In Part I, I suggested that our business had become as global as it is local. Real estate is a local business in a global economy. It is undeniable that we must know our neighborhoods and local real estate practices in order to provide superb services to our clients, but that isn’t the complete picture.
Every client that comes from further than across the street has the potential to be accompanied by a different real estate culture and, with it, many different assumptions and expectations. The MLS system is probably one of the most obvious examples of this.
The U.S. and Canada have an extensive, well regulated listing sharing and cooperation program between brokers that rarely exists elsewhere. The impact to real estate culture and the expectations of services available from real estate professionals is immense.
If you are an American, you will expect your broker to work on your behalf and to share with you every property that meets your parameters. In the reverse, a French national may impede a search in the U.S. by working with multiple agents and gaining the full attention, resources and benefit of none of them.
Add in the culture of homeownership and different tax and legal issues for an even better look at the depth of complexity we aren’t really addressing with an exclusively local focus. It is just as important to understand our local business as it is to understand how it is the same or different than others.
The opportunity exists to improve services by learning some of the major differences that exist between our own and other markets. When working with a client from another country, take a few moments to do research on his/her real estate market and business culture.
It’s easy to look at “International” as a challenge, but there are also many benefits. New information brings new knowledge brings new ideas. Even if the concepts are foreign, they have the ability to spur innovation and the creation of beneficial programs and services at home.
Posted by: Sharon E. Michnay, CRP, GMS, WRS, Executive Director, Corporate Business Development, Halstead Property. Sharon is a member and former chairperson of the LeadingRE Advisory Council.
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I only can agree on what you said. Its very important to get to know foreign real estate models and the different way of how business is done overseas when calling you “international”. It doesn’t mean you need to become the sole expert what is quite impossible due to the complexity of all the different markets, but position yourself in the right way by joining the right international networks or establishing relationships with some foreign real estate companies of markets where you most clients come from or are interested in will be just the first step.