Demystifying Real Estate For Your Clients

Clients come to you because they need expert opinions and guidance in the process of buying or selling a home, but your expertise may be the very thing that prevents you from being as helpful as you could be.

If you are a real estate professional, you doubtless know how to speak to your clients and give them the information they need. However, it can be difficult to land in the optimal place on the spectrum between dryness and jargon.

You want to make your clients feel secure in their business relationship with you and in the decisions they make in the real estate market. However, while your knowledge is useful, it must be packaged in a way that demonstrates your ability to understand not just the market, but your clients and where they are coming from.

There are a few tools you can use to make your clients feel more at home in their discussions and overall interactions with you.

Analogies

Analogies serve many purposes in conversation, especially when there is a disparity in expertise between the two parties. They should not be overused to the point where you find yourself speaking in platitudes, but finding moments to use them to better a client’s understanding is extremely productive.

via Stratoscale: Making analogies can add to your communication style.

The use of analogies can also build your clients’ trust in you. It shows that you are able to think not only from their perspective, which is encouraging in and of itself, but that you can see a situation from many angles and have an eye for the mechanisms that underlie many parts of life.

By using an analogy, you inform your clients while also painting yourself as a well-rounded professional in whose hands they will be very well taken care of. And for those real estate agents who find themselves acting in the unofficial role of lawyer, displaying an aptitude for concepts and words can assuage client anxieties.

Research and examples

In addition to being well-spoken and well-rounded, clients expect a good agent to be well-researched. This is an area, however, in which the line between overcomplication and dryness can be difficult to walk.

On the one hand, you want your clients to have all the information possible, but this doesn’t mean that you can simply parrot what you’ve learned. Since they do not have your background, this information will not be accessible to them.

On the other hand, condensing your research and examples into dry facts and statistics, while they may be more accessible in this form, can give your clients concern as to how invested you are in the specifics of their case.

When you give clients examples of similar transactions, market conditions, or past trends, it is important to speak in layman’s terms and sprinkle in just enough facts to ensure credibility but not so much that you overwhelm them.

You can gauge your effectiveness throughout your presentation and interactions with clients. Be as in tune as possible to how they respond, the questions they ask, and the decisions they lean toward. Take responsibility for their edification so that they can then take responsibility for prudent real estate choices.