In our day-to-day lives we meet many different types of professional people who provide services to us. Doctors, laywers, dentists, policemen, cooks, plumbers, etc. What is it about realtors that posseses them to put their picture on their business cards and mailings??? 
I think it’s because they want people to view them on a personal level, as someone you can trust to help you decide how to spend a couple hundred thousand dollars. That’s also why you’ll sometimes see them emphasizing their first names, or only giving you them.
Of course, they often try this by using photos that are bizarre or creepy. In my area, my favorites are the Stepford looking couple who only put their first names on the signs, and the woman whose picture shows her with her poodle.
Ever notice how most of them are young-ish (or trying to look young-ish) females, trying desperately to look attractive?
In most cases where I have dealt with these people, thier physical attractiveness is thier only marketable commodity, and therefore, that is what they put on thier cards. :rolleyes:
Newspaper and magazine columnists also include their picture.
Ugh. Dan Spicer. Works for Coldwell Banker. Not only does he put his pictures on his flyers, but he has at least a dozen different ones, and sends them out about 4 times a week.
I wish I was kidding.
This man is insane. Its as if he (or his company) believe that if potential house buyers (I live in an apartment) don’t see his name every 2 days, they’ll never get hired at all. Quite frankly, if I ever go to buy a house here, the sheer amount of advertisement sent to me from Dan Spicer will lead me to NOT hire him as a realtor. He’s practically harrassing us!
I don’t mean to offend any realtors on SDMB, but I’ve found most to be somewhat alien.
I think the pictures on the flyers and business cards are supposed to say to their alien counterparts “look what a fine job I’ve done on my mask to hide my alien lizard face”.
The female realtors always have big, silly hair because their reptile hands have a hard time holding combs.
(can you tell I’m not a big fan of realtors?)
Well now that you’ve figured out our secret we’re gonna have to kill you and eat you.
You didn’t know that the woman sitting across from you at the PortaDope was a real estate broker did you? 26+ years. I also have a broker’s license, but I’m just her evil minion. I do all the heavy, behind-the-scenes work, hiding bodies, digging graves, that sort of thing. Hey, I needed something when the profession I spent most of my life dedicated to, computer programming, deserted me.
Mrs. B. says “we’re gonna eat your children too”. I get the impression she was not amused.
BTW, she says the picture on the card thing has become an industry standard because it’s a security thng. Clients seem to take it as some sort of picture ID.
Even though it’s rediculously easy to have cards printed with your picture on them saying you’re anything you want to be. The print shop on the mother ship churns them out by the thousands.
People also find the picture cards less inpersonal, and when you come right down to it, real estate is more of a popularity contest than most other professions. People don’t really know what we do or how we were trained. You think we get paid a whole lot for very little work. Well, it ain’t necessarily so. Of that big chunk of change you paid out when you sold your house, the listing agent probably gets 25% - 45%. It varies quite a bit from place to place and office to office. Out of that we pay for our licenses, multiple listing and other membership fees, advertising, continuing education, etc. Some offices even charge a ‘desk’ fee, basically rent for the desk space. I’ve even heard of offices charging agents for using the copy machine. There are a hundred other little nickle-and-dime fees and dues we pay. On top of all that, we’re considered independant contractors, so we pay all of our Social Security taxes, etc. In fact, between Uncle Sam and the state, our taxes are somewhere between a third and a half of everything we make. Plus we have to keep meticulous records of everything we do so we can itemize. How would you like to have to write down your mileage every time you get out of your car? We also get to pay for our own health insurance. Ain’t that grand?
Oh, and we get sued a lot for not knowing things about your shiney new house that we have no earthly way of knowing 'cause we don’t have frilling X-ray vision!
Personally, I’d much rather be back programming.
No offense.
sigh Looks like I killed another one. 
forget the pictures, bumbazine. is there anything else you’d like to say about the real estate business? the impression i have is that most agents make very few sales, particularly in their first couple of years, and that most sales in any particular area are made by a small number of very experienced agents with extensive contacts. most agents seem to spend a lot of time either trolling for listings (because they get a cut no matter who makes the sale), or providing taxi service to people who are looking for houses but with whom you really have no professional relationship (unless you sign a “buyer-broker” agreement) because theoretically you are exclusively representing the sellers, whom you may never have actually met until you bring a prospect to their front door. there also seems to be a substantial number of agents who really don’t expect to make much money but want to be able to say they have a “profession” (bored housewives with financially successful husbands might be an example).
you sound like you had a lot of experience in the business world before you entered real estate. any thoughts on how the real estate business could be reformed along the lines of other service businesses?
No, I think I got carried away there as it is. But I’ll be glad to answer your questions.
Yes, many agents don’t make very much money in this business, for any number of reasons. Many people with licenses don’t use them, work part time as you said, or use their licenses in another capacity other than sales.
In my case, I show zero income from real estate sales. That’s because my wife’s cred was so great when she joined the office that they gave her a better ‘split’ than many other agents, so I act as her assistant, and she has all the income, if that makes any sense.
It is also not unusual for a new agent to take a long time to ‘get up to speed’ because real estate really does depend on having a vast network of contacts, and many people, while they may know a lot of folks, don’t really make an effort to stay in touch with everybody they know all that well. There’s also a lot of word-of-mouth referrals, so you need to have demonstrated competance before people will recommend you to their friends. I’m not sure I explained that very well. I hope you understand.
You talk about the agent really representing the seller. That isn’t really true in the state of Oregon any more. Now, when an agent talks to a potential buyer, we are considered by the state to be an agent of that buyer, and we are required to inform that potential client of that fact. We are in that case required to act in the best interests of the buyer. If we are also the listing agent, that is represent both the buyer and seller, the law is very specific about how we are supposed to conduct ourselves so as not to take unfair advantage of either side.
Reformed? I think the state of Oregon does a pretty good job of keeping an eye on us, myself. Unfortunately, this is a business where there is a lot of opportunity to take advantage of trusting or uneducated people, and that does tend to attract a certain type of dishonest person along with the honest types. It’s also fairly easy to make an honest mistake that causes someone harm. We skate real close to offering legal advice a lot of the time, which is forbidden, and can get sideways there by just trying to be helpful, too.
I think the answer is education and oversight. I mentioned continuing education above. We are required to take a certain amount of classes to be able to renew our licenses every two years. And these aren’t exactly underwater basket weaving, either.
Also, the Oregon Real Estate Agency is very enthusiastic about pursuing malfeasence in the profession. Clients do complain if they think something isn’t kosher, and the Agency does investigate. If you make a habit of screwing people over, eventually you’re gonna get caught.
One more thing, a lot of law pertaining to real estate is federal law, but a good chunk of it is state law, and varies quite a bit from state to state. ‘Client agency’ is one area, as I said above. I don’t know, but I think Oregon may be the only state that automatically considers you an agent of the buyer when you are working with a potential buyer. So, unless you are in Oregon, don’t assume everything I said above applies.
Same reason people have photos on their driver’s licenses: it establishes proof of identity. These people are total strangers coming into your house. If their business cards didn’t have their photos on them, anyone could find them and claim to be John Smith from XYZ Realty, and get access to any house on the market.
Any homeowner should demand to see a photo id before letting a Realtor into their house and keep their business card. No professional is going to be insulted, and you may avoid a personal disaster.