You would think that with so many real estate agents leaving the industry because of hard times, those remaining would be bending over backwards to secure all the business that can. Going that extra mile so to speak.

With reports that up to 10,000 real estate agents, which represents one in six, have had to up stakes and look for employment elsewhere in the last year, industry leaders are wondering what to do to keep morale up.

Real estate trainer Glenn Twiddle, has a passion to make the industry he works in better and argues that agents are their own worst enemy – offering poor service to sellers and next to no follow up with buyers.

He set out to prove his point recently with a secret shopper campaign at real estate open houses. The results are not good!

Glenn and his team visited 102 open homes, primarily in South East Queensland, posing as buyers with instructions to give the agents whatever contact details they requested.

Here is a summary of the results…..

• 1 agent got more details than just a mobile number (the rest happy to get a mobile number – why I don’t know because most of them never used it!).
• 72 agents made no follow up at all after the open home.
• 2 followed up on the day of the open (the standard that is trained).
• 2 followed up on more than one occasion after the open home.
• 83 of the agents made no attempt to try to sell the property in any way.
• Most agents handed out property brochures but only 1 had outstanding property promotional material (extra info, DVD, video tour etc)

AND

• 4 agents did not even show for the open home

These statistics are appalling!

It is a good idea to secret shop the agents in your area before you list.

Glenn Twiddle image via: News.com.au