Real-estate agents to buyers: Can we talk?

CHICAGO — Real-estate agents are commonly thought of as salespeople but what they're really morphing into are housing consultants.

Consider the morass of ever-changing details and acronyms that most people — agents and consumers — were only vaguely aware of a few years ago that now have taken center stage. There's Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, FHA, short sales, foreclosures and purchase-rehab loans, to name a few.

Potential buyers and sellers may do much of their house hunting and pricing research online but when they plunk themselves down in the agent's office, they're expecting the agent to guide them through it all.

As a result, savvy agents say they're busy, not necessarily with customers, but with keeping up with the changes so they can best counsel those clients who do come through the door.

The effort is one of self-preservation as much as altruism. With fortunes shrinking in such a word-of-mouth driven business, the agents who can provide the best service to customers will survive the housing industry's downturn.

"There has to be a paradigm shift in everyone's thinking," said Joan Sinnott, broker at Century 21 Lullo in Addison, Ill. "When the boom hit, people couldn't keep up. All you knew is that everyone wanted to buy quickly. It was more a matter of juggling the contracts. It wasn't helping educate them so they can make an informed decision.

"I'm seeing a turnaround with the agents that they realize they need to relearn their craft. For the first 18 months (of the housing downturn), everyone was in denial, including the Realtors."

At some offices, the weekly sales meetings now are more akin to business meetings. It's not just about sales volume and listings but about real-time market conditions, the local and national economy and mortgage programs. Outsiders like loan officers attend to give briefings on the mortgage marketplace.

Patrick O'Rourke, a regional vice president for Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, recently went so far as to send all his agents a 30-minute podcast on the mortgage industry's meltdown from a finance professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

"The real-estate agent of 10 years ago is not the real-estate agent of today," O'Rourke said. "We've become more of a resource for our sellers, rather than you just hire us to sell. The agents today know they have to come to the table prepared and if they don't, it's a challenge."

Much of the current focus is on Federal Housing Administration-insured loans, which have gone from a little-used tool to a key mortgage instrument, particularly for first-time buyers because of its low down-payment requirements.