Inexperienced Agents in Charlottesville

Record numbers of new real estate agents and a rising number of complaints – and worse – against the industry have veterans alarmed about whether these novices really know how to buy and sell a house. … “There’s an overwhelming number of new people with inadequate training and that means there are more ethics complaints and more lawsuits. None of this serves the public,” said Tom Hart, …

… the industry has an often-repeated standard that 20 percent of the agents do 80 percent of the work, which doesn’t leave a lot of business for newcomers.

“When the tide turns, it will separate the wheat from the chaff,” Harrington said. “But for now, it’s still a tremendously popular career. It looks easy, but it’s a lot of hard work and it’s expensive.”

The above is from an article in a California newspaper (archived: 2005), but if one were to replace the names of the people, number of multiple-offer situations and the companies, it could very well have been written about the Charlottesville area. There are an unprecedented number of new agents, many of whom have very little training. This year alone, I have had three bad experiences with new agents, driven in part by (seemingly) lack of training, unbridled drive to get a transaction and greed. It saddens me, because this is my career by which I feed my family and pay my bills; one bad experience by a consumer reflects poorly on the vast majority of us who call this our profession.

My advice – do your due diligence in hiring a Realtor for representation. Often choosing your friend who happens to have his/her license can be very, very costly.