I don't have a full paid subscription to Inman News, but I do get their headliners by email. That works for me on several levels and I almost always find something that catches my attention. Today there was a short story about a man who was helping his aging parents find a Realtor to sell their house after circumstances required them to move into a life care center. He discusses the process of locating two Realtors through AR and another from a national franchise. In talking about his experience, he explains that the Realtors he found through AR were nice enough and were certainly good bloggers, but they had few or no listings and little or no experience. It was a stark reminder that, like any other business, any one new to real estate faces the same Catch-22. How do you get experience when people only want to hire people with experience?

My husband and I both had successful careers in other fields and each owned our own businesses. But when we decided to change directions and get into real estate we found ourselves back at square one. We had more business experience than most people we know but aside from dabbling in real estate for ourselves, we were novices. We couldn't tell people about all our listings or how many homes we had sold. So what is a new agent to do?

The lesson in this article is that being a savvy AR blogger isn't enough. Knowing about Trullia, Zillow, HomeGain, or any of the other web sites isn't enough. And no matter how tech savvy we may be, no matter how many social networking sites we belong to, or how fancy our cell phone is, we can never, ever forget the importance of knowing your own back yard. Dorothy had it right when she said "There's no place like home."

When you don't have experience to back you up, your value proposition has to start with information. Learn everything you can about your market. Know the numbers...know the comps...know the market history. You don't have to personally sell a lot of homes in a neighborhood to know how many homes were sold, what they sold for, how many days they were on the market, etc. And while you're at it, get all the training you can get your hands on...which is one of the biggest reasons we're with Keller Williams. The training opportunities are phenomenal. With knowledge and training you'll be better equipped to tackle the tough questions that will inevitably come up about any lack of experience you may have.

I won't tell you how the article ends, but I will tell you that he didn't hire either of the agents he found on AR, nor did he hire the one from the national franchise. It's a good read...and a good lesson.