Is now a good time to become a real estate agent? Here's the short answer: No, it's not, unless you're taught to do it correctly.
Do you know that real estate is one of the most competitive industries in the world? The National Association of Realtors reports that 87% of real estate agents will quit within the first five years. Now, for normal professionals, only 50% will stop in the first five years. So you're 37% more likely not to make it in the real estate industry. But why is that? It's because real estate agents are not taught how to be real estate agents. So yes, it can be an excellent time to get into real estate, but only if you're willing to put in the time, energy, and dedication to learn your profession and to do it differently than everyone else.
Money Making Potential
The thing is, people get into real estate wanting to make all this money and do so well. This is absolutely possible! For example, one of my students has been in real estate for under two years. She just made $240,000 in a week. In December, she closed $240,000 worth of real estate commissions in one week. And she's been in the business for under two years. How is she doing this? How is she able to quit her job and make more money in a week than she's made in the past 10 years? She does this by doing things differently.
What does that mean? How can you do things differently? Well, I've created a lot of videos that are somewhere on or around or near this space that you should be watching about how you can stand out as a real estate agent, attract visits, and get listings with limited inventory. And the main thing that you need to do is not listen to your broker or the team leader that is giving you bad advice. The ones telling you that you should be doing open houses and cold-calls.
When IS It a Good Time to Become a Real Estate Agent
Here is the truth. Those strategies we’re taught, like broker tours, open houses and other old-school strategies, we had to do them because we didn’t have the internet. There was no video or social media. Now, when you're in a new city and you want to go out to dinner at a nice steak restaurant, where do you go? You go online. If you're researching, comparing, or contrasting different computers, where do you go? You go online. If you want to buy a car, where do you go to do your research? You go online. Real estate is no different. Buyers and sellers go online to do their research way before they're ready to make a decision. I just read an article that said that the average person does research for 79 days before they make an actual purchase.
The National Association of Realtors shows that it's actually more like three to six months that a buyer or seller starts to research before they take action. That means your job is to show up online when they are researching, not just when they’re ready to buy. The goal for you is to be a marketer. You need to think about your business. It's a great time for you to get into real estate right now. Yes, it's a great time, if you are going to treat your business and be a marketer. You are not in the real estate business. You are in the marketing of your real estate business. Same with the homes. You're not in the selling-of-homes business, you're in the marketing-of-selling-homes business. He who markets most, he who has the most exposure, he who has more leverage, will dominate.
We create videos every single week of our properties and for the community. They’re videos like tips and tricks, what's happening in the market, etc. Then we put an ad behind it so that we can get hundreds of hours of watch time and tons of views. We teach people how to do this as well. And all of a sudden, brand new agents after just 12 months or 8 months can start beating top producers. Brand new agents to a new area, brand new agents in the industry, beat out top producers because they have more leverage and more exposure. You don't have to be the best or most experienced as long as you have leverage. Those with the most leverage, conviction and confidence will win.
Time To Be Different
When you can walk in front of a buyer or a seller and show them the actual book you’ve written on how you’ll market and sell their home, that’s leverage. You can hand them a book that you've written or show this beautifully designed marketing plan and show how you completely are a master marketer and how being a master marketer in real estate is helping your sellers get more money, have more leverage, get better terms.
It's a great time to be in real estate, but again, you've got to be different. You cannot be doing what everyone else is. If you can't truly sit in front of a seller and say, “This is why you should hire me. Hey, I get that I'm new in the business. But guess what? The old school people are doing things that are traditional, what traditional agents do. I'm going to show you what a 21st century, digital marketing agent does, that's able to expose your home to the masses and how that's going to affect you and your bottom line.”
It's a great time to be DIFFERENT in real estate. You've got to have your unique selling proposition, cannot be doing what everyone else is doing. Do exactly the opposite. Show that, don't tell. Show up differently, be a marketer and it's a great time to be in real estate.
