Over the past few years, there have been many ways to get into real estate. With so many options, it can be hard to know which one is best for you. In this article, I will go over some different types of real estate agents, what each type means, and how much experience they need.
I will also talk about who are the most experienced in your area and whether or not they work with direct sellers or list brokers. This will help you determine which agent fits you!
Real estate agents come in several varieties. Some do business directly with the seller while others use a broker as a middleman. There are even some agents that only represent buyers or sellers depending on what property they find attractive.
This article will focus mostly on buying and selling houses but it is important to understand all parts of the industry before choosing a career path.
Know your market
As we mentioned before, being familiar with the local real estate markets is one of the most important things to do as an entrepreneur. This includes knowing which areas are growing or shrinking in value, what types of homes are selling quickly, and whether or not there are any undervalued properties that you can pick up for cheap.
It also means making sure that your marketing strategies are effective where people lives are located. If your target audience does not live in a certain area, then it makes sense to invest in different media coverage or advertisements that focus more on targeted messaging.
This way, they will know who and what you offer while limiting how much money you spend. It also helps to have a understanding of why these changes occur so you can anticipate them and be prepared.
Real estate is a dynamic field that shifts every year, so staying informed and practicing early intervention skills are key parts of being successful.
Create a website
After you have all of your content prepared, it’s time to actually create your own real estate selling or buying business site!
Most people start off by going to free platform sites like WordPress or Shopify to design and launch their web presence. These are great resources but not the best choice for most individuals who want to grow their real estate businesses beyond just offering services to others.
You can easily pay monthly fees to use these platforms, which is fine until you want to scale up. Then it becomes unsustainable. Or worse, someone else’s bad experience costs you money in wasted subscriptions.
We recommend using a free domain name provider such as Google Domains or Amazon Domain Name Services (NDIN). This way you are under no obligation to continue paying expensive hosting and domain service providers. You get 2 years of free hosting with both!
Domain names are what you call your online address e.g. zacharymortgagerealestateagent.com. Once your business has grown – you can always purchase your own.com domain from one of these providers. They are totally cost-free to work with!
Your browser will also automatically update the URLs to be more professional looking. For example, mine looks like this: www.zachmortgageagency.com instead of before when it was just zacharmergencyme.com.
Find your potential clients
As we know, being a real estate agent is not necessarily a career path that makes everyone rich. In fact, in some areas, becoming a real estate agent can make you poor!
But before you start thinking about how to do business with integrity and professionalism, there’s one thing you need first — lots of potential customers.
Your potential client base does not actually “grow” or shrink depending on whether you are offering good services or bad ones; they exist or they don’t, all independent of you.
So what you really have control over is creating opportunities for yourself by actively looking for them. And once you find those possibilities, you must be prepared to take advantage of them if you want to see success as a real estate agent.
Finding potential clients doesn’t happen overnight but it is something you can cultivate and grow in the long-term. Read on to learn more powerful ways to identify your ideal market and tight-knit communities so you can attract their attention and get warm introductions from people who live there.
Offering a service
As mentioned earlier, being an excellent real estate agent is not only about educating your clients on the best neighborhoods for their homes or properties, but it’s also about offering them a good service.
As human beings we are always looking to improve ourselves, which can sometimes make us feel uncomfortable in our own skin. This feeling is very common when doing things that seem too advanced for you, like reading a book or going through a difficult process such as completing college.
By practicing something more easily accessible, however, you will realize how much improvement you have done just by trying it.
The same goes with becoming an excellent real estate agent- there are many ways to be a professional seller’s consultant, even if you don’t consider yourself to be “the best.”
There are plenty of ways to get into the game as a realtor while improving your services to sellers.
Making a good website
Creating a great real estate selling web presence is more than just picking a theme, livening up your listing photos and sprucing up your business model! It’s about developing solid marketing strategies that will win you sales.
That means creating effective content to draw in potential customers, offering rewards and incentives to entice them into buying or renting, and then close-looping with those who are interested to schedule a visit.
Your site should also be user-friendly so people can easily find what they are looking for and navigate around your property quickly and efficiently. Take some time to tweak and test yours until it looks perfect!
And don’t forget to keep yourself organized by using an easy to access tool like IFTTT (If This Then That) to connect apps and services together. For example, you could create an app that notifies you when someone adds your house to their cart on Amazon, or sends you a message after making a purchase from you.
Pricing your service
As mentioned before, you do not want to undervalue yourself or overestimate what people will pay for real estate services. Setting too low of a price will likely get no business, while offering way more than needed is very expensive!
Expert pricing is determined by two main factors – how much value you bring to the table and competition in the market.
The first factor is important because it helps ensure that people hire you instead of someone else. If you underestimate the value you offer, then people may choose to go with another agent they feel is better suited for the job.
On the other hand, if you believe you are worth far more than you actually are, then you may struggle to find clients who agree. This could hurt your business significantly if you are able to generate significant revenue.
Competition in the marketplace can also play a big role in determining an appropriate price. Agents who are like yours truly have seen similar prices being offered around town so we often enter into negotiations based on those costs.
However, I have never been the one to make the higher initial ask due to there being less competition! Having lower priced agents close in proximity can be a hindrance when trying to gain new clients.
Finding the right real estate agent
As mentioned before, finding the ideal real estate agent is not like buying any other product or service. They do not show up at your house with the best intentions and help you along.
They are paid to be professionals, so unless they are being professional, then something may seem off about them. It is important to watch for these signs as this could potentially be damaging to your business relationship.
Making sure that you are friendly with each other outside of work is very important. If it seems like they are trying to get a bigger commission by making you feel good, then maybe they are not the person for you!
You want to make sure that you look into their past, see if anyone has had bad experiences, and make sure that everything seems above board.
Getting your agent’s license
Now that you are ready to start investing in real estate, how do you become licensed? There is one place where people typically begin– by taking pre-licensed real estate agents training!
While it may seem like a lot of money to invest in the beginning, this is really not the case if you know what you’re getting for your investment. Most brokerages offer their own certification programs which can be anywhere from several hundred dollars to many thousands.
Many sites have reviews or articles with information about different courses so doing some research will help you make an informed choice.
