Are you going to become a new real estate agent?
Or are you just curious about what they do day in and day out?
Whatever reason, this post may shock you as what you’re about to see may go beyond your prediction.
Table of Contents
What is a Real Estate Agent?
First, if you don’t know the differences between a real estate agent, broker, and a realtor… do yourself a favor and go check this comprehensive post
So, now you need to know what is “real estate agent” is. If there is someone who wants to sell or buy their home, but can’t do it on their own, a real estate agent is the one they’re going to find to help them.
By that definition, you can see there are typically 2 types of real estate agents: Listing agents – who get listings from sellers and help them sell their homes, and buyer’s agents – who help buyers find the houses that are suited to their needs, dreams, financial capacity,…
If real estate agents do a good job, they’re going to get commission (the mainstream of their income) from either buyers or sellers – the ones that they work with.
Read more: 10 Listing Tips From 6-Figure Real Estate Agents
What does a Real Estate Agent really need to do?
Becoming a successful real estate agent is a very long journey. This is just a brief description of what you need to do. Besides, there are many other things you gotta learn as you move forward.
1. Do everything you must do to legally become a real estate agent
I’ve already written a very comprehensive post concluding 5 steps in total to legally become a real estate agent.
The requirements vary by state, if you want to become a real estate agent, you should carefully check out the unique process that your state requires.
Here’s the important part: A real estate agent MUST work for a licensed broker, who takes responsibility for making sure that all the agents working with them comply with regulations and real estate laws.
A real estate agent totally can become a broker, and of course, it requires more education, effort, knowledge,… and many other things. If you’re just getting started, you should find a good broker, work for them, get training from them, and gradually develop your career.
Although you need to split the commission and share it with your broker, it’s a part of the journey.
2. Instantly learning and developing your skills
There are millions of different things you have to learn on the path to becoming a successful real estate agent. Most people take this wrong, they think they just need to get a real estate license and they’re done for their career. That’s the last thing you want to do if you want to become a successful real estate agent.
Inspections, auctions, paper works, furniture, Geomancy,… Instantly learning is a “MUST”
Read more: How to become a real estate agent in 2022?
3. Keeps up with local and regional market activity and industry news
This is probably the number #1 most important thing you need to do. Keep a close on the news to stay on top of what is going on with the real estate market, consistently and constantly looking for new sellers and buyers.
You gotta know your area very well, understand the local laws on selling and buying of property, know trends and what competitive prices are for many properties that your clients want to sell or buy.
4. Finding and working with buyers
Most real estate agents are solely focusing on getting listings as they think if they have listings they can market them and get lots of buyer leads and eventually close the deal.
In fact, it’s not just simple like that. That’s why you don’t just want to find sellers. In some cases, finding buyers and connecting with other real estate sellers would be easier for you to do.
Now, let’s look at some activities that a real estate buyer would need to do:
- Find home buyers
- Help the buyers find the houses that are suited to their needs
- Advise them on how to get approval for the mortgage
- Work with them to decide how much they should pay for that particular house
- Negotiate with the real estate sellers or the sellers if they sell the houses on their own
- Help the buyers prepare for the contract, paperwork, inspections, and many other activities related to the transactions
- Work with them through the entire process and help them solve any problem that suddenly arrives
Otherwise, if you don’t want to work with buyers, you can just focus on getting as many listings as possible, and learn how to negotiable and connect with other real estate buyers.
Read more: 8 Forms To Convert More Real Estate Leads
5. Finding and working with sellers – and list homes for sales
When homeowners want to sell their homes, most of them will find a real estate agent to help. And a real estate agent need to:
- Find home sellers
- Determine the right home’s value so the sellers are not going to lose money by going too low or waste time by going too high.
- Prepare to market the homes on social media and many other platforms
- Connect the sellers to homebuyers
- Advice the sellers on how to prepare for the home showings
- Help the sellers negotiate and get a good offer from the buyers
- Prepare all the other things like inspections, paperwork, documents, and many other essential items to close the transactions
Check out this article to know more about how to get more listings:
How To Get More Listings In Real Estate – 12 Powerful Tips
Otherwise, if you don’t want to work with sellers, you can simply focus on the buyers and learn how to corporate with real estate sellers.
