In the Brothers Grimm fairy tail The Frog Prince, as a small child I remember the sentence which has been quoted by people often over the years relating that you must kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince. While these individuals who quoted the line were referring more to someone dating a large number of people prior to finding someone they wanted to spend the rest of their life with, there’s also context within the sentence which can be applied to other facets of life.
Being in the real estate business I see many different areas where either a customer or a real estate agent must kiss a lot of frogs before finding a prince. With customers, this is especially true, as they will look at property after property trying to find the perfect building which meets their needs before making a decision on a particular property to submit an offer. Once an offer is accepted the customer must than look at a large number of lenders trying to find that one lender who offers an attractive financial package with both a favorable down payment amount and loan percentage before making the decision to commit.
At Katchen Company, my real estate firm, I and my staff find ourselves kissing hundreds of frogs every day. Being a boutique real estate firm offering the full spectrum of real estate services we engage in a multitude of tasks requiring us to make contact with or review a significant number of opportunities prior to making a presentation or decision. One example relates to the paragraph above where the customer requires a large number of properties to view before making a decision. A broker will have to research, in some cases, hundreds of properties before narrowing it down to a manageable few that meets a customer’s parameters prior to a showing appointment.
Within our office, our operations people will have to research as many as a hundred vendors prior interviewing twenty to thirty and than narrowing the field down to three or four who will make it onto Katchen Company’s approved vendor list. Further, when pricing out capital expenditures on properties we managed these three or four vendors will all have to submit proposals prior to a decision being made on who will receive the contract.
Leasing and sales have similar numbers. In leasing and sales, if a broker receives one hundred calls requesting information on a vacancy they will receive ten requests to show the space and from those showings one person will submit an offer. Keep in mind that the offer might not be accepted by the owner so this process can continue for some time.
You must kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince. Keep that in mind when dealing with real estate and it will make the experience much more enjoyable.
