How do you become the best real estate agent in your area? If you love meeting people and being your own boss, then surely you’re fit to become a real estate agent. In this article, I will be giving you tips to help you increase your income and marketability as a real estate agent.
What Does a Real Estate Agent Do?
As you probably know, a real estate agent helps people buy and sell their homes. Your job as a real estate agent depends on the sector you’re dealing with.
Is Real Estate Right for You?
To help you assess if real estate is the right career for you, I listed the pros and cons of this career.
Pros
- In just a few weeks or months, you can be a licensed real estate agent;
- You are your boss;
- As an agent, you have a flexible working hour;
- You get to help your clients find the home fit for them;
- You help people sell their properties;
- As an agent, you can take advantage of technology to grow your business;
- You can choose to work anywhere;
- No limit in how much your business can produce; and
- There is no limit on how much you can earn.
Cons
- You have to invest money, time, and effort to become a real estate agent;
- You have to put in the effort in understanding complicated concepts;
- Being your boss means you have to learn everything on your own. From building your list to catering your client’s needs, etc.;
- It would help if you allotted an initial investment to start your career;
- You have to be available anytime a client requires a meet-up;
- You have to apply for insurance in case a client sues you;
- It will take months before you get your first paycheck; and
- An unhappy client can affect your business.
How to Become a Real Estate Agent?
Here are the steps you should take note of if you want to become a real estate agent:
1.Get to Know the Requirements
Different states have different requirements for you to become a real estate agent. So, listing and preparing them is the first step. To do this, you can check the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials (ARELLO)’s page.
2.Take a Course
A pre-licensing course is required before you earn a license. Take this course in an accredited real estate licensing school. You have to choose this carefully because this will most likely determine if you’re equipped enough to get your license.
In Texas, you have to attend at least 180 hours of pre-licensing course while in Colorado, the requirement is 160 hours.
You can choose to learn in an online or classroom setup.
3.Take the Exam
The exam is online. As for the schedule, registration, and how to pay for the exam, the school will probably guide you.
The exam has two parts: general real estate principles (federal level) and the more specific section that deals with the practices on your state.
To get a license, you have to get a passing score in both sections. If not, you have to wait a specific time before they allow you to retake it. If you passed, you have to submit an application and pay the fee to your state’s real estate agency.
Before you start your business, you have to wait for your license.
4. Consider Joining a Real Estate Brokerage
A broker supervises all the real estate transactions. A broker’s responsibilities also include overseeing the actions of agents to ensure that they follow the law. The brokerage is also responsible for giving you commissions.
How to Become the Best Real Estate Agent in Your Area?
So, you’re now a licensed real estate agent, how do you become the best real estate agent in your area?
1.Form Partnerships
What is a real estate partnership? A partnership refers to two or more people working together to achieve their goal.
Forming a partnership with the right candidate is one of the things you can do to become the best real estate agent in your area.
Before you enter a partnership, do your homework and take your time before making a decision. Assess your strengths and weaknesses and determine if they complement your candidate.
If you decide to push through with the partnership, have a seat down with an attorney to help you officially form your partnership. This way, you both could define roles, expectations, and goals and create terms of the agreement.
2.Build Online Presence
Make it easier for your clients to find you by building your online presence. To start, here are a few steps you can follow:
- Build Your Website
Make sure your website is user-friendly, informative, and contains your contact details.
Make sure your site looks professional. Add high-definition images.
- Optimize Your Content
Learn SEO (Search Engine Optimization), so you can apply the basics on your website. And let your SEO specialist or marketing person to handle the technical side.
- Create Informative Content
Your content should be informative and helpful to your audience. It should not contain grammatical errors and should be engaging. And lastly, make sure you update your blog often and that it has timely information.
- Give E-mail Marketing a Try
If an audience finds your content useful, then he’ll take the time to subscribe to your e-mail list. Then, you’ve got yourself a potential client.
Aside from making useful content for your audience, you can also give them access to e-books or a free one-time consultation as an incentive for their subscription. After subscribing, make sure of building or maintaining your relationship with them.
I’ll explain this in more detail on the latter part of this article.
- Be Visible in Social Media
Your content should be accessible through social media sites because that’s where most people spend their time. Your content here should be relevant and exciting. If you want, you can run ads for your target audience here as well.
3.Maintain Relationships
Finally, you’ve built relationships with your clients. Now, how do you maintain these relationships?
- Communicate with Your Client
Maintaining communication with your clients goes a long way.
- Be a Source of Valuable Information
If you bring value to your client, then your client will repay you by recommending you to his friends and family.
