My First Blog

I’ve heard some good things about blogging when you’re a real estate agent. It helps your exposure, it showcases your knowledge, and it can allow prospective clients to get a feel for who you are as both a realtor and as a person. I’ve heard of the advantages of blogging for months, but never jumped on the bandwagon. As a realtor in his first year in the business, who was I to be blogging about the market or changes in real estate compared to other realtors who had been around for a much longer time period?

The answer to that came upon reading the introduction to “Shift: How Top Real Estate Agents Tackle Tough Times,” by Gary Keller. Gary mentions how buyers are more reluctant, fearful, and with higher anxiety. He also mentions how people are getting out of the market.

I thought he was talking about the current market, seeing as the book is already copyrighted for 2009, but he was talking about the market in 1979. He followed that up with the following information; 22 years of age, new to the industry, new to his market. Now I’ve lived in Columbus for 8 years and had family here since shortly after my birth, but just by looking at me you know I don’t have the 30 years of experience other realtors have. You look at me and you see someone fresh out of college, and that’s exactly who I am. I’m in my early twenties, just like Gary, in the same kind of market. There was one question I asked myself after reading this introduction.

If Gary can write a book, why can’t I at least attempt a blog?

I’m not at all comparing myself to Gary Keller, who’s the chairman of the board at Keller Williams Realty International. I’m far from comparing myself with him and will likely never reach that level of success in real estate, but if you ever want to give yourself the chance to reach that point, you have to take chances.

Real Estate is all about taking chances. We take a chance when we financially commit ourselves to becoming realtors, whether it’s the money and time we spend on our education to acquire our license or the money and time we spend to keep it. Those are all common chances we take, but there are many others we take uniquely. Some of those may relate to marketing, prospecting, or personal branding.

For me, I took a chance wearing experience on my face and now I take a chance by imparting what I have in knowledge and experiences in blogs. In this market, buyers are more wary than ever and if we as realtors are going to be good at our job, we need to make their primary real estate news source be us. We know how good this market is for them. Rates are still favorable and there is still money out there in the mortgage industry. The news would simply report interest rates are higher (faintly mentioning compared to earlier this year) and lump mortgages in with other money lending programs having difficulty. We need to be an alternative news source!

I guess we’ll see whether or not blogging is for me, but a risk not taken is a reward you can’t claim. In other news, Real Living is hosting another Citywide House Hop this Sunday, November 9th. It’s a great opportunity for anyone who’s interested in buying sometime in the near future to get to see a ton of open houses and pick the minds of agents they may need to consider to serve them later. As someone that has two open houses on Sunday, I know I’ll be hoping for lots of traffic, so if you know anyone that may be interested in home owning or changing locations, tell them about the House Hop or click on the link below.

http://her.realliving.com/HouseHop.aspx

It really is a tremendous event that’s had a lot of hard work put into it, so take advantage of all the information that’s being given, not to mention the possible $10,000 in savings you can have if you close within the next ten days.

Hope to see you Sunday!