First, I’ve actually seen Realtors with business cards that don’t show their face (including mine) and some, but not all, marketing materials that don’t show their faces. I think this is an effort to “professionalize” the real estate profession.

You see, we Realtors, rank pretty low on the popularity/trustability scale on a Gallup poll I’ve seen and I think “face time” makes us appear more…er…likable and trustworthy.

Second, while our face may not be our “logo” it certainly helps with recognition within the community we serve. I’ve often heard stories of people bumping into Realtors in the grocery store and being to strike up a conversation about real estate which, theoretically, could lead to business. It’s a kind of identity badge like people’s avatars on the Web.

Finally (and this is not the pretty part), I think it has to do with appealing to our deep seated prejudices. Birds of a feather flock together and all that. I’ve had clients call or e-mail me from all over the world and comment on my “friendly” face, etc. I don’t know if it’s friendly or not but I do know these clients will confide various biases (as well they should).

I guess the bottom line is that Realtors are thought of as a commodity whether or not that’s true. Everyone knows a Realtor — friend, roommate, family member, co-worker. So in order to try and set ourselves apart from the rest of the crowd we plaster our face on everything in the hopes someone will like us and call.

Or, here’s the short version — that’s the way it’s always been done.

This goes well with Chad’s roommates partial rationalization: “That’s at least what is beat into their heads during seminars and the like.”

Now the question is — how did this start?

Thanks to my Dad doing a fair amount of property development here in Australia in the 60’s 70’s I have met way too many real estate agents for my liking and can definatly say it’s about ego.

We’ve recently been through a property boom with prices going through the roof therefore causing agent egos to also sky rocket which is best illustrated by their signs outside client properties.

Most signs before the boon had for sale, a modest photo of the agent, property description and a phone number. At the peak of the boom the trend with signs meant that the property description was dropped and a picture of the agent that took up 1/3 of the space adorned the sign. Now that prices have cooled a little and demand softened all caused by the crazy price increases the signs have gone back to the pre-boom days with the big agent photo.

Why does it only occur in real estate and not other professions? I have no idea. I guess if you keep telling yourself something is the right thing for you enough times soon enough you belive it.

The face recognition arguement makes sense, but it also makes sense for any number of other professions. Why aren’t we seeing other professions who would benefit from increased facial recognition do the picture thing?

He also says that it’s because residential agents have to market to the masses, every Tom, Dick and Harry is a potential client. Apparently, commercial agents do not follow this practice.

I have no idea about the validity of the study discussed here, http://www.fredlight.com/pages/articles/nophoto.html , but they are interesting.