Episode 55: Busting the Myths of Realtor Life
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Hello, and welcome to The Thoughtful Realtor. I'm Connie Chung,
I'm Cliff Tsang.
And I'm Kenny Gong, and we are the founders and partners of Willowmar Real Estate.
This is a real estate podcast where we get real personal.
Every episode, we sit down for insights, stories, and conversations about things in the market today, running a real estate team in California, and finding our way as leaders and business partners.
And it's going to be a fun one today. This episode is on realtor myths. So we're going to talk all about the funniest, and maybe strange, myths that we've encountered about realtors, about our profession, and the people in it—especially with reality shows like Million Dollar Listings, the Selling Sunsets.
We know that our world can seem very glamorous and dramatic, but it's not really quite true. In reality, it's not really like that at all.
All right, let's get into it. Question to start: well, what are some funny, unrealistic beliefs that you have had about realtors before you started working as one? And I know we had our own myths about realtors before we became one ourselves.
Yeah. So before you were a realtor, Con, what did you think about real estate agents?
Well, funny enough, I watched Million Dollar Listings as I was studying and taking courses and studying for the exam. And I knew it's not all real, but it was still so fun and inspiring. And just knowing and thinking that as a realtor, “Oh, you always had to be super glitzy and glamorous into how you dressed.” And I know when I then became a realtor, and as a new realtor, I wore heels a lot.
I feel like as a new realtor, maybe you had to overcompensate for the lack of experience but I knew that it was all about just like being very showy and to some extent, it is especially depending on what market you're serving. Out here now in LA, it definitely is more showy than in San Francisco, for example, where our clients in SF, they are a little more casual and kind of not as ostentatious showing their wealth.
And so I would say, yeah, the unrealistic belief is just like you always have to be super glamorous, which is certainly not the case. It's really just about how you show up professionally more so than, you know, all the shiny bells and whistles. And yeah, that's probably the biggest one. It's not all glamorous.
You know, what’s so funny is: I have never seen Million Dollar Listings or Selling Sunset. I haven't seen any of them to this day. I have never seen—
Let's do a Selling Sunset a couple of times.
I knew my dad was a realtor all my life, but I never even thought about what he did.
Before getting into real estate, I thought so little about realtors that I had no concept of what they were. I had no clue what they did. And because I didn't see any of these shows and especially now, they weren't as talked about in the mainstream media. I had no concept of what a real estate agent is or what a real estate agent does for better, for worse.
I'm in the same boat. Yeah, that's why I think this question was a little bit hard for me to think through because I don't think I had a clear impression of what it would be like. But, yeah, it’s funny because I think that actually helped me get into the—because if I thought it was the glamorous—you always had to be, I don't know, all the stuff that the TV portrays, then I think I probably would have had some hesitation. I don't think that's what I wanted to do. Yeah.
Cliff, maybe because this might have been the most—you, out of the three of us, had the most recent experience. When you started talking about real estate and telling people that you're a realtor, did any kind of myths come up with the people that you were talking to?
I think the ones that come up the most is: I think people assume that you're just on—not on call, but you're just available at all times of the day, which I think is somewhat partially true. You know, just because I think responsiveness is an indicator of professionalism or how on top of it you are.
Some people think that, but I think the other myth that was funny to me is: I've had a lot of conversations with people where you can tell by how they're asking the question, they assume that you've already seen the home.
Yeah.
And you know, I, you know, we do see a lot of homes, you know, through the course of being online and also touring during the week, but it's just, You know, just to break the myth, it's impossible for an agent to have seen every single home on market.
But it's just kind of funny that some people are like, “Well, you know, like that other home, you've seen that one, right?” And then they'll just keep talking, and then they'll talk about another home. It's like, “You've seen that one.” I don't want to burst your bubble, but I have not seen every single home that you're seeing on any website.
Yeah, that reminds me of another one for me, which is that people, assume that I have a really, really good sense of direction for some reason. And unlike Connie, whose sense of direction is bar none, like truly superpower sense of direction, which has been cultivated over many, many years.
I have never had that. And it's an interesting random thing that people just assume that because I know a lot about neighborhoods or know a lot about the city or know about all kinds of things and yes, can get around … but that I have a very, very good sense of direction.
Know the key things, the key landmark.
Exactly. Yes, yes, yes.
