Why agents should talk ‘more about payments than price’ 

A hundred years after its founding, the Miami-based Keyes Company prioritizes a "Main Street mindset" that puts the consumer first, according to President Christina Pappas.

The firm, which merged with Illustrated Properties in 2016 and was ranked No. 28 among U.S. brokerage by sales volume in T3 Sixty's latest Mega 1000, encourages its agents to inform prospective buyers about the financial realities of a home purchase "up front."

"Our goal is that a customer is walking into a showing understanding the full costs that would be associated prior to seeing it," Pappas explained during a recent appearance on NAR's Change Agents podcast. "If we're not getting realistic and having those consultations with our customers up front, we're really doing a disservice."

The monthly costs that add up: Keyes urges agents to get an insurance quote for a home when it's first listed and again prior to a showing, Pappas said. Insurance costs, property taxes and homeowners association fees should be disclosed in early discussions with clients, she explained, because these are "the biggest differences we see" for buyers moving to Florida from other countries or U.S. states.

"We talk a lot more about payments than price," she noted, adding that "understanding those costs up front before getting into any property" is important.

In markets as diverse as Miami, it can also be helpful to provide contracts and other transaction-related documentation in multiple languages. This offering "certainly helps our consumer understand more, in their language, what they are signing."

Consumer data awareness adds pressure for agents: Though sharing information with clients is valuable, keeping up with it in a world increasingly driven by AI is the "main pressure point" for agents today, Pappas said.

"You're seeing a lot more consumers be more and more engaged with the information they can have access to," she explained. "Our job now is to help guide them through that information — and the correct information. And that's a lot of pressure, I think, for a lot of our agents."

What's 'absolutely critical' for agent success: Early-career agents with small databases may not see the value in tools that keep track of client information. But as their business grows, so will their need for "a robust CRM system and website," which Pappas said "are absolutely critical."

For Keyes agents, the Realtors Property Resource (RPR) and Florida Realtors' SunStats are "two of the best value-adds our agents can have access to and really need to continue to utilize because of the amount of information they can pull from there," Pappas added.

What agents need from the get-go: "If you don't have a business plan from day one and you don't have a system, you're set up to fail," Pappas said. That said, a static plan won't work, either — reevaluation, she said, is essential in an "ever-changing" business like real estate.

"Set up a business that's there for success," she urged. "Continue to reevaluate your systems, your CRM, what works and what doesn't."

Pulling agents 'into the future': "I believe the job of leaders truly is to bring people to the future, kicking and screaming," Pappas said. "I think that's my job. I've got to pull people into the future."

Pappas believes this mission has been key to her company's long-term success.

"We've never gotten complacent with, 'This is how we've always done it,' and we've never said, 'Oh, we tried that before.' Because what's old is new again. And I think consistently relooking at how the wheel is made — and are we going fast enough — is so incredibly important as a leader."

Real Estate News is an editorially independent division of T3 Sixty.