|
I live right outside of Philadelphia but currently work in the city. I passed the real estate courses and licensing exam, but now I'm looking for a broker to work for. Could you all tell me the good, the bad and the ugly of the business? Experience with working with different brokers? I've "interviewed" with Keller Williams and have appointments set up with Berkshire Hathaway and Coldwell Banker.
|
#
?
May 26, 2016 21:51
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 12:31 |
|
|
People like me will hate you for leaving endless solicitations all over my porch, in my mail box, and under my door.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2016 00:03
|
|
|
Why do you want to be a real estate agent? What life stage are you in? Do you own a house yourself? Do you have at least a few months' (ideally a year's) living expenses banked in case your business gets off to a slow start? How many people do you know that are looking for houses right now that you could call day one to be your clients? Who do you know and trust that's in real estate that can mentor you (in any capacity) or talk you through things if you get in a bad spot?
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2016 19:38
|
|
|
My roommate just burned his Masters and is looking into getting his real estate license because, and I quote, "I'm gonna rub shoulders with rich Armenians and drive around in Maseratis".
Okuteru fucked around with this message at 08:14 on May 30, 2016 |
|
#
?
May 30, 2016 08:06
|
|
|
I also would love to hear some more about peoples' experiences in this area, positive and negative. Been pondering a career change to something with a little more flexibility to work from home and better long-term earning potential. Right now I work for the federal government: ultra-stable and fairly well paying, but comes poor upper-management bureaucracy nonsense and limited long-term career potential. Back in... 2009? I worked for about a year doing apartment leasing for an apartment search service and enjoyed it quite a bit. I stopped because it was really only survivable as an entry-level leasing agent doing the job as a sole source of income during the summer months. I have a few months worth of expenses saved, but more importantly my job could be flexible in terms of hours per week from full-time down to as low as 16 hours (and shifts are flexible too, with the ability to leave work as early as 2:30pm). I know the network is important too. I have one friend who will be looking to buy soon, and possibly a second in the next year or two... but that's it off the top of my head. It looks like in Illinois I would need to get a broker's license, and be sponsored by a managing broker for my first two years.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2016 18:32
|
|
|
Forceholy posted:My roommate just burned his Masters and is looking into getting his real estate license because, and I quote, "I'm gonna rub shoulders with rich Armenians and drive around in Maseratis". Is this the same roommate that built the illegal room in the house you're renting? I just have so many awful things I want to say about this man
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2016 19:41
|
|
|
Man_of_Teflon posted:I also would love to hear some more about peoples' experiences in this area, positive and negative. Been pondering a career change to something with a little more flexibility to work from home and better long-term earning potential. I don't live where you do, so YMMV, but here there are roughly a billion real estate agents, most of whom are not making a living at it. You also need to think about the impact of online/discount brokerages on the industry when looking at the future. Real estate has been remarkably resilient to internet takeover, but in my area I know two senior-citizen-age couples who sold houses through online brokerages this spring. Personally, I enthusiastically want to see the death of 5% real estate deals, so I might be overly hopeful about future competition but... it's something to investigate before you make any plans.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2016 22:06
|
|
|
Most real estate agents are dumb and extremely lazy, so realistically if you can hustle just a little bit, you'll probably be more successful than 90% of your peers.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2016 22:31
|
|
|
I am one of the people with a MS degree looking for a change, but also to make more money. In my current job I "hustle" a lot already. To be successful in my current job you have to do many of the same duties as being successful in real estate, but in my current job I dont get paid much. I am keeping my current job until I can see where it goes. My current position offers great benefits and my coworkers are great, but it would be nice to have a more flexible schedule with a 1 year old at home. I own my home and we are also looking to buy an investment property.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2016 14:37
|
|
|
Are you capable of filing in a 5 page offer sheet? Are you willing to split your commissions with lazier people then you? Are you willing to work all the time? If you can answer yes to two of these you are better then 90% of all realtors.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2016 16:05
|
|
|
If your job is going to depend on the real estate market then don't buy investment real estate too, diversify (far away from your geographic region) into index funds instead. Yes I know your dad/uncle/whoever got rich on buying and renting out real estate in area whatever, it's still generally a bad idea and you'd be better off with geographic diversification. Pryor on Fire fucked around with this message at 16:11 on Jun 16, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2016 16:07
|
|
|
From what I've learnt of the last week of doing nothing but looking at listings, a grasp of the English language beyond 'bare familiarity' is too much - don't even try to use commas - and a belief that unlit cellphone photos of cupboards at an angle, but not of the room they're attached to, is what will sell the property. It's also important to contradict yourself several times between the description and the item breakdown. If you can confuse and frustrate your client base before you've even met them, this could be the industry for you. (In a more serious note, because of the reasons listed above I might give the industry a crack myself down here).
