The prestige of the estate agent
We tell you how to identify a (good) estate agent and how we help them achieve prestige (and love) for their work in selling your house and/or renting your flat.
At Monapart we have conducted in-depth interviews with 37 active estate agents. A third -almost coinciding with the best prepared third of the sample- identified the lack of prestige of the estate agent as one of the main "pain points" of the profession.
The problem of estate agents
Chapter 8 - Consumer Experience: Problems, Solutions and Remedies - of the final report of the Consumer Market Study on the functioning of consumer real estate services in the European Union he begins:
"The consumer experience in the real estate market has proven to be quite unsatisfactory.. In the edition of the Consumer Conditions Scoreboard 2016 In the European Commission's report, real estate services appeared to be the worst performing of all the markets surveyed. Specifically, the real estate market has consistently shown symptoms of poor performance in terms of consumer protection".
In the 2014 Harris Pollone of the surveys tracking public opinion, motivations and social sentiment of US citizens since 1963, the lack of prestige of the estate agent was the most obvious of all the professions listed (27 / 100), with the doctor's degree being the most prestigious (88 / 100).
Characteristics a real estate agent should have: a barista is not a waiter
A Spanish waiter is a guy who makes you a coffee in a minute's time while he heats up a tortilla de patatas on the microphone, comments on the penalty missed against Real Madrid in Saturday's match against Atleti and warns another waiter that the customer in the corner "is dry" and needs a refill by Marie Brizard. He is a genius of multitasking and Just In Time and if we were not a country without pride and vision we would have long ago proposed his figure to UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The coffee is the same as always: short, bitter, in a small cup with a logo and costing 1.10€.
I don't know any child who wants to be a waiter.
A barista is a guy who takes five minutes to make you a coffee while he's just making a coffee, and he has a hell of a queue of people waiting for him to take five minutes to make them a coffee without making conversation.
The coffee is always an extraordinary coffee brought from the unknown lands of Africa or South America, roasted at its optimum point, infused by drip or in a decanter of the finest crystals, and so on. Aromatic, just the right amount of acid, (another) etcetera and €2.80.
My teenage daughter wants to be a barista.
It also happens that the barista is often (not always) middle-aged, uneducated, with no sense of style or fashion, no sensibility for modern music or modern design or modern architecture or modern anything, while the barista is a young guy or gal, with a career, travelled, authentic, ecologist, has a foreign accent and cool tattoos and has left everything behind to dedicate himself to his great passion: coffee. She is a coffee entrepreneur and not a bar-owner. A barista, inspires. A waitress, transpires.
Each appeals to a different customer segment and there is no one better than the other, but only one of the two has done something differently enough to make something that millions of cups are poured every day around the world into an aspirational product and to make the people who offer that product today prestigious professionals capable of catalysing in a thirteen year old girl the desire to dedicate her life to it.
See where I'm going?
Becoming a reputable real estate agent
The real estate services sector is going through an interesting and special moment. On the one hand, it is undergoing a process of atomisation: more and more agents are working alone (it must be borne in mind that a real estate agent is not the same as a property administrator) and (even smaller) agencies. Very small. In parallel, a race of a few to become "the house" of these agents: colossal technological receptacles of independent real estate agents. Atomisation and consolidation. Craftsmanship and technology. Networks and individuals.
There are - and more will be - many agents operating "out in the open" without the support of a solid brand and it will only be a matter of time before they realise that the prestige of the estate agent they need and demand cannot be achieved on their own and that, what is more, they will be further and further away from being able to achieve it.
There are few agencies with the vocation of a large agency and capable of turning waiters at baristasagents in another-yet-unnamed-place. Monapart is one of them and is on that path. To achieve this, it is essential to provide the agent with a product-service of excellent quality, to train him and to instil in him the values of an aspirational brand that will allow him to serve with an aura of inspiring prestige that separates him from the rest of the professionals.
The key is to be able to say "our stuff is not just coffee, it's something else" and that it is. And that they buy it.
There are some great agencies and brokers out there and they are a great option to do your job well. If your ambition is also to be part of a brand that does different things before anyone else, Monapart is your home. Ten years ago we were the first to do what today only the best do. Today we want to reinvent the real estate agent to make him or her what everyone wants to be tomorrow.
Let's talk about it whenever you want.
