By Chad Taylor, the Taylor-Made Team
I recently read an article about a national Gallup survey that gave my profession something to think about. Only 17% of Americans rated the honesty and ethical standards of real estate agents as high or very high. Most rated them as average, and 26% rated them low or very low. That puts our profession close to its historical low.
As someone who earns a living helping people buy and sell homes, those numbers are uncomfortable to read. But I think we should spend more time asking how we earned that perception than explaining why the public has it wrong.
Buying or selling a home is a significant financial decision, often tied to an equally significant life change. The person advising you also typically gets paid when the sale closes. That creates a question clients are perfectly reasonable to ask: Is this advice best for me, or best for getting this deal done?
In my opinion, the hot seller’s market trained a generation of agents to be more comfortable as facilitators than fiduciaries. They learned how to move a transaction toward closing, but may have had fewer opportunities to develop the judgment required to advise someone against moving forward.
There were certainly difficult decisions during those years. Buyers faced intense competition, and helping them navigate that pressure required skill. But when homes sold quickly, offers arrived in multiples, and rising prices could cover up a pricing mistake, it became easier to confuse a successful sale with sound advice.
A home selling above asking price did not automatically prove that the agent priced it correctly. A buyer winning a bidding war did not automatically mean that buying the home on those terms was the right decision. The outcome could look impressive without telling us much about the quality of the guidance.
Now, as the market shifts, more of that judgment is being tested. Sellers need realistic pricing recommendations. Buyers need help weighing their options. Both need someone who can explain the risks, have difficult conversations, and recognize when moving forward may be the wrong choice.
At the same time, a slower market can put financial pressure on agents. When fewer sales are closing, each transaction can become more important to an agent’s livelihood. There is nothing wrong with needing to earn a living. I do, too. But we have to recognize how that need can affect our advice.
An agent who needs a closing can become attached to the outcome. A concern that deserves further investigation may start to look like an obstacle to overcome. A seller’s hesitation may become something to push through. A buyer’s doubts may get answered with reassurance when they deserve a closer look.
That does not mean every agent facing a slow year will give poor advice. It does mean our profession has a responsibility to keep its financial pressures from becoming the client’s problem.
On our team, we are crystal clear about this: no commission is worth our reputation. We have spent years building relationships and earning trust, and no individual sale is worth putting that at risk.
By operating a sound business for years, we have also put our team in a position to recommend walking away from a sale when it is in a buyer’s or seller’s best interest. And we will be the first ones to bring it up. Clients should not have to wonder whether we are holding back a concern because we want the transaction to close. Bringing those concerns forward is our job.
Sometimes the right recommendation is to prepare a home more thoroughly before listing. Sometimes it is to accept an offer that falls short of expectations. Sometimes it is to pass on a house, stay put, or postpone a move altogether. Good advice needs room for all of those possibilities.
This is why I believe working with a proven agent matters. And by proven, I mean more than years with a license or a photo beside a sold sign. Look for someone who can explain how they have guided clients through difficult decisions, changing conditions, and transactions that did not go according to plan.
Ask how they arrived at their pricing recommendation. Ask what could go wrong. Ask when they have advised a client to walk away or wait.
Listen for specific examples and thoughtful answers. You should feel comfortable questioning the advice, and your agent should feel comfortable explaining it.
Experience matters, but so does the willingness to tell you something you may not want to hear. That could mean explaining that your price expectations are unrealistic. It could also mean telling you that a house you love carries risks you should not overlook.
We cannot expect the public to trust us simply because we say we are trustworthy. We have to give people evidence through our recommendations, our conversations, and our willingness to put their interests ahead of our own.
Our job is to help people make good decisions about their homes and their lives. Sometimes that leads to a closing. Sometimes it leads to a decision to wait. Both can be the right outcome, and our advice should reflect that.
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