Building Trust with Your Clients through Ethical Standards in the Property Market
ESV Emmanuel Chinedu Ezeama
In the real estate industry, building trust is not only an ethical issue that should be sustained, but also a business cum brand virtue that should be maintained over time to attract and retain more clients, and make the real estate space a better place.
In real estate market transactions, building trust with prospects and clients begins with the first communication and meeting with them. “Trust”, the five-letter word that expresses firm belief in reliability should be taken seriously from the first conversation with a prospect as a real estate professional. As a professional, not truthfully guiding your prospects or clients is a serious ethical issue in the real-estate market space. Maintaining high ethical standards across all phases of your transactions will not only add to the bottom line of your firm, but it improves the good will of your business which cannot be quantified in monetary terms. Word –of- mouth marketing is a big-time brand booster in the real estate market place, and is only a satisfied client that trusts your brand that can recommend you for another business transaction. Trust and expertise are key ingredients that will make a client to confidently recommend a brand to another client. For your brand to meet and retain a client, trust and expertise must come to play over time.
To build your brand’s credibility and trust, your activities over the years must be trust based and client satisfactory. Professionalism must be brought to the fore at every touch point of communication and transaction. High ethical standards should be maintained in all communications and transaction channels. Available case studies have it that firms that are illegally or unethically closing deals, and cutting corners can never guarantee another transaction from that same client or clients.
As professionals in the real estate business, the onus is on us to maintain high ethical standards that will earn us reputation as professionals. Our various professional bodies and businesses stand to gain a lot when high ethical standards are maintained.
One of the best ways to entrench ethical standards in our practice as professionals is to adhere strictly to the professional ethics and code of conduct that governs our various professional bodies. The various professional bodies in the real estate environment should strengthen their Professional Practice Committees (PPCs), clear cut punishment should be spelt out for erring members who choose to defraud clients rather than helping them to realize their real estate needs by professionally providing solutions.
When trust is built and sustained in the real estate space, all stakeholders stand to benefit from it, and one of the best ways to achieve this is to ensure that the incidence of quackery in the industry is reduced to its barest minimum. Researches have shown that most unethical practices in the industry are committed by quacks who are not professionals.
Globally, a better and healthier real estate industry can only be achieved when the issue of trust is taken very seriously and the parameter to achieve this is the maintenance of high ethical standards across all value chains in the industry.
ESV Emmanuel Chinedu Ezeama, a Registered Estate Surveyor and Valuer is the Principal/Managing Partner of Emma Ezeama & Co, a leading firm of estate surveyors and valuers, he sent in this piece from Lagos, Nigeria.
