A new adventure in real estate

Tyler, if you never want to feel icky about what you do, check out Jennifer Allan's Sell with Soul.  She is on acive rain and has a soulful way of doing the business. 

Another suggestion is you are thinking about doing expireds, google Borino.   He's got a great product and he's not icky either.

Good luck

Welcome to the exciting world of real estate, Tyler - and great to know that you and your dad will be supporting each other over the years!  You have likely a tremendous amount of social skills to draw upon, from your past work experiences - and that will serve YOU well in this business! 

Thank you for this post - I've learned a lot just from reading the comments!  :-)

Tyler, whether you are serving burgers, homes or in my case mortgages, you are serving what people need and want. The process is essentially the same and the common denominator is service. welcome to the industry and I wish you much success.

As you already see, AR is a great resource tool.  Your time in as a server should have already taught you that the customer is always right (even when they are wrong).

My best advice to you is at the end of each day, ask yourself "What did I do today that will generate business tomorrow?"

Welcome to real estate and welcome to ActiveRain. Wonderful having Dad as a partner. Wishing you much success. I just left you a message.

Margaret

You are entering the profession at the right time.  You will learn a lot that otherwise you may never have seen in the "olden" times.  Pay attention, hook up with other experienced agents, join a Team for maybe the first two years to see a lot of deals and have a handy mentor.  Welcome and good luck.

Tyler - Welcome to the biz! Part of why this a great time to get into real estate is that clients are harder to come by, new systems & tools are being implemented to address problems the bubble brought to light, and deals are often more complicated. Don't shy away from these challenges - embrace them with the help of a mentor, even if it means a referral fee for their assistance. If you can learn to grow your crops when there's a drought, you'll have a bounteous supply when the rains come. This is a relationship business - a.k.a. a "contact sport" - so learn as much about your clients as you can by asking about their motivation & why particular features are important to them.

There's an old saying / joke / metaphor that asks "How do you eat an elephant?" The answer is "One bite at a time." It is very easy to get completely overhwelmed with all the available services, training systems, and technology that's out there, so learn to time-block and evaluate the product before you invest your time and money into it.

Lastly, you say that you're with a small firm, so there isn't much in the way of training. The leadership at Keller Williams Realty likes to say that we're a training company that happens to sell real estate. We make all of our classes available to anyone with any firm, with no recruiting. I'll gladly provide you with any material I have (can you tell I'm a teacher at heart). I'd also be happy to put you in contact with a KW agent in your region who will keep you informed of upcoming classes AND be sure that others know you're very happy with your brokerage. A rising tide lifts all ships, so we gladly provide training opportunities to everyone, even to agents who have no intention of changing brokerages.

My first weeks as an agent happened a LONG time ago, but I'll never forget them. This is a small town and things were pretty slow in those days, so on my first day, everyone else decided to come in late. I was all alone in the office.

I didn't know it yet then, but there were 3 telephones, and 3 phone lines. So when one started ringing, I was running all over the office, picking up phones and saying "Hello, hello, hello" to dial tones. Finally I found the right phone and it was a call for the Chamber of Commerce - they happened to rent a desk in our office. 

On my first showing (a mountain cabin) I ended up getting lost , then carrying my customer's baby up a steep hill to the cabin. (I have long legs - for some reason that makes people hand me their kids to carry.) To top that off, gunshots started hitting the trees around us... Needless to say, I never saw that lady again!

I really had no good systematic training in the paper work and sales.  Most of the stuff I know was picked up on line or self taught.  Start with a good broker - that sounds like what you have done.

You sound a lot like me and my husband.  I was a waitress befor I started real estate.  My dad is broker/owner of the company I work for and we are a small brokerage of 7 licensed agents.  We've been doing it for 7 years now, so we did start in the boom, but have been able to weather the tough market.  One thing I will say that I didn't expect is that you have to be tough and have hard skin - it's a difficult business and people will continue to surprise you.  Good luck!

Ask questions, read books, hang out with the people you want to become.  Know the paperwork, understand all of the laws of your State.  Talk to everyone you know, write a letter to everyone you know and tell them about your new career.  Give your card to everyone you see the grocery clerk, the server, the dry cleaners, the barrista at Starbucks..everyone!  Get on Realty-Tra and look for people who are behind on their mortgage and talk to them about a short sale.  It is a fun business, work hard, return phone calls, be your word...activity creates business. 

Hi Tyler,

I am only the 2nd mortgage person to respond but I will add to all these wonderful comments in that you need a GREAT team, not a good team, but a GREAT team. Escrow and a lender that gives you and your clients fantastic service. so much has changed over the years and the ranks have been culled but you need to find out what GREAT means today. Interview, get testamonials and referrals and then make some choices as to what they bring to your business and how they can help you grow.

Jeanne Fenwick