Being a Mentor, Day 1

Yesterday, after 2 1/2 years at Bray, I became a mentor. I remember when I first started at Bray & I was a mentee. Before I became a broker, when I was still taking my online real estate class, I knew I would have a mentor to guide me. And then after I got my license I joined Bray Real Estate. That's how I met Vonnie Folkers, who mentored me.

Now I am a mentor for a new broker. Tuesday was the first day of our six-month agreement to be mentor & mentee. I don’t know her very well yet — I just met her on Friday — but I know enough to know that we have a good mentoring relationship. So… we had the Tuesday morning marketing meeting where she was introduced & it was announced that I was her mentor. Then we went on the bus for the regular Tuesday morning “new listings” tour. Yesterday we were scheduled for Fruita & Loma. It was a long tour, but we were able to look at properties together. I told her that she didn’t need to have any opinion about housing prices yet. However, she could mention what she liked & didn’t like about the property.

In the middle of the afternoon, we went on a showing appointment. We showed a couple three properties & she was able to see how that went. After we got back we signed the six-month mentoring agreement. When the agreement was signed, I showed her how to make copies with our downstairs copy machine. Around the activities that we did together, she also got her computer & phone hooked up, met with Robert Bray (Bray’s broker), went to Grand Junction Area Realtors Association, & did plenty of paperwork.

The Accredited Buyer Representative logo.

I ended up going to the Mesa County Women’s Network luncheon, took care of several phone calls & emails to clients, and got the news that I am now an Accredited Buyer Representative. Hooray. Not bad for a Tuesday that was the first day of the work week.

Code of Ethics: Introduction

The cover of the original Code of
Ethics, from the archives of
Realtor.org

The first realtor code of ethics was written in 1913, 100 years ago. It was presented at the National Association of Realtors (known then as the National Association of Real Estate Exchanges) annual convention in Winnipeg, Canada, in July. So, in recognition of the 100^th birthday (July, 2013), I wanted to mention the duties that were important then.

The code was called the “Ethics of the Real Estate Profession—Adopted by National Association of Real Estate Exchanges.” This code was divided into 2 sections. The first was called “Duties to Clients” and there were 10 duties. Also at that time, the client was always the seller, not the buyer. The second section was called “Duties to Other Brokers” and there were 13 of those. I will cover those in the next section.

Briefly, the duties to clients were
1. Be a good employee to your client, the employer.
2. Be conservative in giving advice.
3. Inspect the client’s property.
4. Ask that the owner price the property at a reasonable amount so it can be sold.
5. Obtain written sole agency, if the property is worthy of special effort to sell it.
6. Advocate for mentioning real consideration in the deed.
7. Do not give special information to anyone unless they are willing to disclose their names and addresses, letting them know that realtors work in the open.
8. Do not ask for a net price on the property unless the realtor notifies the client that he or she wants to buy it for himself or herself.
9. Request that the client refrain from discussing price with a prospective buyer, but refer the buyer to the broker.
10. Always exact the regular real estate commission of the Association of which he or she is a member and let the client know at the beginning that it is expected.