Just because you're new, doesn't mean you have to look it.
When I was starting out, I showed amazing confidence and was never once asked how much experience I had. But to have confidence, you need to have knowledge.
Know your market
Preview everything in your area. Go on tours or go on your own--just preview. Don't just preview your own office's listings, but preview other listings as well. If your town is big, just focus on a small section. Previewing around where you live is key, and I will explain more about why in a bit.
Hot Sheets
Read them daily. Know what home prices actually go under contract and what prices end up expired. What is the average DOM or price per sq. ft? If someone asks you what homes are selling for in say, Blue Jupiter, you can respond, "The average sale price is $135 a sq ft." Boom! No hesitation on your part.
Here is where focusing on the area where you live is good. You will be at the store, post office, library, school, soccer game, etc., and someone will ask about prices. Make sure you know your market. You live there so you should know it without having to look it up.
Listing Presentations
Practice your listing presentation. Try it with a flip chart, booklet, laptop, or from memory. If something just doesn't feel right, change it until it flows smoothly. Practice on your partner, family, a colleague, the kids, or the cat. You don't want to practice on the homeowner.
Buyer Consultations
Again, practice. Try different styles of gathering the information you need to find your buyer the best home. Interview them using a checklist, ask about their lifestyle, and take free-form notes. Have a buyers book with information about mortgages, utilities, escrow, FAQs, etc. Again, practice on your family, a colleague, or the kids. The cat might not be responsive enough for this one, though. Find a style that works for you and then practice it.
Contracts
Study them thoroughly. I read my contracts so that I can summarize the key points on each page without looking at them. Have a copy of all the basic forms (listing contract, purchase agreement, sellers disclosure, lead paint, etc.) everywhere. Keep a set in your dayplanner, a copy on your PDA, and a set in the car and your purse or briefcase. Read them whenever you are waiting at an appointment, when it's slow during an open house, or while the kids are in ballet. Read them every day. Know them!
Practice filling them out. Print out an MLS sheet and write an offer on it. Then write the listing contract for it as well. Have someone in your office look it over for you. Do this once a week until you're comfortable with the forms.
When a new form comes out or one gets updated--no matter how long you have been in the business--study it and practice filling it out.
Net-outs
After filling out the purchase agreement and listing agreement on the house you pulled from the MLS, do a net-out for both the seller and the buyer. Do these by hand. You will not always have access to a computer for using one of the title companies' online calculators. You need to be able to do these on the kitchen counter of a vacant house while filling out the purchase agreement.
Open Houses
Go visit open houses and see how other agents are doing them. Some will be very bad and some will be superb. You will learn something from each one. Go to several on one weekend, making sure to visit different agencies.
Now you can take this experience to make your open houses superb, and, from seeing others, you will gain a level of confidence by doing your own.
With enough practice, you will come across as the knowledgeable professional agent that you now are!
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