Top 10 New Years Resolutions for Real Estate Agents

I hope everyone has a prosperous New Year!!!! Here are a few tips you can turn into New Years resolutions to make it better:

1. Enhance your Internet marketing presence by taking advantage of sites like Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow, etc. Love 'em or hate 'em, they are a nest full of buyers and someone is getting good leads from them, may as well be you!

2. Take a class and get another one of those designation thingies.. Many states require additional education hours to maintain your license, so get your CDPE if you need to, it will count towards your requirement.

3. Drop business cards everywhere you can. If you live near a resort are like I do, many of the "funky beach bars" in our area have walls coverd in business cards, cork board pinups, etc. Great place to pin up a few cards because the tourists that visit those places often become property owners. (I have a pack of push pins in my purse)

4. Start a newsletter. This is a great way to stay in touch with past clients and keep your SOI intact.

5. Commit to at least one blog post a week on Active Rain, oh and dont forget the links. They will help your website rank in search results.

6. Clean up your act when you post listings on the MLS. Most agents really have not figured out that all the info they put in their listing is seen by buyers on other agent websites. Property descriptions IN ALL CAPS is a big no no. Make sure you provide all the information and this includes schools. If you do not fill in the schools correctly, when someone does a property search by school district your listing will not be shown. May as well shoot yourself in the foot if you are going to leave MLS fields blank. And dont take a 2 million dollar listing and upload only one photo. I refuse to reccomend properties to my buyers if there is only one photo in the MLS. How you got the listing in the first place is beyond me! Oh, and TBD, Other, Ask Me, N/A  does not count as an informative entry. It shows you are lazy and deserve to be fired by your seller.

7. If you are with a brand name broker and he is taking 40% of your commissions and you do not maintain an office, find a new broker. Technology is cutting the cord so to speak, you do not need the feemax companies anymore. Discount boutique broker offices are growing by leaps and bounds and often provide a better level of service. I work hard for my commissions and I work from home, I am not giving my money away to a broker/owner or corporate name that does nothing for me. My current broker office charges me a flat $295 a month and I keep 100% of my commissions. SWEET! Leaving feemax for this office put an additional $40,000 in my pocket in 12 months. Nice pay raise for doing absolutely nothing different!

8. Buy an ipad type device and learn how to use it for listing presentations and searching the MLS on the go. These are AWESOME for our business and make things so simple.

9. Update your website. If it looks terrible it is going to work the same way. Your website is a direct reflection of your level of professionalism. Some sellers do Google agents to see how they will market their properties. If you can not do a good job marketing yourself, you certainly will not do a good job marketing their home.

10. If you are a buyers agent only you need to change that tune. You need to list to last to really make it in the real estate profession. Why anyone would ignore 50% of their potential business is totally beyond me. Start a focused farming effort in a neighborhood most snobby real estate agents overlook. Everyone farms the best neighborhoods and chases the high dollar listings and they get few listings and houses that are slow to sell as a result. You need to farm the "less impressive" areas. You will be amazed how many listings you get and those properties in lower price points are what is selling.

In tight markets you need to pick up your game. The first of January is a great time to do just that!

Happy New Year!!!!

I serve the Sarasota Florida Real Estate market.