What restaurant anchors, what neighborhood …
Exactly, exactly. I could tell you where to go for the best coffee and the best boba, and the reason I can laugh about it is because being a really good real estate agent does not require having that type of good sense of direction.
And I think that's always a really interesting what people assume or the myths around what makes a really good real estate agent are sometimes not actually what really does make a really good real estate agent.
I feel like one myth was agents are always wearing suits—kind of that briefcase and just that like typical salesy type of salesmen, you know, realtors, we are sales people that is on the license, but we are not like salespeople in that sense.
And so I think that is a big myth. I know that's a myth I've held to myself and has been in many ways an internalized stigma where I fight so hard to beat down that idea of being this cheesy salesperson because we're so much more than that. We're really advisors and guides and advocates and so much more than just trying to sell a home.
It's really giving clients all of the information options and education that there are so many layers of our roles that “realtor” doesn't even encompass all of that.
That reminds me of one because as I recall, there's been a couple of times where after touring with clients, they would jokingly say something like, “Oh, oh, you're not going to encourage us to put an offer on one of these homes.” So something like that, you know, and I think to what Connie's mentioning is, there is a big myth or stigma that, “Hey, agents are just here to just sell you a home.”
If you see three homes, they're going to tell you to put an offer on one, but to exactly what Connie's saying, I think that doesn't understand what this role is because our job is really to find the right home for people. And it might take multiple times touring before we see that home.
Oh, you inspired a new myth I just thought about. Oftentimes, when an agent or client—to answer kind of some strange myths about what we've heard from our clients is that “Oh, you know they only helped me write one offer.” Like they didn't work very hard, but it's in that agent being so sharp and knowledgeable of getting your offer accepted on the first, which is more rare in this competitive market.
That's the sign of a really good agent and the client ultimately saving money as real estate appreciation has gone up. So it's kind of the myth that our work is put in by just the amount of offers we write.
Yeah. I think it's similar to a surgeon, you know, a surgery. Actually, think about my eye surgery: I got laser eye surgery and the surgery literally in total was about 45 seconds. I think, 30 seconds per eye. And I reflected on that and that is because I'm not paying—you're not paying for those 45 seconds, right?
You're paying for the experience, the years and years of experience and knowledge accumulation and expertise up to that point right before someone was ready to … right before that surgeon sliced open my eye. But that to me is also, if it's to Connie's point, there's so much that goes into getting an offer accepted successfully, getting clients to a place where they're ready to write offers and ready to do the due diligence and ready to be successful and doing that education, that is huge. Right?
And it's also the rapport and the relationship, right? So much of our job is relationships. And so if you got that offer accepted on that first try, there's a good chance that there was a lot of relationship building and rapport and reputation that was built into that one offer getting accepted.
This might be too tangential of a question, but I'm curious: why do you think that is? You would never go back to the surgeon and say, “No, I want you to spend two minutes on each eye or 30 minutes on each eye. That's the hourly rate that I'm expecting to pay.” But why is it in our industry that—or I'm sure that happens in other industries too—you're not thinking about the outcome. You're thinking about the effort that's put in. And it's kind of a weird, odd way to think about, I would say, for professional services.
The same thing doesn't apply for attorneys too because I think attorneys, you realize you're paying for that expertise. If someone can write a brief more quickly, or succinctly say something, and represent you, you're not asking them to spend more time on it, for whatever reason.
I think there's a few things. One is the relatively low barrier to entry to getting into this industry, right? Anyone could study for their exam test, pass it, and then represent you. Right? And without any training or without any coaching, without any mentorship, they can immediately represent you.
And so I think there's that. And people have a sense that, “Oh yeah, you just got your real estate license and you don't have a mentor or anything.” And so, there's that reality where there are people that are in that scenario, where they don't have the proper training. And I think the other part of it is: this goes into a new myth is that a lot of people just think that our primary job is to visit and look at beautiful homes. I really do think that people just think that that's what we're doing most of our days and what they're not seeing is everything else, right?
They're not seeing us every day reading 300, 400-page disclosure packages or going and talking to inspectors about the inspection report and asking them specific details about, “Like you said this about this piece of the siding. Can you explain that so that we can have a thoughtful conversation with the client?”
They're not seeing that. They're not seeing the relationship building that we do on a constant basis with colleagues in our community, in our market, all of those other things. It sometimes just gets boiled down to “Oh, yeah. You just saw this beautiful house, and we did too, and then you wrote up the offer for us.”
