Real Estate: Broker and Agent

Real estate brokers and agents are the middlemen who facilitate selling and buying of immovable properties in form of land, building, shopping center, market, factory site etc. The word Real estate is derived from the word Royal estate. As the right of land has been vested upon state, it was called Royal estate. Real estate is considered as good investment tool. It was also considered as safe heaven for investors until recent past.

(Concept has changed in present economic scenario as America faced sub-prime crisis. Investors has lost their fortune and that leaded America and rest of the world into economic crisis and financial problems).

A real estate agent is a person or a corporation who sell and market real estates on behalf of a builder. They are smart professionals. Individual and corporate builders hire them.Tendency of recruiting agents for marketing real estate has grown as the big corporates entered into real estate business.

It is very essential to get services of trained, skilled and experienced professionals to run present days business successfully.

Job of Real estate agents are considered as white collars.

Businesses, nowadays, have a tendency of growing bigger and bigger. Real estate business is not an exception to it. Big corporations started joining this business every where eliminating small and individual builders. DLF, Parshwanath developers, Unique builders are few corporates to name in India. They are among the top thirty biggest companies in India listed in Bombay stock exchange.

They have many divisions in their company. They buy land, develop it and construct residential and commercial complexes. They also develop and sell lands. They need large number of people to manage and run the show.

Big corporations have to do many things in order to run their business. They have to negotiate with the land owners and enter in to a contract with them. They have to get approval from government authorities. They have to manage finance and employees. They need to comply with rules and regulations of stock exchange boards and company regulating authorities.

It is, therefore, difficult for them to manage sales. Outsourcing is a trend of today’s business. Hence, they recruit agents who look after sales and marketing on their behalf. Advertising is an important aspect of sales and marketing.

Real estate agents also look after advertising. Often these agents arrange finance for the builders. Some times even they go to an extent to buy real estates in wholesale. Generally they do it on contract basis. They themselves sell the properties on behalf of the company.

They get commission on the sell if they are doing on behalf of the company without investing money. They earn profit if they buy wholesale from the company and sell it to retail buyers. They also earn interest if they finance the company.

Property brokers, on the other hand, act differently. They have been performing their duties as brokers since long time. (Concept of real estate agent is comparatively new). Property brokers do not work on behalf of real estate developers. They act as genuine intermediaries between buyers and sellers. They search for buyers and sellers.

They try to get information about the deals available in the market and offer it to potential buyers or sellers. They negotiate for price and help clients to conclude deals.

They not only deal in developed properties but also in land.

Reputed property brokers also provide other services to their clients. They check genuineness of the deals, as there are many fake deals in the market. Legal disputes and litigation are common phenomenon in titles of land and properties. People often prepare fake and illegal documents to cheat buyers. A genuine and reputed property broker checks all these and assures its buyers of a genuine deal.

Some times traders purchase land and properties with legal disputes knowingly. They enter into such contracts because of cheaper price. They take risk to gain some extra margin. Genuine brokers also contribute to this type of deals but with a clear understanding with the buyers.

Both real estate agents and property brokers require high level of communication skills. Both of these are big sources of employment in service sector. Large number of skilled persons, who do not opt for a service have entered into this sector.

I have simply defined the differences between a real estate agent and a propery broker. I invite comments from learned participants to suggest some more features about the same.