Judy Kay is the broker/owner of Rock Center Realty in Sugar Land.
Every week, we ask a real estate professional for their Short List, a collection of tips and recommendations on an essential topic in real estate. This week, we talked with Judy Kay, the broker/owner of Rock Center Realty in Sugar Land, about her top ways to explain your value to consumers.
Everybody’s value is going to be different. Everybody’s benefit is going to be different. It all depends on that person’s experience.
The way I do it is:
6. I talk about the fact that I am a full-time Realtor. I’ve been in the business for 10 years, and it was my choice to get into this business. I was in the corporate world for 25 years, and then made the conscious decision that I wanted to get into real estate. I had dabbled in real estate before as an investor, and I had seen that I could provide value not only in the residential market, but also in the commercial market.
5. I also talk about my education. I have my master’s in business. Sixteen percent (or fewer) of Realtors have their master’s in business, and that indicates an effort in taking that extra step, in going a little farther to ensure that things are right.
4. When I was in the corporate world, I was in marketing, and I talk about that experience as well.
3. Realtors also present great value for FSBOs. I always talk about how even the owner of the FSBO website needed an agent to sell his home. When he sold his home in New York a couple years ago, he tried to do it by himself with his own website, but he couldn’t sell it! After a couple months, he hired a Realtor, and the Realtor advised him that he priced it too low. So they increased the price, and with the value of that Realtor placing it on the MLS with photos and descriptions, they sold it within a couple of weeks – and at that higher price. I always point that out as an example.
2. I also mention this fact: a client is paying a Realtor around 6 percent total, with 3 percent for the listing agent and 3 percent for the buyer’s agent; but, you usually (and NAR has studies on this) sell the property for much higher than the clients’s 3 percent.
1. Finally, the value of a Realtor is being able to look at a situation more objectively. Even when I, as a Realtor, tried to sell my own property, I became too emotionally involved, and that can really harm the whole system and way that you do business. It just doesn’t work when you’re intimately involved in the transaction.
The 2013 Fort Bend Realtor of the Year, Judy Kay is the broker/owner of Rock Center Realty in Sugar Land. Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, Judy received her bachelor’s degree in Jamaica and her MBA in Toronto, Canada. She left the corporate world after 20 years in the high-tech industry, and has worked in real estate for more than 10 years. She was the 2011 and 2012 Chairperson of the Houston Association of Realtors Fort Bend networking group, which represents Realtors and affiliates, and she is also a member of the TREPAC group, which lobbies for the rights of homeowners and Realtors.