Most agents don't make the most of the opportunity that lies in every sale. That's the message that emerges from Core Logic's Buyer Perceptions of Real Estate Agents report, which identifies that, while agents look after their client the seller, they pay less regard to the buyer, thereby missing out on a key opportunity.

Every fifty houses you sell is the opportunity to gain 100 clients, says Kylie Davis, Head of Property Solutions Marketing at CoreLogic.

"Every real estate agent, when they are at the point of the transaction, has two clients," says Davis. "They've got the vendor who's paying them the commission, and then they've got the buyer who's actually fronting up with the money."

Davis believes agents have an opportunity to develop a trusted advisor role to both sides of the transaction from the point of sale onwards.

The Core Logic Buyer Perceptions of Real Estate Agents report looks at how property buyers perceive their transactions with real estate agents.

"We found in the research that agents fall down on a lot in that process where the buyer becomes a one-on-one client," said Davis.

CoreLogic surveyed 46 buyers, 86% of whom had purchased a property.

The last time the survey was conducted, CoreLogic focused on vendors' perceptions of agents, but this year they wanted to find out how buyers feel about agents.

The change in emphasis arose because the vendors' survey last year showed that 66% of vendors had a good or excellent experience with their agents. The result led Davis to wonder where the perception that agents are all "soft-shoed salesmen who would sell their grandmothers to get a deal" came from, or was it simply an urban myth?

This year's survey asked buyers to rate the behaviour they experienced, the skill levels they observed, and to rate the agents when they were searching for a property, and the agent they finally bought from. 

The survey showed that vendors do have a much better experience of agents than buyers do, which is probably not surprising, says Davis. But she did find it surprising that both vendors and buyers had an equally bad experience. A total of 14% of vendors and 14% of buyers had a poor or disastrous experience with agents, the research showed. 

And the research showed that most vendors, 31%, had an excellent experience with an agent, but only 14% of buyers had an excellent experience. "Most buyers had what they'd describe as a pretty average experience," said Davis.

Some of the commentary that came out of the survey was telling.

Davis said a number reported along the lines of, "We understand that they're representing the vendor, but I'm going to be a vendor soon, so why are you behaving poorly, in a way that means you will never ever be invited to present to me when it comes to be my time to sell."

Agents that focus exclusively on the vendors at the expense of buyers are increasing their customer churn by around 75%, said Davis. "Only 25% of our buyers said they would definitely use the agent they bought from to sell their house," she said.

"You're basically throwing away three quarter of half of your buyers," she said.

Essentially, buyers and sellers want the same things from their agents, said Davis. "They want a relationship not a transaction. They're looking for a real estate agent that they can treat like their lawyer or accountant, someone they can go to for information," she said, "Someone who is friendly and approachable and a good coach through the process of buying and selling property."

Though vendors pay commissions, developing relationships with both parties is a valuable way to grow a real estate business, says Davis.

"While the immediate financial pay off for agents comes from vendors, having a process for supporting and helping buyers can become a highly valuable asset that sustains the economic growth of a successful real estate business," she said.

See also:

Advice to young real estate agents upon entering the industry

The real estate agent does not have an automatic right to exist

Meet CoreLogic's new managing director, Lisa Claes