It`s always been one of the first things a real estate agent needs, right after the license and a decent suit: a good car.
A couple of decades ago, you knew what the successful agent was going to be driving: a big, expensive, recently issued American land barge. Today, the rule still stands that the flourishing real estate salesperson will drive a pricey, late-model auto-but it could be anything from a Cadillac to a BMW to an Infiniti to a Land Rover.
”Your car most definitely says something about who you are,” says Chuck Betts, an agent with ERA Miller on Chicago`s South Side. ”That`s the public view.” Betts drives an Oldsmobile luxury brougham: ”It speaks conservative, not flashy,” he says. ”It`s part of the image I`m trying to project-a Cadillac is too flashy. The Olds has the same comfort, but it projects a different image.”
”When we first come into the business, many of us have old, large, beater-type cars,” says Phyllis Taylor of Mitchell Brothers/ERA in Evanston. ”The people who are successful end up with Mercedes or Volvos. We`ve got 50 people in our office, and it`s a real mish-mash (of makes): Mercedes-Benz, Volvos, Hondas. I`d say we`ve got about 40 percent American-made cars, and it`s usually the older Realtors driving them, the ones that have always been in them. One associate had a van; the only negative was that it was sometimes hard for people to step up into it.”
Just the essentials
Some real estate agents discount the importance of the car they drive.
”As long as you have a clean car with a full tank of gas and four doors, it doesn`t matter if it`s expensive or inexpensive,” says Jean Wright of Jean Wright Real Estate in Winnetka.
Wright drives a BMW, but she did even before she went into real estate.
”It`s a nice car, but it doesn`t affect in any way my ability to sell. Actually, if your car is too, too elegant, your clients will think you don`t need the money. You don`t need to wear evening clothes in the daytime, and you don`t need to drive the fanciest car. So leave the Rolls in the garage- but try not to have too much rust!”
Diane Davis of Gloor Realty in Oak Park calls a car ”one of your main tools.” She drives a late-model Honda Prelude, ”but I have to admit that when I have a big-bucks client, I don`t take my car-I take my husband`s Acura Legend,” she says.
Her husband, Jim Mitchell, owns Flash Car Wash in Maywood, and Davis reports that a significant number of local real estate agents are regular customers. To her, that makes a lot of sense: ”Who should keep (their cars)
cleaner? It`s usually a family car, but clients don`t want to encounter Big Mac wrappers in the back seat.”
Jean Wright agrees: ”You can turn a buyer off in a hurry if there`s a cigarette or food smell in your car. Like your office or your clothes, your car should be clean and professional.”
Of the real estate agents Diane Davis knows, ”almost all of them have nice cars, because people want to deal with someone who`s successful. Unfortunately, appearances are very important.”
Bikes and blades
With clients with whom she has developed a relationship, however, Davis can be less orthodox, bicycling with them to appointments, going on walking tours of condominiums and even, occasionally, roller-blading to showings.
Small cars of whatever price range seldom cut it for real estate professionals, says Phyllis Taylor. ”You have to be able to carry things-you need that trucking capacity. You throw signs, cleaning things, listing books into the trunk. In Evanston, we carry boxes of brochures saying we`re an equal-opportunity city. We carry contracts, mailings, giveaways-right now we`ve got cookbooks-in our trunks. We never put groceries in `em.”
Although she once had to open the sun roof before one excessively tall chap could ride in her Prelude, Diane Davis sees less importance in how much seating capacity a car has these days.
”It used to be that we`d always take the client in our cars to see homes. They were a captive audience; the goal was to have the client in the car with you, so you could answer questions and dispel any negative comments. But that`s changing, because of car seats,” she says. ”It`s just too much trouble to take children`s car seats in and out of cars; they take too much space in the car, and you can`t have an adult hold a baby on her lap anymore. So we usually caravan now, and you`ve lost that advantage of transporting the client.”
Rocky road
Stories abound about agents who suffer fender-benders while transporting clients, of the woman who locks her keys in the car while a client fumes over the delay, of cars that won`t start when there are customers to be toted. Chuck Betts once ran out of gas while on his way to an appointment. ”A gentleman stopped and gave me a ride; I gave him my card. He told me he`d call me when he was ready to buy a property. Three years later, he did-and I knew his name right away.”
Although Betts calls the automobile ”the most important tool that you have,” it`s important to remember that image is less important than substance-and may have little or nothing to do with results.
”To go out and buy a car as an image is putting the emphasis in the wrong place,” says Jean Wright. ”Some of my highest producers do not drive expensive cars. You shouldn`t drive to make an effect-it`s only a mode of transportation. You may have the finest car in the world, and if you don`t take your clients to the house that`s right for them, it`s not going to help.”