- Give the Service You Promised
Always deliver the service you promised. Don’t let down your clients.
- Honesty Will Do You Good
Your business will get the benefits if your clients feel that they could trust you.
- Reward Them
Reward your clients from time to time, especially those loyal ones.
- Bond with Your Client
With bonding, you’ll get to know their interests. If you have to decide for them, you’ll at least have an idea of what they want.
4. Join HARO
HARO stands for help a reporter out. By sharing your expertise on all things related to real estate, you’re building your image as a trusted real estate agent. You can sign up for HARO for free.
5.Host Open Houses
Personally hosting open houses is still an excellent way to go. This way, you’ll get to know your potential client and size them up if they are a serious buyer or not.
You can also do one virtually to be different.
Email Marketing for Real Estate Agents
Real estate is a competitive industry, so one way to get ahead of others is by using email marketing.
So, first, why do you think you have to engage your audience? Isn’t it enough that you get to have an audience? Here are the reasons:
1.Audience=Potential Clients
Converting these audiences as your potential clients is way better. Having clients also mean potential income and referrals.
2.Email Gives You Control
You can control the content, your target audience, as well as the time you get to send those emails.
Plus, you also get to send it as a personalized email.
3.Almost Everyone Uses Email
Even older people use email nowadays.
4.You Can Use Email to Educate
As a real estate agent who genuinely wants to help people find or sell a place, you can use this platform to educate them on this process.
Now, if you choose to dive into email marketing, you’ve got to select a tool or a software to do this. Here are my tips on how to select software to start email marketing:
- User-friendly
The software should have templates already available as well as for analytics that can be easily understood by non-data experts.
- Optimized for Mobile
Emails are being opened through mobile phones, so the email you created from this software should be mobile-friendly.
- Allow Personalization
The software should allow personalization so that your clients can feel special.
- Allow Scheduled Emails
When you’re too busy to send out emails manually, the software should have a scheduling feature.
Once you’re all set, you can send out the following to your subscribers:
- Welcome email
- Newsletters
- Open house announcements
- Virtual tour
- Client’s Success stories
- Neighborhood guides
Of course, if you think of something unique and creative as long as it adds value to the life of your subscribers, then do it.
How Much Do the Average Real Estate Agent Make?
A real estate agent’s income depends on the following factors:
1.Number of Hours
A real estate agent who works approximately 40 hours a week can make about $46,000 to $80,000. In contrast, an agent who works up to 59 hours/week will earn about $80,000 to $100,000.
On average, according to Elizabeth Weintraub, a U.S. real estate agent earns $42,183, as of February 2020. Top agents (90th percentile) make around $64,101 while those at the 10th percentile earn about $40, 321.
2.Experience
Knowing the tricks on how to get more income in the industry can increase your earnings.
3.Niche
A residential real estate agent usually earns less than the commercial real estate agent. But if you’ve got the experience and putting a lot of hours, then this might change.
To give you a clear picture, for you to make $39,800, you can select one option below:
- 20 homes ($2,000 commission each)
- Ten homes ($4,000 commission each)
- Four houses ($10,000 commission each)
- Two homes ($20,000 commission each)
4.Type of Brokerage
The brokerage type also affects how much you are earning. In some instances, a self-employed real estate agent gets to make more.
Can You Get Rich as a Real Estate Agent?
Absolutely, especially if you’re good at managing your income, looking for high-quality leads, real estate listings, and upskilling.
If you want to get rich, you have to learn all the skills you can, take advantage of the latest technologies, and invest effort and time as well.
If you want to become rich, then you’ll have to overcome your fear and aim high. If you think you’ll get rich faster if you work for a broker luxury real estate, then do it.
This makes sense since it’ll take less work if you sold two homes with $20000 commission each as compared to selling ten homes with $4000 commission. So, go ahead and market yourself to the luxury market.
Conclusion-How to Become the Best Real Estate Agent in Your Area?
To get your license, here are the steps you can do:
- Get the requirements
- Take a pre-licensing course
- Take your licensure exam
- Consider joining a real estate brokerage
If you pass, you’ll have to wait for your license through the mail after paying a certain amount of fee. If you fail, wait for the date in which the state will allow you to retake the exam.
To summarize, here are the steps you can do to become the best real estate agent in your area:
- Form a partnership
- Build your online presence
- Maintain Relationships
- Join Haro
- Host Open Houses
Hopefully, this article was useful to you and helped in learning something new. Please share it with anyone who may benefit from it.
Set up your free Success call with our team and figure out how you can take your Agency to the next level.
