What Does a Great Real Estate Agent Actually Do Today?

By Dana and Jeff

Dana and Jeff are consistent top producers, ranking as the top 1% of agents and teams in the country, Frontgate Real Estate team at the #1 Brokerage, Compass. Dana and Jeff are the dynamic founders of the Frontgate Real Estate Team at Compass.

The way people buy homes has changed more in the last decade than in the 50 years before it, and nobody feels that shift more directly than the agents working in it every day.

To dig into what’s actually different now, we sat down with Matthew Carlin, an agent on our Frontgate Real Estate Team who works with buyers across the luxury market.

Matthew came to real estate after years in fashion and luxury retail, including about eight years at a flagship Neiman Marcus running visual display and high-end events in Beverly Hills. That background, reading what people respond to and creating an experience around it, turns out to be a real advantage in a business that’s changed as much as this one has.

The internet leveled the playing field. Not long ago, the idea of a high-end buyer, let alone a celebrity, shopping for a home the same way everyone else does would have sounded absurd. Now it’s routine. Even luxury buyers are on online real estate platforms, swiping through listings like they would anything else. The internet has become a great neutralizer, Matthew says, making access to homes instant and putting the same information in everyone’s hands. That’s a real change, and it means the value an agent brings has moved somewhere new.

Most buyers misunderstand how Zillow leads actually work. Almost no one outside the business understands this part. When you tap the button on a listing to ask about a home, you’re not being connected to the listing agent. You’re routed to a local buyer’s agent who’s ready and available to help. It surprises people, because in a buyer’s mind, reaching the listing agent seems like the logical result.

That’s simply not how it works, and thinking it does can leave a buyer confused about who’s actually representing them.

This is exactly where a local expert earns their place. If the internet handed everyone the same listings, then knowing the listings was never the real job. The real job is understanding the buyer.

Matthew starts with a client’s lifestyle rather than square footage, asking what their day actually looks like, whether they want to walk to a coffee shop and the grocery store or are fine driving everywhere.

He recently worked with a young buyer drawn to a beautiful but out-of-the-way Beverly Hills neighborhood, and rather than just close the deal, he was honest with her: “You won’t be walking here; you’ll be driving. Is that okay?” Once he understood she really wanted a home her friends would come to, he knew it fit, and it did.

The homework still matters, too. Beyond the lifestyle fit, Matthew runs deep comps on the neighborhood, what’s on the market and what’s recently sold, and pulls comparable options so a buyer sees the full picture around the home they want. He adds in the local texture as well, the schools, the restaurants, the details that decide whether a place feels like home.

The internet can show you a house, but it can’t tell you whether it fits your life. That’s still a person’s job, and it’s why great local agents aren’t going anywhere.

Matthew Carlin is with The Frontgate Real Estate Team | Compass and can be reached at 213-556-3700 or matthew@frontgaterealestate.com.

Conversations like this are exactly why agents choose to build their careers with us. If you’re an agent who wants to grow in a market that rewards real local expertise, we’d love to talk.

Call or text us at 747-888-0508, email us at jeff@frontgaterealestate.com, or visit frontgaterealestate.com/join-frontgate to see what building your business with Frontgate could look like.