CHOICES™ - an adaptation of business consulting to real estate brokerage, in the best interest of consumers! It may best be understood by contrasting it with the traditional selling model.

CONSULTING, especially in business matters, is about providing impartial advice and guidance usually in exchange for a reasonable fee. Applied to real estate it means delivering the advice and services that will most effectively and efficiently accomplish the client's wishes.  That may be a purchase, a sale or neither. For example, some clients need advice around whether to renovate and stay put, or sell and buy something else. Imagine the pressure on a commission salesperson to be objective in such circumstances!

Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org ) enriches the basic definition, “…Typically a professional provides a service in exchange for payment, in accordance with established protocols for licensing, ethics, procedures, standards of service and training / certification.”

My fellow ACRE^© consultant, Merv Forney in Virginia, helps explain this in The Consulting Times™. Click here to read it.

SELLING, on the other hand, is about persuading someone to buy something in the hope of receiving a commission. Sales people in many industries are motivated and remunerated by commission. Such is the long established culture of the real estate brokerage industry. The great irony, however, is that property isn’t so much sold as it is bought. Here’s why.

The REALTOR® by whom a home is listed seldom meets or even sees the buyer, much less sells him/her the house. Most property sales occur through the synergy of the MLS® (Multiple Listing Service®) and the cooperation of its REALTOR® members.

The cooperating REALTOR® who brings the buyer is bound by ethics and regulations to help him/her acquire the most appropriate property at the best price and terms, certainly not to “sell” him/her a particular property.

For many decades real estate regulations and practices were very different and it was indeed all about selling. Formally, that ended in Nova Scotia in the early nineties, but old habits die hard and regrettably, in many ways, the real estate community still sees itself and behaves as a selling machine. Just look around at the advertising verbiage!