I'm realizing, exacerbated by the TV shows that we have referenced, like Selling Sunset and HGTV and all that, because it makes it seem like it's just an easy job. And everything is about just touring homes on Sunset Boulevard or—
Yeah, I love a lot of the cooking shows and the food, the chef competitions, but similarly to how the chef's life has been super glamorized, I feel like that realtors’ lives have definitely been very glamorized. I feel like that's the one downside.
Although the plus side is it's made it much more accessible to so many people. I think it's inspired so many people to join the profession, which is also really cool too, on that note.
Well, what are some myths about realtors that you've seen on TV and pop culture in general that you're like, “No.”
Of course, like the Selling Sunsets where it's all about, I don't know, you're in your fur coat and you're seeing these 15-million homes and you're just touring them. And then, your job is also to, to host these super, super luxurious broker's tour that have music artists playing in them and champagne and all of these things, which of course is, you know, part of it. But it's such a small, small, small part of what we do.
Majority of the homes that are on the market and that we see are just everyday homes. You know, they're got popcorn ceiling, sometimes, you know, shaggy carpet and then all the other things that—even we've dealt with rat droppings—just all kinds of things in this industry that we don't showcase because we're so in it and busy doing the work than actually documenting it.
That is so true, Connie. Yes. It is not all mansions. Sometimes there are rat droppings.
So much so that pest control companies don't even want to deal with it. Yeah, you get exposed to so much and I think one myth that, something that pop culture doesn't capture, is really the clients and the people that we work with. It's so … we certainly have those that might be really challenging or dramatic to work with per se, as it’s kind of depicted in pop culture, but most are everyday people in the summer going through some hardships that we get to be part of and hold that for them. And that's so powerful.
You know, one of the things that this makes me think about is—it's maybe not a myth, but I think something that people don't realize realtors go through, which is that intense emotional struggle, right? This is an industry where there's a lot of stress. Right? We are handling on a daily basis, multiple people's largest financial asset and at the same time, managing multiple people's most stressful time in their entire life. And our job is to hold that stress and for us to be as less stressed as possible for them on behalf of our clients. And I think that's something that people don't realize is such a huge part of our job is managing all of that emotional rollercoaster, you know, it's not only the emotional rollercoaster of the clients, but it's our own emotional rollercoasters as we're trying to navigate those and show up best for our clients.
You’ve got to be on. You’ve always got to be on. And even if you're having a really, really, really tough day, you’ve got to be on because it's for the client an, that can take a real …
Ooh, I love that. That really explained … Yeah. It's a really great insight in what folks should know about the real reality of realtors, our lives, and our businesses. It's the emotional roller coaster that we hold. And so much of it is keeping it together while behind the scenes might be a very different scenario.
Because that is what we are in the business of: servicing people, and it's really about the client.
Mm-hmm.
Cliff, what's something you want to share that folks should know about the reality …
Because I think ,what I was thinking as you two were explaining, that also really has been—for me—really good emotional training too, which is like knowing that every day you need to show up as your best. And it's not to say that you have to mask your emotions or just throw them to the side, but it is this like, not hardening, but it's like developing a confidence, a skill. And I think that's also translated to other aspects of my life too, which is like, not effectively a lot, needing to show up to your best, always. Not just as a realtor, but as a husband, as a friend, as a whatever. And, you're not perfect every time, but at least the attempt to do that in every facet of your life makes you stronger and better every day, over time, every day.
It's really empowering and it's really, really nice to see in hindsight too.
Yeah. Also, one big myth that I think is very prominent because of these reality shows is that our job is to … It's about us.
True.
It is so not about that.
Well, if you think about it, I mean, every realtor Instagram is about us, you know, or about the realtor. So yeah, in many ways, I think because they're realtors trying to build their business, it feels like, “Oh, it's got to be all about me.” And, when you're in it, it's not.
It's so not, it's so not. It's always—it truly is—it's always about the client and yeah, you’ve got to market yourself in order to get that business, but also, the main job is: it's everything in service of the client.
Great way to end it, Kenny.
All right, so let's wrap up. I hope we busted some realtor myths for you, our listeners. And let us know if you've come across these myths yourself or any other myth you'd like to share about realtors. You can find us at willowmar.com or on Instagram at @thoughtfulrealtor, or just reach out to us directly.
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