Jo Langstaff

Most real estate agent profile pieces start with how many years of real estate experience they have (me – 9) or how many houses they have sold (double check realestate.com.au but I think my current rolling 12 months total is 32) or what their employment background is (me - predominantly marketing). My focus however is entirely on being my version of “the best” agent I can be and not on being the biggest (or makes the most money or has the most bus stop advertising or is the most well known etc etc etc). Being the biggest agent with the most listings will never automatically guarantee a seller the best price in the shortest time frame at the lowest possible cost.

The question is, what qualifies an agent as being “the best” especially when the approach used to sell can vary dramatically from agent to agent? Results (sold price, days on market, i.e. verifiable facts that are posted on the public record by independent organisations like realestate.com.au and those that are harder to verify such open house visitors or number of offers during a given campaign) invariably speak for themselves and I like to think that I score very well in relation to all those things but even then most people don’t really know if the end result of a sales campaign was truly the best it could be apart from maybe the agent themselves – given my addiction to analysis, I certainly always know.

The four benchmarks on which I measure my input to a sales campaign and which I subsequently focus on continually pursuing improvement to be “the best” are Expertise, Enthusiasm, Energy & Empathy. And on those principles, this is me …

Expertise born both from years of experience, ongoing training and continual learning. Expertise in our local area courtesy of being a born and bred Kenmore girl (this might give away my age somewhat but my parents’ first Brisbane home was 2.5 acres on the corner of Gem and Scenic Roads in 1969 back in the day when most of Gem Road was Wallace Bishop’s cow paddock!) and being a genuine advocate for our area … seriously, I have lived overseas and interstate and I now wouldn’t want to live anywhere else! Expertise derived from a commitment to continual learning and improvement. What I don’t know, I will always find out. My commitment is always to ensuring that both buyers and sellers are able to make what are ultimately huge decisions in an informed and considered manner. I never want either party to feel rushed or … regret.

Enthusiasm … I have never met a house I didn’t like! Seriously! I love them all, even when the sellers themselves can no longer see the merits of their own property! For me it is all part of the fun of real estate to present those merits to potential buyers as well as possible. And of course, I love helping people (goodness help anyone in real estate who doesn’t enjoy helping the general public). Saturdays in particular may be tiring but I truly love getting to meet new buyers and those more seasoned campaigners that we come to know well and support towards their home ownership journey.

Energy – I won’t lie, I’m not the Energizer bunny although more than one of my previous clients have written testimonials that attest to the phenomenal amount of effort I put into a campaign before, during and after. I am however very driven by two key questions which are “have I done everything I promised my client?” and “have I done everything humanly possible to get the best result from this campaign?” and I ask this of myself more times a day than I care to admit although I have learnt not to be woken at 2am consumed by those questions!

It's my focus on always doing things that bit better, not just than my industry counterparts, but than my last campaign. Two components of a campaign in particular I dedicate plenty of effort to irrespective of the value of the property (when the importance of a $300k unit sale to one vendor is going to be of equivalent importance as a $3 million waterfront house sale to another vendor then why should I, as the agent, modify my energy levels and commitment to the campaign based the resulting commission?) -

• Presentation – A very common saying of mine is that when you sell a property, its not the bricks and mortar that you are really selling, it’s the lifestyle your buyer sees themselves and their families enjoying into the future. Put simply, can they see themselves watching the kids enjoy themselves in the pool while they relax on the back deck or can they see themselves cooking a gourmet feast to enjoy with family and friends? The better you sell the lifestyle opportunity in a home, the more buyers will be attracted and invariably more buyers excited by their emotional response to the lifestyle they want being presented to them invariably means a higher dollar value result. I get as involved as a vendor will allow me to be in preparing the presentation of their home to its greatest advantage including bringing in a range of my own store of décor pieces such as bedding, cushions, throws etc. I can certainly offer plenty of photographic evidence and contact details for clients for whom I have offered this complimentary service. Or, just ask our regular photographers, who I am pretty sure have started booking longer appointments for me to accommodate my fussiness … definitely, no point and click  going on with my property photoshoots!
• Marketing – Given my Bachelor degree and work experience prior to real estate being in marketing it would be fair to expect that this is always going to be something of a “thing” for me. Outside of the extra attention to detail given to photos, copywriting, online presentation, I am a huge advocate for the multi-page brochures I produce for all visitors to my open homes. If you have never been to one of my open homes, please get in touch and I will happily drop a recent example to you.

Empathy - Traditionally, real estate agents are often stereotyped as aggressive and pushy but I like to think that I take a far softer approach to get the same, if not better, outcome. I like both parties to feel like they were assisted to make informed decisions and never feel like they were pushed or forced. It’s not my style and it’s not who I am. Assertive, yes, but never aggressive or pushy. Ultimately, I find the best results are generated by really listening to the needs of both sellers and buyers and fully understanding what they are telling me. It is genuinely the most rewarding part of my job to sell a house that has been well loved by the sellers to buyers that are equally utterly in love with the property. Bottom line, it makes everyone feel good. If I ever reach a point in my career where I see selling houses as nothing more than a dollar transaction and I don’t care whether it is right for buyer or seller, then please someone put me out to pasture! It would definitely be time to retire!

In the meantime, whether buying, selling, renovating or just curious about the market, please give me a call or shoot me an email. I will do my absolute best to help you in any and every way I can.

(And just in case you think all of the above is easy to say but harder to prove, let me know which of my former clients I can connect you with to get a more detailed verbal testimonial!)