How I Became a “Buyers Only” Bend Oregon Real Estate Agent

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How I became a “Buyers Only” Bend Oregon Real Estate Agent

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Hi and welcome to the Bend Real Estate Minute. I am Thom Gardner, principal broker at BendBrokersRealty.com.

So, I want to talk to you a little bit today about my origin story as a Buyer’s Bend Oregon real estate agent. People always ask me, “Why are you a buyer’s agent? Why aren’t you a regular realtor? Won’t you make more money?” And that might be true, but I wouldn’t be as happy and here’s why.

In the early part of the 2000s, I was selling furniture. Now, furniture is a business very much, again, like used-car sales. Not a lot of truth-telling going on there. A lot of them are trying to rip off the buyer. Like those 40% off sales, where the other salesmen and I were in there marking things up 60% that morning, so we can mark them down 40%. And my bosses tried to push the junk items on people, with high profits.

That really made me sick. I couldn’t stand it. And so very quickly I figured out that if I want to survive in this thing, I have to figure out a way to do this with integrity.

So, I figured out that Bend home buyers came in with certain needs. I’d go to them and listen and figure out what their needs were, and then I’d point them to what I would buy regardless of profit margin, regardless of what my bosses were telling me to sell them. I would point them to the good stuff that had the best price for them, and which wouldn’t break down in 60 days.

And so, doing that, I won the trust of my buyers very quickly. They would come back, and they would tell their friends. Over the two years I did this, I worked in two different stores. I was the highest producing salesman at both places and the second one, hired me away from the first because I was such a producer, and gave me a benefits package and weekends off, which you just don’t get in that business. And all because I simply practiced buyer advocacy!

Fast forward to 2007 and my entry as a Bend Oregon real estate agent, and it’s simply the same thing. We’re supposed to tell buyers a wonderful story about how great the neighborhoods, houses, and the Bend real estate market are, the “Wouldn’t you want to live here?” pitch and all that stuff. Well, I quickly figured out that wasn’t always true and I believe it is my duty to point out the negatives to buyers who are making one of the largest decisions of their lives. And so, I rapidly became a pure, “buyers only” Bend Oregon real estate agent, where I could help protect my buyers, and where I could tell them the truth. That’s really important to me.

I want to go home at the end of the day and feel good about what I did. I want people to come up to me later on and say, “Gosh! What you did for us is fantastic!” And that’s exactly what I get and it makes me a very happy man. So, to sum up, I believe that my job is to protect my buyers, not to play the sales game. I am not a salesperson, I work for you.

My name is Thom Gardner, I am a principal broker and pure buyer’s broker at BendBrokersRealty.com. Thanks again!