One of the key and proven factors that drive long lasting business transactions in the real estate industry and businesses generally is the consistent driving and maintenance of professional ethics and standards in all phases of the business transactions. It is one sure way of keeping clients, gaining a market niche and building goodwill for your firm or agency over time. Every firm should continually strive to maintain ethical standards in their daily dealings with all stakeholders. Duties clients and prospects should be devoid of shady deals that will speak ill of the real estate business, especially the duties as imposed by the code of professional ethics onprofessionals in the industry.
Professional ethics as it relates to real estate transactions are the laid down rules and regulations that govern real estate transaction. Put in another way, they are codes of ethics as enshrined in the professional code of conduct of a given profession in the real estate industry. For instance, the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV) has a code of professional ethics that guides and governs its professional members in the discharge of their duties. Therefore, to practice the business of real estate as an Estate Surveyor and Valuer, the member or the firm as the case may be, must be conversant with these codes of professional ethics that will serve as a compass in all phases of professional practice.
As a professional in the real estate space, abiding by the codes of professional ethics comes with a lot of immediate and far reaching benefits. A business name known for trust is no doubt a brand to rely on. Globally and locally, real estate firms that have maintained high ethical standards have become sought after firms over the years, and thereby gaining market dominance in both the private and public sectors. Maintaining a high ethical standard is one of the ways of brand building by real estate businesses across the globe. Word of the mouth marketing by satisfied clients, media mentions, social media impression as well as traffic gained on website cum social media handles will definitely position the real estate firm for brand equity drive.
Well guided clients will definitely remain in green and thereby improve on the bottom line of the overall business. A client cheated is not only a client lost, but many clients lost, knowingly or unknowingly. Ethical business transactions will definitely help you and your firms serve your clients better, improve your personal and business reputation, and bring in other business transactions and of course, referrals businesses.
To professionally drive the issue of ethics in the real estate space, professional bodies in the built environment have a pivotal role to play. They should come together through a legally recognized professional umbrella body, fight quackery in the industry and come up with policies that will entrench professionalism and engender ethics.
The cost of not engaging in professional code of ethics in the industry activities by both individuals and firms is too huge to pay. Professionals have had cause to lose their operating license to fraudulent practices in the course of their business transactions. Big time businesses have equally had their operating licenses revoked due to their abuse of professional ethics and corporate government.
As businesses and as professionals in the real estate space, the closer we are to ethical standards, professionalism, and corporate governance, the better operating real estate market we will have for our common good.
ESV Charles Onyenze, a registered Estate Surveyor and Valuer, and Partner in charge of Occupier Strategy and Solutions at Knight Frank Nigeria sent in this piece from Lagos, Nigeria