I've never been a real estate agent, but I've had clients who were in the top 1% of real estate agents.
They had a whole team of people to make deals go through smoothly. They had engineers on staff who would do a full inspection of the property and point out things like thermal evidence of water damage behind walls, tilting/sinking foundations. If it was all good, they'd sign off saying so., if not, it was brought forward and had to be disclosed.
They had friends who worked in the city zoning dept. and would find out if new buildings were going up, if something was getting rezoned etc.
They had a team of assistants who were masters at filling out paperwork and getting the right people to sign on the right spots and at the right time.
The agents had regular meetings with their teams to let them know what deals were coming in and what was needed.
Without the team, they would have to manage that all by themselves and go out and find new leads. That last part, finding new people, they tell me is where the most of their tike is spent. They are always looking for new people who want to buy or sell, and convincing people that you are the one to represent them was the real work. They were always holding events, taking clients out and asking them to bring a friend etc. It is a lot of keeping track of small pieces of information, keeping in touch with a lot of people so that you can send them through the process you have set up in order to generate sales to pay your staff and keep your operation growing.
So a REALLY good real estate agent is going to demonstrate their value by making sure that when you buy a house from them, you're not going to have any surprises spring up right after you take possession.
It’s nice to know they need a buyer to be satisfied to help them generate new sales leads, ie. their reputation matters. I still don’t trust these people though. They represent both sides of the transaction, the seller and the buyer. That’s a conflict of interest. Their commission depends on the sale price of the house, which means they want to sell it to you at the highest price possible, so by coincidence they are on the side of the seller and not the buyer.
When you are buying they are like any big ticket sales person. They act like they’re your best friend who is looking out for you, but they’re really trying to get as much money out of you as possible. Don’t trust anything they say. Check everything yourself. Shop around on your own to see what your options are. They will only show you properties they can profit from.
There are a lot of shitty ones put there for sure. I always laugh when I see their bil cards that say something like "I'll sell your house for the most amount of money possible". I just think "why would I ever buy from you then?"
All good information, but how many hours does a real estate agent actually put in on the sale of a property?
For a good one it is tought to say. They are ALWAYS dealing with people. I could not meet with them for more than 10 consecutive minutes before they would have to excuse themselves to take a call.
There is another thought I had about this. The number of hours it took the agent to become excellent. If I'm hiring a handyman, I want a guy who has done and seen it all, who will know to ask me questions on details I didn't consider or know about. If I design a custom made shelf, I want the guy who will look at the plans and instantly realize I didn't put a back on it and ask me about it, to which I will say it is for better ventilation for my kids consoles. Then he will tell me that if there is no back, it is going to be flimsy, then he'll suggest some corner brackets or strips across the back at strategic places to secure the entire thing together and make it stable.
Same deal with a real estate transaction. I want to be able to tell the guy why I want a property, what I will use it for, and then he can help me avoid things like buying a property at the edge of town where he knows there is a good chance that property will be close to a new dump because the old one is approaching capacity, or some city ordinance that will prevent me from doing what I want to. Shit like that.