for both my girls; one thing they’ve never lacked is advice from me. What’s nice now is they actually ask for it…
February 9, 2008 — 11:06 am
Jillayne Schlicke says:
“The entire curriculum is centered on remembering the humanity of the patients”
Wouldn’t it be a different world then, if this were true of the pre-licensing real estate curriculum?
I taught a short sale class yesterday filled with the most anxiety-ridden group of Realtor students I have ever had since the last short sale class in December. LOL. Yes, this is in Seattle.
Compassion came up throughout the class. In these transactions, an agent’s compassion could be extended to the other agent, the buyers, and the paper-pusher working at the bank who you’re talking to. Yelling at him or her will get you nowhere.
February 9, 2008 — 11:09 am
Jeff Kempe says:
Thanks, Teri!
The good news is: there are Teris out there. Given that, the culture can change.
But that video still reminds of this, and perhaps I should have ended the post this way:
Come to Sub-Saharan Africa! Malaria! Malnutrition! AIDS! all provide DYNAMITE opportunities for the health professional…
February 9, 2008 — 11:15 am
Jeff Kempe says:
Trevor, I hope you’re right; I suspect you’re not. When I took the RE/MAX introductory course three years ago the instructor looked at me like I had three heads when I asked why clients shouldn’t consider ‘farm’ a pejorative…
February 9, 2008 — 11:22 am
Trevor Smith says:
I never thought about how derogatory the term “farming” is. You are completely right. It’s like our clients are swine or ears of corn.
February 9, 2008 — 11:32 am
Jeff Kempe says:
>Wouldn’t it be a different world then, if this [remembering the humanity of clients] were true of the pre-licensing real estate curriculum?
Oh, my, yes! As a fan of your writing, Jillayne, my guess is that’s exactly how you teach.
I’ll equally guess the compassion came up in your class because of the way the subject was introduced.
And I didn’t think about it until now: when I talked to the lender, there was no posturing, no ‘we’re going to stick it to your clients’; only ‘let’s put this together so it works in the best possible way for everyone.’
February 9, 2008 — 6:53 pm
Derek says:
I have mixed views on this and I might even show my true colors in this comment.
First of all, in nursing school somewhere along the line, I kind of lost my compassion. I saw how much I could and could not do and along those lines, if I couldn’t do anything to help, I learned quickly you have to move on. In nursing, you have between 6 to 8 other patients on your unit and if there is nothing left you can do, you have to move on. I tried sitting with the patient once and got wrote up. From that point on, I learned quickly if the patient is dying you just have to let him die and let the family deal with the grief.
I have sense tried to recapture the compassion I used to have but it’s hard.
As for foreclosure, I have mixed thoughts. You sign a document, you should know what you’re up against and plan your financial future accordingly. You should know the interest rates are going to change with the market conditions, etc and you should do your homework before you sign the papers.
I do think some lenders have taken advantage of some homeowners, but the majority it seems failed to read the writing at the bottom line. I do believe in tougher lending policies and feel it is the lender’s responsibility to ensure that their clients know what they’re signing, but overall, it is the homeowner’s responsibly to ensure that they know what they’re signing before they sign it.
I feel for those who lost their jobs and stuff like that who are now in foreclosure (those who maybe even lost a family member or had a huge unexpected medical bill), but for those who go out and spend, spend and spend some more, all I can say is that they failed themselves. The same for goes for those who knew they could not afford a home and went out and bought one anyways.
We need to stop putting the blame on agents and lenders for their client’s failure to take responsibility for themselves. They know they have a mortgage payment coming up and they should have planned that out ahead of time.
And as far as the government is concerned, they certainly do not need to bail these people out or else they will never learn and continue in their own spend free ways.
February 10, 2008 — 12:21 am
Bob in San Diego says:
Guess this makes me the bleeding heart conservative. I firmly believe that agents and lenders should share a large amount of blame.
I have suffered through more office meetings than I care to admit where agents were told how to sell their clients on no risk. “They can always refinance”, “values won’t tank”, “get buyer control”, etc. Our full of it County Assessor was the favorite office meeting speaker for many companies because they knew he would tell the agents why San Diego real estate wouldn’t drop.
I have seen loan docs appear at closing, more than few times from the in-house lender of the rock solid broker I used to work for, with terms that were not supposed to be there, and when questioned, got back “does your client want the property or not?”. I have short sale clients now who had LOs pad their income – one by 100%, without knowing.
A few years back I got a call at 4:55 from the escrow officer telling me we had a problem and I should sit down. She had the LO on the line. The funding was pulled because the docs were randomly audited and the income stated was different than the tax returns. I had known the buyer for 20 years and knew she would rather die than lie. The LO copped to padding her numbers and admitted the buyer had no idea.
I have read Lawrence Yun and his predecessor. I got emails from the president of CB 12 months ago asking me to write letters to the editor stating that the market has bottomed and buyers should jump in.
I have a stack of flyers mailed or left on my doorstep that go back 24 months encouraging people to buy because prices are as low as they’ll go and rates can only go up. Anyone who followed that advice 12 months ago lost a bundle.
One can’t position them self as a trusted source, and then continually be wrong, intentionally or not, without being deserved of some of the blame.
February 10, 2008 — 1:27 pm
Kevin Boer says:
Ditto on David G’s comment — Malawi is a fabulous country to visit. During my 7 year southern Africa walkabout, Lake Malawi was one of my favorite destinations.
Your daughter’s probably been warned about it, but, speaking from personal experience, she’ll want to avoid the temptation of swimming in Lake Malawi due to the risk of Shistosomiasis (sp?). Alas, I couldn’t resist the temptation of the beautiful water and ended up with said illness. Fortunately, caught early, the treatment is one simple dose of pills. If not caught early, it gets very, very ugly.
Also speaking from personal experience, Malaria is highly over-rated. Sleep under the nets. Spray regularly. Take the drugs, even if it’s Larium, which causes wonderful IMAX-quality-rich-color-vivid-plot dreams plus rather unsettling eye twitches.
If you do get Malaria, don’t rely on American medical textbook treatments which tend to be dated. Rely on what the local doctors say is best for Malaria in that area.
February 10, 2008 — 3:22 pm