There is a sign in the neighborhood with a picture of a real estate agent on it. It says that he is number one in the neighborhood. I didn’t recognize the name or the face even though I have lived in the neighborhood for 39 years.
I have no idea what number one means in
this context, so I did some research. I looked in the MLS and the agent has sold a few houses in the neighborhood but is fairly new and I can honestly say I have sold more houses in the neighborhood.
Misleading advertising is against a standard of practice in the Realtor Code of ethics. Yet the real estate industry is full of what I’ll call tricky advertising because if I call it misleading that will open a can of worms that could keep me busy for months.
Is claiming to be number one misleading? Being number one is vague and hard to prove or disprove which is why there are so many number one real estate agents. What are they number one in? Why aren’t there any number two agents?
When it comes to being number one we could count transactions or sales dollar volume.
The agent who sells the most homes usually has a higher number of canceled and expired listings too and is often slower to answer the phone and sometimes clients end up working with a low paid but efficient assistant instead of with the agent.
If you meet with a real estate agent who claims to be number one ask a lot of questions.
Our clients are always number one.
