advice for the new real estate agent: chapter 1
So, a sister of a great past client of mine just recently asked for some advice getting into the business. While I didn’t copy the whole email here to her (for her benefit & mine ;), I did want to share one of the things that I would advise in looking at when interviewing brokerages. Actually, the first bit of advice is interview your brokers or new places of employment. Don’t spend just one week or just sign up with the first one you get a good feel. Make sure they give you the time of the day…the manner in which they treat you the day you come in for an interview is probably representative of how they’ll treat you moving forward as an agent. The other tip is that “they WANT you” instead of you wanting them. They should treat you like royalty, but you have no idea when walking in the door. Every sale you make for them moving forward with them is more money in their pockets and the day you sign with them, they’ll most likely accrue fees from you…so, they want more agents…even if they are bad agents. However, of course, a more savvy broker will look for agents that will improve their brand name, not taint it….
Anyway, here’s the list of criteria I would use when looking at a new brokerage… (more…)
10 interview questions to ask a real estate agent or realtor before working with them
1) Can you give me the contact information at least 3 satisfied clients (buyers, if you’re buying and sellers, if you’re selling)
2) Describe the 3 most recent sales you helped clients — you can tell a lot from their recent assistance of other clients
3) What area do you know the best? An honest agent will tell you what they know the best…a less honest or one that’s a little unrealistic will tell you they can help you with anything. Unfortunately, unless they have a large team doing all the real estate data mining & constantly being fed about all the local markets, they are probably out of touch with many of the different areas in the local real estate market.
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Century 21’s CEO takes a “$200,000 hit” against his own real estate property (his home)
…well, actually not really a loss, but the CEO Tom Kunz had a $1.3 million dollar cash offer for his home in Tuscan Ranch, California in 2004, but turned it down. A home in the same subdivision sold for $1.1 million dollars and is supposedly identical to his home. He says “I could sit here and say, ‘Oh I lost $200,000.’ But I’ve still made about a $700,000 profit,” he said in the interview late last week about the problems facing the housing market.”
z57 was a joke…and so are most real estate web site developer service sites
These may be “fightin words…”, but it’s relatively true. O.K., maybe z57, the real estate web site developer service isn’t a total joke, but maybe the agents who buy the service are a joke? Well, regardless, they’re selling very basic services packaged in what appears to be great products or at least they would like you to believe they are. They’ll even admit it if you get them to honestly tell you what they’re selling. Then again, maybe it’s the fault of the agents who don’t figure out what they did a while back…
So, when I was in the real estate business, I didn’t really know who could help me with my website. After I did all my homework, I thought I would have to pay a web developer that would cost me $1000 or more and probably pay some search engine marketing service thousands of dollars to get (more…)
On site buyer’s agents…do they really represent the buyer’s interest?
Before I joined the business, I had no idea who was really behind the desk at two of the homes we bought. At the time we bought a condo in an exclusive neighborhood in Bellevue and another single family house in Issaquah, we were asked if we had an agent with us. Many consumers on a regular basis are asked the same question when visiting new construction homes. However, many don’t realize who is sitting behind the desk at those sites manning or rather “working the desk” that many prospective buyers may visit on their way to learning more about the new community. (more…)
The secret’s finally out: Seattle is one of the best places to live
I had a very hard time deciding to get back into real estate after a slimy one week of watching a broker tell me that people who bought $15,000 properties weren’t worth my time right out of college. However, one thing I trusted was that Seattle and the area surrounding it was some of the best real estate in the world. I’m biased since I grew up there.
Most of my life people I ran into from around the world in New York, California or Korea asked “You’re from where?” “I heard it rains a lot over there” and a bunch of other questions or comments showing how ignorant they were about Seattle. They didn’t know that Seattle was the home to the biggest software company in the world (Microsoft), the home to where they found the biggest commercial manufacturer of planes (Boeing), the biggest franchise of coffee shops (Starbucks), and (more…)
Real Estate Commissions are too high! Really…? It depends…
So, commissions are a funny thing in the Real Estate business. It’s the reason why there are thousands, if not millions of agents in the business and what makes the business honestly function. Without them, how would you motivate anyone to work 16-20 hour days to literally do what’s needed to find you the home you wish.