6. Expand your sphere of influence
It’s not just about sellers and buyers, it’s about the ones you meet on the streets, at the gym, in the seminars,…
You see, relationships equal money, without referrals you hardly can close as many transactions as you want. Finding strangers, get close to them, build a strong connection between you and them. So, at least if they don’t intend to buy right now, they can refer you to other potential customers.
That’s why real estate agents always want to expand their sphere of influence. They regularly go to events, seminars,… to connect with other people. Without sellers and buyers, there would be no commission at all.
If you are just getting started, your most precious sphere of influence is the one that includes the people who already trust you… your friends, classmates, your family,… for instance. And most of the time the first transaction comes from these people.
7. Master the lead generation strategies
There are many different strategies to generate real estate leads. You should try everything and eventually choose a few that are suited to your needs, capacity,… and most effective to you.
#1: Open house
“Open house” is a very common strategy. If you know how to do it properly you can get a lot of potential buyers in a record time.
If you want to know more about “open house”, you can check out this article:
7 breakthrough open house ideas and 5 dead mistakes you might not afford to make
And also check out EOwn Open House content templates (Free to use)
#2: Social media marketing
People spend most of their time on social media, especially on Facebook, every single day. As a real estate agent, you gotta know how to take advantage of this potential source.
Check out this article to know about Facebook ads:
Facebook Ads vs Boosted Posts – How to create effective real estate Facebook Ads
#3: Cold calling
I heard a lot of people said that they don’t believe in cold calling anymore as it takes a lot of time and effort. And the percentage of successfully getting a quality real estate lead using this strategy is just too low.
But it’s not true… If you know how to do it the right way and not “bombard” your prospects using some outdated scripts. You can get a lot of real estate leads out of this strategy.
Check out this article to know more about cold calling:
Real Estate Cold Calling Scripts – How to effectively close the deal
#4: Email Marketing
This is probably the most difficult strategy to follow, but if you are consistent enough to follow, it would be the most rewarding strategy.
Let just think about it, if you spend enough time building your email list and nurture them regularly. At a particular milestone in your career, you might get a transaction just by waking up in the morning… write an email and send it out.
Check out this article to know more about email marketing:
16 great real estate email templates – This is how to double your income
#5: Buy leads
This is the easiest and fastest way to get real estate leads. However, it will cost you tons of money, and if you don’t know how to nurture them, you can’t probably get anything out of these expensive leads.
Check out this article to know more about buying leads from real estate lead generation companies:
9 Best Real Estate Lead Generation Companies – How to do this a better way
9. Negotiate
Negotiation is a key part. You’ve got to know what to do when the seller agrees with $2 million, but your buyer just has a $1 million budget.
Sometimes real estate agents might need to lower their commission so they can afford both the buyer and seller. But anyway, that’s not a good choice, you want to learn how to close the transaction without sacrificing your commission.
10. Know how to do all the documents needed to sell a house
This is the least exciting part of all, but it’s very important.
Depending on each state, the paperwork may be vastly different. So, as a real estate agent, it’s very important to understand this process as much as possible.
Learn more about it here
11. Follow-up and try to keep in touch with your previous customers
The vast majority of real estate agent’s income actually comes from referrals. That’s why you want to stay on top of your previous customers as long as possible.
Whenever they think of real estate they would immediately think of you.
Check out this article to know how to get more real estate reviews so you can increase the chance of getting referrals from other people:
4 Proven Strategies To Get More Real Estate Review
How much does a real estate agent make?
Becoming a real estate agent is pretty much the same as starting your own business. The potential of income is unlimited but it requires a lot of effort to reach that point.
Real estate agents work for designated brokers. Real estate agents can’t do everything and get all the commission directly from their customers.
The real estate commissions usually range from 4% to 6% depends on each country. And it must be split into 2 parts – one for real estate agents, one for brokers. It can be a 40-60 or 50-50 or anything else that has already been agreed at the beginning.
According to Investopedia the annual real estate agent salary usually ranges from $65,000 to $90,000.
And as I said earlier, there is no limitation. The better you are, the more money you make.
The Bottom Line
If you’re thinking of becoming a real estate agent, it’s better to learn in advance some duties just listed above.
Besides, check out EOwn library here:
And also don’t forget to check out:
- Why you should you “Content Stream” to generate more real estate leads even if you’re a new real estate agent.
- And how to use EOwn “Content Stream”
Being a real estate agent can earn you a huge amount of income
However, the starting process can be difficult sometimes.
– EOwn.io
