Toby Boyce
By Toby Boyce
Sitting in the classroom taking licensure classes to become a licensed real estate agent in the state of Ohio, suddenly it becomes very obvious: They want to make sure you know people don’t like you.
“You are spoken in the same breath as used car salesmen,” a local real estate attorney is fond of stating. (Of course he often neglected to mention that the other half of the comparison is to his own profession.)
However, are we in the same class as used car salesmen? Nope. Not even close according to the U.S. Better Business Bureau’s recently released 2010 numbers . In fact, the number of complaints against real estate agents isn’t even in the top 50 industries. The most complaints in 2010 were registered against:
1. Television – Cable, CATV & Satellite: 30,408
2. Cellular Phones Services & Equipment: 24,876
3. Auto Dealers – New Cars: 23,906
4. Banks: 22,609
5. Collection Agencies: 14,966
6. Auto Dealers – Used Cars: 13,902
Real estate agents slipped in the 54th position on the list with 3,034 complaints. Which I believe was made even more impressive by the fact that more than 400,000 inquires were made for real estate agents of the Better Business Bureau in 2010.
So next time you look in the mirror, remember, “Dog gone it, people like you.”
Toby Boyce, MBA, is a real estate practitioner with Keller Williams Consultants Realty in Westerville, Ohio. Visit his Web site: www.delawareohrealestate.com.