How to Become a Successful Real Estate Agent

Becoming a successful real estate agent takes hard work and determination.

Becoming a successful real estate agent takes more than the ability to pass the real estate license exam. Your job requires you to know the market and help people navigate it. Because you earn money only when deals happen, you also have to have good people skills to make clients choose you over other real estate agents. Finding a job as a real estate agent is easy, but becoming successful as a real estate agent takes a lot of hard work.

Difficulty:

Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Define what being a successful real estate agent means to you and set some goals. Realtor Magazine recommends setting an income figure and calculating the amount of work you need to do to achieve that income goal. For example, if you want an income of $150,000 per year and you average $10,000 in commissions per transaction, then you aim to do 15 transactions a year.

2. Learn to make yourself a better salesperson. You may take classes from your company's training program, local real estate association and the National Association of Realtors. Talk to the successful real estate agents you know and ask for pointers.

3. Get to know your area, including the local neighborhood, the region and how the national trend affects your market. Track the properties in the market and observe how long it takes for them to sell. Find out about every school and park in the area. Analyze real estate data, such as the home price index and read research reports by real estate organizations. Real estate magazines and the real estate section of newspapers also help you understand the real estate market.

4. Tell everyone you know that you work as a real estate agent and that you're willing to help them buy and sell houses. Ask them to tell you if they know anyone looking to buy or sell properties.

5. Create a schedule to structure your work hours. Real estate agents don't follow strict schedules, but you need to create goals and dedicate enough time to achieve them. According to Realtor Magazine, real estate agents often look for new opportunities in the morning and conduct their day-to-day work activities, such as showing properties and preparing paperwork, later in the day.

6. Use technology to your advantage. More homeowners first found their home from a website rather than from real estate agents in 2010, according to Realtor Magazine. At the very least, you need a cell phone, a computer, an email address and your profile at your company website. For effective Internet marketing, set up your own website with your own domain, post informative articles and upload photos and videos of properties in the market.

References

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Real Estate Agent
• "Realtor Magazine"; Are You Playing the Right Role?; Dirk Zeller; May 2011
• "Realtor Magazine"; Rookies: Building Your Business; Robert Sharoff; February 2005
• "Microsoft Office"; 7 Steps to Successful Real Estate Marketing on the Internet; Saul D. Klein, et al.