This little Piggy went to market......

Thanks for sharing this story. It is good that your friend will be seeking an alternative career path.

To be successful, you have to believe in yourself.  The agent you describe did not believe in herself!

Sometimes it makes a person wonder, You only get out what you are willing to put in. Thanks for the post this morning.

Semper-Fi

Eric Ristey

Ellie,

I betcha your friend thinks you are so "lucky" to be successful.

Ellie, there are realestate agents and 'secret' real estate agents, she chose to be the latter and will probably now let everybody know she had to quit because of the market. Most of them will probably respond that they didn't even know she was an agent.

Ellie, A lack of effort begets a lack of business.

Hi Ellie:

It's the old saying, you won't anything out of it, if you don't put anything into it!

Hi Ellie, here is another cliché: it won't work unless you WORK it. Sounds like she was hoping it was going to be easy. Yes, back in 2000 to 2006 it was easy. The market was out of control and all you had to do was sneeze and you got a listing. Not now. I prospect between 20 and 30 hours a week consistently. I have 1 short sale listing and a few buyers right now. I'm not giving this up for anything. She must not really want it. It's ashame but if it's not for her, then she shouldn't continue it.

Another example of why this industry has so much turn-over.  No effort = no results. 

I really wish that they'd make it harder for people to get their real estate license because then we'd start to set the expectation that you do have to work to be successful.  A couple of weekend classes and a couple hours in an 'exam' looks pretty easy to most people and of course once you have the license the money just gets thrown at you, right?

Ellie, so what your telling me is that people don't just come by and drop off checks after you get your license, if I wanted to work for a living I would have gotten a job...

Ellie, Gerry sent me to your post. The person you describe sounds defeated but is not willing to work to gain positive results. What we do is hard work and luck has nothing at all to do with it!

We also go to church on Sunday like your friend. We hold open houses mostly on Saturday and have had excellent success. In fact we have had many positive comments from folks along the lines of "what a good idea, now we can see other houses tomorrow!" In 2006 and 2007 I did approx 20 open houses per year. $60k in commissions were made off the contacts that I met. Figure 160 hours spent (4x40) that works out to be $1500/hour for lead generation. Nice pay for easy work. If you are new, do open houses for other Realtors...when you are there, do not sit there like a lump and do not badger people there is a happy median. The more you do the better you will get.

You must make friends and expand your base or you will not survive. 

I am always amazed that people think that don't have to work hard  to be successful in this business.  She doesn't have the right attitude anyway.

Ellie, I guess my background as a "restaurant owner", working 9 days a week from early till late doing everything necessary prepared me for the "tough" world of Real Estate...lol... Wish I would have found it 30 years ago, i'd be fishing today...