It occurred to me the other day that I have done a lot of business with The Toronto Star or Torstar through its division Metroland Printing. They have helped by providing me with forest management certified paper and environmentally friendly inks because REM readers (the real estate industry) are especially demanding to have a publication that does not harm the earth.
They have also helped by extending their time and especially their trust to pay my bills to them. I confess that I have been in their offices more than once with my hat in hand, asking for time to pay. Each time they have been kind to me and believed in me enough to give me that time. It is true that big corporations like Rogers, for example, are ruthless. I can say that some, like Torstar do have hearts. REM is proof that they do.
I have had this arrangement with Metroland for about 27 years now. It has been so long that the people I made the original deal with to get REM printed are long retired or have left the company.
What is important for me is that over all these years, right to this day, every part of our business is done on a handshake. No contract and no big long legal agreement. After all these years Metroland honours our original arrangement. I applaud them and thank them.
There are more scam artists in business today than ever before. It is not unusual to hear about folks who run up a bill and walk away from payment intentionally. It has happened to me more than once. I could tell you some names but I won’t.
But it hurts. I am sure it has happened to Metroland. I do not know of any other business that extends the trust that Metroland gives to REM. Except one – the real estate business.
It is still common for a salesperson to work with someone buying or selling a home or commercial property for months and then get stiffed for all the time and work they put in to it. I do not just mean a situation where a salesperson shows a home and then the customer walks away without making a deal. The salesperson may spend days and even months explaining the market, talking about neighbourhoods, discussing the purchase of a fixer upper and going to great expense to find potential properties to show the client – only to have that customer go around them and do a deal without them.
On the selling side, a salesperson may get a well-priced listing agreement with a client, only to have that client demur on showings. After months of work marketing the home, the client decides not to sell the property and pulls out of the listing all together.
I speak to Realtors every day. I know the industry has done its best to install new ideas such as buyer representation agreements, but at the end of the day it remains the nature of the business that there will be people who use salespeople as a hobby or recreational activity. I also know that it is part of the skill set of a good Realtor to recognize and grasp these situations for what they are.
With all that said, it still happens a lot. This is still a business of dreams from the side of the customer and also on the side of the agent. Even the most seasoned and clever salesperson can still end up chasing a dream with a conniving client.
However, at the end of the day I think we should be grateful. The bottom line is that we are all still in business and no matter how bleak things may look sometimes, no matter how frustrating it may be for us that others take such advantage of us, we still have the opportunity to do our best and do well. It’s great to make money. I want very much to be a rich man. But doing well is so much more than riches in money. So I wish you well.
Heino Molls has been the Publisher of REM, Real Estate Magazine (formerly Real Estate Marketing), since 1989. Previous to REM, he worked as an executive at the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB), and at the Toronto Star. Contact Heino by email or call 416-425-3504 x2.
