Over the past year or so we have seen several large East Coast real estate brokerages move into our marketplace. The question is: why do they think they are different or better? They use the same verbiage as one another, such as “international reach”, “new technology”, and the like. It’s the same old story over and over again.

Real estate in our city is a very hands-on business where quality agents show their clients the houses that seem to match what the clients say they want. When representing a seller, the agent reaches out to the marketplace and is then available to show the house, point out salient features, and then negotiate the sale. This part of the business is not technologically based. Rather, it is a one-to-one sales meeting and no technology can accomplish these tasks. The quality broker already has a broad reach to clients everywhere and shows them houses that are mostly found through the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). No agent shows a client a single house that the client responds to, but rather uses one house as a benchmark to show similar listings.

WEA has been remarkably successful for almost 20 years, and our technology is far ahead of the field. However, these new companies continue to open, luring one or two agents of substance and then filling their desks with newly licensed or inexperienced agents, none of which increase the number of transactions taking place. There are just more people chasing the same amount of business and not a single one of them, new or old, big or small, does better than WEA.

Best of Luck,

Stephen Shapiro

Co-Founder, Westside Estate Agency