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2016 19:58
|
|
|
I'm selling my house myself and saving myself a fairly hefty commission because my house was rather easy to sell - offer within one week of listing. The real estate sales industry seems to operate a lot like a cartel or cronyism with some protectionism for itself by promoting listings that result in a commission for another agent because at least they can give each other strong references while I've got no skin in the game really. Even the Internet brokers like Redfin and flat-fee listers have caved a bit to the tyranny of the real estate sales system by now. I've worked with Redfin before and they're basically just another real estate firm like Prudential, Keller Williams, Remax, etc. at this point, just with a lot better Internet presence. You can get totally screwed as a real estate agent because there are even bigger assholes in the world that you may work with. One of the worst stories I heard from an agent recently was during the last housing boom he was fairly new and was a dual agent for a house. On the day of closing with the buyers sitting in the driveway of the house with the kids in the car he got a call from the developer (seller) saying that he'd reviewed the HUD statement and decided that he didn't want to sell because he was coming short $5k on what he wanted to make (it was maybe a $230k house - total commission was still 13.8k admittedly). Even though it was breach of contract and there were significant damages, the family had left their old home and didn't have a whole lot of money to sue, and the seller knew it and wanted just a bit more before hiring a lawyer would be worthwhile for anyone. He wound up paying out of his own pocket to get the keys.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2016 20:22
|
|
|
Land Fish posted:Why do you want to be a real estate agent? What life stage are you in? Do you own a house yourself? Do you have at least a few months' (ideally a year's) living expenses banked in case your business gets off to a slow start? How many people do you know that are looking for houses right now that you could call day one to be your clients? Who do you know and trust that's in real estate that can mentor you (in any capacity) or talk you through things if you get in a bad spot? Get a mentor who knows what they're doing, does it well, and is happy to help you learn the ropes. What you learned in real estate class is probably just enough to make you legal, not enough to make you profitable. You probably won't make enough to pay your bills the first year. If you want to be able to take a vacation, ever, or even take an actual sick day you'll need a buddy who's working for the same broker and is willing to take 'your' calls while you're having downtime. I've heard being on a team is the easiest way to accomplish this. I would seriously suggest you consider taking self-defense classes, and finding a classy way to explain to every single person that calls you that they're meeting you at your office for a personal discussion about what they're looking for or however you want to phrase it. If someone breaks into a house and steals someone's furniture (I loved that bedroom set) because you're an idiot who let the couple split into two different rooms while viewing the home and one of them unlocked a window, you may be financially and/or legally responsible! The first place I worked at was small/local, and they did not have a rule that you had to meet a person in the office before showing. I got to meet random dudes in the middle of nowhere to show farms/land on more than one occasion, and it got a bit scary. I did not have down-time, because I was not on one of the above-mentioned teams. I was trying to start out on my own in a not-awesome brokerage, without much support and without a mentor, and it was hell. I later left the went to the fancy agency in town -- the training I received there was phenomenal, and the support was much better. Get a google # or a second cell phone, and use that as the number you put on your signs/listing/paperwork. You're going to want a way to differentiate between someone from your kid's school calling with an emergency, and someone calling with an 'emergency' that they have to be let into this house that they're parked in front of right now because your name's on the sign. You're going to want a way to easily forward your phone to the above-mentioned call buddy. You're going to want a way to turn said real estate phone OFF when you go to sleep. This job will stomp up and down on your boundaries if you let it. Keep it professional, choose a day per week that's your "off-day" where you don't take calls or show houses. Some people choose Monday or Tuesday as an 'off-day' and work Saturday so they can show houses and keep open houses over the weekend. Mindfully take time to spend with family/friends/cats recharging. **Edit: Edited to protect someone awful. tl;dr version of story -- you will probably work with monsters of the "to catch a predator" variety, and you will not know it until after the fact. meanieface fucked around with this message at 08:57 on Aug 13, 2016 |
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2016 08:29
|
|
|
I just got my license about a month ago, I'm currently sitting in my training class with Coldwell Banker. I think it's awesome so far. I can't speak for Keller Williams or any of the others but Coldwell has a lot of tools that are great and very helpful. I also can't speak for how well it goes when you join a brokerage and work as a solo agent. I joined a team (it happened to be my best friend's older brother and his wife who are the top producers in their office) and so that's really helpful. They're giving me leads and helping me. I'm having to leave my training classes a little early every day because I have showings. I'm working their open houses by myself with flyers that have my picture and information on them. They've even paid for my name riders for the for sale signs. I can't imagine trying to get started in this business without help. It's brutal, time consuming, and extremely costly. By the time you even get started you've probably already put at least $2,500 into it. Then you have fees and other incidentals that add up. On top of that, even if you sell a house your first day, it's taking 30-45 days to close right now and you don't get paid until it closes. Maybe you can do some leases and make a little money in that time but those pay very little. But the couple that I'm working for have been at it for 9 years. They've made $80,000 in commissions this last month alone. They've taken 3 vacations in the last 2 months, in fact the wife just took the kids to Colorado for 2 weeks. The husband flew up to meet them for the weekend. It takes a lot of time to make it in the industry but once you do, your schedule is up to you.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 16:10
|
|
|
My sister is becoming/is a real estate agent and any decision she makes is an entirely terrible one, so based off this empirical evidence, I can't recommend it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2016 13:50
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 12:31 |
|
|
5 years of experience in the industry as both an agent and now an employee of a real estate firm. Quite simply, if you work hard, you will make a lot of money/be a successful agent. Whoever said that most agents are lazy/bad is 100% correct. The bar is set very low. Show up to work every day and find things to do when you have nothing to do that will generate business . Pretty soon you won't have any times where you have nothing to do.
|
|
#
?
Aug 22, 2016 15:35
|
|