The going rate when I was in the business was 3% on both the selling and buying sides. So, a licensed agent (more…)
My Real Estate agent cares about me…
And they also care about their 5 to 10 other clients. In some cases, they care about 20-30 clients at one time…and let’s not forget their 200 to thousands of past clients and other potential clients they’re marketing to for their daily bread. Agents MUST look out for their own interests because too many people distrust them, find another agent who is just as excited, if not more to earn their business or in many cases think they can do the work of the agent by themselves.
One of the reasons why I got out of the business is because I felt like it was too tough balancing the interests of all clients equally. When a client was trying to buy an $80,000 condo and another one was trying to sell at $950,000 waterfront home…who do you think I would probably end up perking up a little more when the phone calls? I was one of the few out there at the time who tried to give just as much attention to the $80,000 client that I did to the Million dollar client as well. However, to be frank, (more…)
What gave me my edge…part II: the tools I used to become successful
With the realities in the marketplace, I leveraged my understanding with my website and other forms of online marketing.
My website
This was probably the most critical aspect of doing well in Real Estate. This was my online resume. This was the potential place for a client to learn everything and anything about me. It could also give them the tools to educate themself before speaking to me. It could also provide them knowledge in how to make an informed decision. It could also help them look to other markets and I would get paid from some of those referrals. It was a powerful tool.
I started by using my name as the domain. I would be creating a brand out of my name “Brandon Na” — which coincidentally had “brand” inside my name. There are a few approaches to creating the new website for the business. Agents could use their name, they could use their area they want to specialize in or they could create a niche that they hope to be good at. Well, I did all of them. Websites are cheap these days. It costs a whopping $5-10 a year to buy your domain name. The problem is that just like physical real estate, online real estate is going through the roof & names that people would use to search for their information are being bought by the thousands every day. Once gone, it’s really hard to get that domain without paying more than the annual fee.
There are domain names like diamond.com which went for $7.5 million. Seniors.com went for $1.8 million. In terms of the Real Estate business, RealEstate.net went for $300,000 in a private sale in February of this year. HotProperty.com went for $120k, (more…)
What gave me my edge…the realities of today’s marketplace
Before jumping into Real Estate, I worked at Doubleclick.net (acquired by Google), Amazon.com and Expedia.com in middle management technical positions. I was exposed to a decent amount of Large Business Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Affiliate Marketing and Online Marketing (in general) in some of the top Internet companies in the world.
During my stints at each organization, I didn’t examine or understand SEM or other online marketing tools/techniques fully since I never applied the things we were doing at those companies on a larger scale in my own business. However, after jumping into the business of Real Estate, I realized that I could use some of that experience in my own business - and I did.
The Internet has changed the world of Real Estate in many ways.
Consumers are much more educated before they start working with their agents. They also do a bit of research on their agents with online recommendations or other tools & websites that may help them become more familiar with the person who is going to take a 3% cut out of their transaction. Consumers all over the world are more prepared and knowledgable about the experience they are about to encounter.
Prospective buyers use the Internet now to learn more about their markets. They want to make sure they are not being swindled into buying into a bad market like one of the “markets NOT to buy” according to Business 2.0 or other publications. They also want to know what sort of service they should expect in someone who may make thousands of dollars and for the elite, tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars per transaction. It’s no longer easy for an agent to just help a client with their contracts and get the big check a few days after closing.
Sellers are wanting to make sure they are represented by agents that are NOT fresh out of Real Estate school. Sellers of homes and condominiums are wanting to make sure they get the most out of their homes and will look online for recent sales around their property. In general, most consumers are more ready before making the plunge into buying or selling their largest purchase in life.