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I have been looking through and searching threads. Trust me, I don't want to ask a bunch of the same questions you all see regularly! Just wanted to chime in and say hi. I have not taken the state test actually, I just started my classes. I have been interested in RE since I can remember and look at RE probably 3-4X week and have done so for about 6 years. I have worked in Marketing, Sales, Branding, QA, and Customer Service. I have seen the questions on what big companies to work for and I attended an open house at Keller Williams and really enjoyed it. I'm happy to be apart of the team and learn from producers even if I'm doing their grunt work for a bit, we all start somewhere! I am very interested in at least eventually partially telecommuting and having a flex schedule.
Anyways, that's enough about me. Post your advice, shout outs, and whatever else.
Stats:
Western WA.
26
career move
no kids....yet... (2 fur babies)
married
focus better alone for data/analytics
team work inspires my creative side
caregiver type
not huge in to horoscope but for fun & if it means anything to you Scorpio
Salary Goal:
50K need (2ish year mark)
70k + ideal (the sooner the better )
It sounds like you have a pretty good handle on what you want and how to set goals, so you are ahead of the game.
As you suggested, starting on a team is a good suggestion for a newbie as long as you are willing to be the grunt for a while.
They will probably start you as a Buyers Agent, doing mostly open houses and (lukewarm) calling. This can be good training but also has a low percentage success rate. But if you are with a successful team you will do OK. When I started, my broker required us to be in the office a lot because they want the clients to know they were working with ABC Realty (caller ID, business address, etc.) as opposed to my number, and address.
My suggestion is to take the opportunity to get as much training and mentoring as possible. Learn all the jobs like prospecting, marketing, transaction management, listing presentations, etc. Develop your contacts with lenders, escrow agents, home inspectors, etc. so if you decide to move on you will have all the skills for success.
I am looking forward to learning a new industry! I started warming up connections I have in the industry via linkedin and will continue to work on this as I know real estate is big on 'who you know'.
I'm happy to start out in the office but would like to know that as I am successful there are opportunities to work from home. It actually became a main source of contention at my previous job, while I loved it and the people, it was very difficult to balance the give/take and work/life.
I have no idea what the internal numbers suggest about the earnings of new agents in your area, but in my area (suburban Chicago) you'd have to be a superstar and/or have the perfect mix of clients to make $50k with just two years of experience. If the market is strong in your areas and you are very good at serving your clients there are still many pitfalls that make it difficult for newer agents to have earnings that are above average. The biggest issue that I see is failure to take a sufficiently aggressive approach in getting yourself well known to have adequate numbers of listings. In some cases that can be done inexpensively, with somewhat "modern" targeting of likely sellers through low cost means, but in many other areas you need a fairly expensive and rather personal approach of actively seeking out clients. That is very time consuming and few people that have not hustled from client to client really understand how stressful that can be. Every minute you are on the cell phone or putting miles on your car is like a taxi cab with nobody paying for the meter. That literally eats into your potential earnings and makes even folks that like the actual work find easier ways to make better income...
I am looking forward to learning a new industry! I started warming up connections I have in the industry via linkedin and will continue to work on this as I know real estate is big on 'who you know'.
I'm happy to start out in the office but would like to know that as I am successful there are opportunities to work from home. It actually became a main source of contention at my previous job, while I loved it and the people, it was very difficult to balance the give/take and work/life.
Your enthusiasm is not only noted, but necessary to succeed in a venture like real estate.
Can you tell me what you mean by "warming up connections I have in the industry"? Are you looking for folks that might hire you to work with them, or people that would hire you as their agent?
When you're a successful Realtor, team or not, you work from where you like to work. Be that home, your car, or the office. Even if you're "just" the Buyer's agent, and have only been doing it 90 days, if you've taken all the mentoring and training you've received and converted that into a large number of satisfied buyers in their new home, nobody will care "where" you're sitting when you're working.
I'm sure there is a learning curve. I wouldn't need to make 50K. I would have enough savings to not be too concerned for about 2 years and am just trying to see what I could expect after that point. I would be in the greater seattle area (North Seattle). My understanding is that it is a really good market to be in.
Warming up connections is professional connections I have including mortgage officers, RE agents, title/escrow company agents, etc. Hoping to get their local insight on who to work with in the area as my managing broker.
I don't want to start a new thread for this and clog things up but I did a few searches and couldn't find an answer.
Q: How many clients can you work with at one time without service suffering? And how many clients is typical for you to be working with at one time? In other words what is the max number of clients you can work with and your average number of clients you have?
How many hours a week do you typically spend on leads/hunting for new clients?
What are your typical working hours? I know it depends on clients and situations, but what times during the week are you guaranteed to be working?
Last edited by laurabf; 09-11-2016 at 01:24 PM..
Reason: added questions
I'd be surprised if you haven't read "The Millionaire Real Estate Agent," yet, but if not, please do so. Another book that made a huge impact on me is "The Miracle Morning," by Hal Elrod. This book speaks to mindset, very important for a Realtor.
Warming up connections is professional connections I have including mortgage officers, RE agents, title/escrow company agents, etc. Hoping to get their local insight on who to work with in the area as my managing broker. Ask a few lenders to lunch and have them walk through the loan process: pre-qualification, underwriting, closing, program types, income to debt ratios, basic credit repair tips.
Q: How many clients can you work with at one time without service suffering? Depends on the agent, organization/time management skills, and assistants. For me alone, probably 20 listings and 3 active buyers is my individual limit at a time. And how many clients is typical for you to be working with at one time? I have a team though so with 2 buyer agents, a closing coordinator, and an administrative assistant. I think I have about 35 listings and we're working with about a dozen buyers at any given time. In other words what is the max number of clients you can work with and your average number of clients you have? This time of the year is slow in my market so I usually take a bit of a breather.
How many hours a week do you typically spend on leads/hunting for new clients? As much as possible, depends on current work load. Really, you should spend AT LEASTan hour a day trying to find new clients.
What are your typical working hours? I know it depends on clients and situations, but what times during the week are you guaranteed to be working? Varies. I usually do a lot of work in the office during week days and have a number of evening appointments. I like to try to stack appts in the during weekdays and take evening appts for clients that can't meet during the day. I try to keep my weekends free but I usually end working at least 1 or 2 weekend days a month.
Thanks for that info Brandon. I am also getting into the game, taking the two weeks required course next month, license as soon as possible after that. Found the brokerage I am likely to hang my license at, he is big at doing whatever he can to help get started, and has no desk fee, so he doesn't get anything unless I produce! I have also met with a few of his agents, some new, some who have been at several different places and landed with his brokerage after a lot of years in the business. They all said the same thing, a very friendly, team oriented (not ON a team, mind you) attitude, definitely a place I can see myself thriving.
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