When I was first licensed as a Realtor, the Guelph and District Real Estate Board had swelled to the incredible number of 512 salespeople.  Today, despite the impression that some may have, we have 77 less salespeople than we had at that time!!  Despite increases in average price and units sold, the number of salespeople has actually decreased considerably. The past 19 years have brought other changes as well.  The availability of information is much easier to come by. The general buying public is much more aware of home values and product availability than they were because information is more readily available through electronic means. Those among us who think that our usefulness as a profession lies in the protection of the information we distribute are, in my view – doomed to failure.  Each Real Estate transaction today carries with it several additional documents today – disclosure forms, agency agreements etc….but that is an opinion for another day!  There are however some things that have not changed, one of them being the qualities of a good Realtor. I would suggest to you that a good realtor today would have been a good realtor in any generation primarily because of their personal attributes and not for anything that may represent technical ability.  In my humble opinion the primary of these attributes is integrity.

  I had the opportunity to take part in a round table broker discussion recently when the subject at hand was ‘what is the first thing you look for in a salesperson’.  I had what I thought was the misfortune of having to go last as I thought surely all the good answers would have been taken and I’d be stuck dressing up someone else’s answer as my own!! Well much to my surprise we went all the way around the table with my first thought left unspoken and I had the opportunity to utter the words – “that I trust them”.  Every other quality that makes up the characteristics of a good realtor (or a good anything for that matter) is irrelevant if the answer to that one simple question is no.  I would suggest to you that this is the same question you should be asking of yourself when you are in the position deciding which professional realtor’s services to use.  Fortunately in this town, you will have plenty of excellent choices.

 Jeff Neumann