Q: There is a Used Car Salesman, a Realtor and a Lawyer. And you have a gun with two bullets… Which should you shoot?
A: You should shoot the realtor twice… Just to be sure.

Lets face it. Real Estate agents don’t have the best reputation. The truth is though, most of the agents who have been in the profession for an extended part of time are hard working, honest people. Unfortunately, a few bad seeds ruin it for the rest of us.

I have had the misfortune of working with a few of these bad seeds and they infuriated me to no end. It wasn’t upsetting so much that these people were taking away commission checks from some really great folks. It was upsetting that people bought into these phonies. And as a first hand witness, I can tell you, they caused more collateral damage than you could ever imagine.

But these bad seeds will soon be out of a job.

I speculate that one of the reasons that these phonies were able to get away with everything for so long was that everyone was making money. No one wants to rock the boat when they are making money.

I don’t have to tell you though, that things have changed over the last few months. Outside of the infomercial I saw last night at 1am, I haven’t heard of anyone making a fortune in the business lately. People are mad and have their phony meters turned to eleven (yes, it goes to eleven. Watch Spinal Tap)

However, more damning to their survival is that we entering an age of transparency. Social Media tools like twitter, facebook, flickr, etc. are slowly becoming necessities of the real estate profession (for those who disagree with this statement, obviously there are agents who will never use these tools. But the youngest generation is growing up communicating via social media. And they are our future customers). These tools, more than anything expose the inner self. And if you’re a phony, people will know.

So, good news RE agents; In the future, you’ll only have to avoid one bullet… Or just pull the lawyer in front of you

Doug