Success as a Real Estate Agent For Dummies. Zeller Dirk

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СКАЧАТЬ the condition and health of the home a client is trying to buy or sell. The examination involves an analysis of the property’s condition, location, neighborhood, school district, curb appeal, landscaping, market competitiveness, market demand, availability for showing, and value versus price. The diagnosis involves an unvarnished analysis of what a home is worth and what changes or corrections are necessary.

      Some say that agents should present all the options available to their clients and then recommend the course of action they feel is best. By doing this, agents allow their clients to make the final decision. Although many experts praise the virtues of this approach, I prefer the diagnostic and prescriptive approach because it positions you better as the expert. When clients make poor choices such as setting the wrong price on their home or making an initial offer that is too low, you may still receive some or all of the blame even though they chose the wrong option. No matter the style of your counsel to a client, whether more advisory or assertive, your success in guiding your clients to a successful outcome is based on your expert analysis and application of the variables to the marketplace.

      

Many agents get into trouble because they lack the conviction to tell clients the truths they don’t want to hear. If a home is overpriced or not ready for showing, or if an offer is too low for seller consideration, it’s the agent’s job to speak up with sound advice. In these situations, you could get blamed for a poor outcome. You may also run the risk of doing all this work and not getting compensated for the time you invested.

      To prepare yourself for the task, flip to Chapter 12, which helps you determine and advise sellers regarding a home’s ideal price; Chapter 13, which helps you counsel clients regarding changes they need to make before showing their property; and Chapter 15, which helps you counsel clients through the final purchase or sale negotiation.

      ❯❯ Troubleshooting: Unavoidably, many times you have to be the bearer of bad news. Market conditions may shift, and the price on a seller’s home may need to come down. A buyer may need to sweeten initial offers to gain seller attention. A loan request may be rejected, or you may need to confront sellers because the animal smells in their home may be turning buyers away. Or, a home that buyers really want may end up selling to someone else.

      

At times like these, your calm attitude, solution-oriented approach, and strong agent-client relationship will win the day. Chapter 16 is full of advice for achieving and maintaining the kind of relationship excellence that smoothes your transactions and leads to long-lasting and loyal clients.

       Making the right financial decisions

      When you help clients make real estate decisions, your advice has a long-lasting effect on your clients’ financial health and wealth. Their decisions based on your counsel will affect their short-term equity as well as their long-term financial independence. According to a study by the Society of Actuaries, the equity in one’s home on average represents 70 percent of one’s total assets. In most cases, home equity is the single largest asset that people own. Your ability to guide clients to properties that match their needs and desires, that fit within their budgets, and that give them long-term gain from minimal initial investment impacts their financial health and wealth for years to come.

      

Your influence as a wealth advisor reaches far beyond clients who are in a position to own investment real estate. In your early years, many of your clients may be first-time buyers who are taking their first steps into the world of major financial transactions. Advise them well and they’ll remain clients and word-of-mouth ambassadors for years to come. See Chapter 16 for more information about keeping clients for life.

       Avoiding the role of Designated Door Opener

      Before the advances of the Internet, the consumer’s only avenue to information about homes for sale was through a real estate agent. Every other week, agents received phonebook-sized periodicals presenting information on properties for sale, with each new entry accompanied by a small, grainy, black-and-white picture. I know that seems hard to imagine in our information-rich technological world.

      Today, consumers can go online instead of going to a real estate office to launch their real estate searches. With a few keystrokes and mouse clicks, they have access to a greatly expanded version of the kind of information that agents used to control. There are tens of thousands of sites that offer access to real estate information and access to properties for sale. However, when consumers discover a home they want to see, they must contact either the owner or an agent to gain inside access. This is where things get tricky.

      Fifteen years ago, only 8 percent of buyers found the home they wanted to purchase on their own through the Internet. Last year, 44 percent of buyers found their home online themselves and then contacted a real estate agent. The consumer is clearly doing more online research and finding what they want.

      

Often a consumer signs off the web and contacts an agent to get inside the home, as if the agent is simply an entry device. As an agent, you need to demonstrate special skills to engage the customer. Then you need to add value to your skills by having inside market knowledge, keeping up with trends in the marketplace, being aware of technological advances, and having other properties you know about that might be similar to the property that has created the inquiry. With this added know-how, you have an edge over other agents, which allows you to convert the inquiry into a committed buyer client for your business.

AGENTS AS NECESSARY EVILS: A MIND-SET THAT COMES AND GOES

      The mind-set that agents are overpaid and unnecessary to the real estate sale process continues to gain traction. This mind-set gains momentum especially when a robust market leads to low home inventories and the quick sale of homes that often receive multiple offers during the short time they’re on the market. Sellers feel that their home will sell no matter who lists it, so they go cheaper.

      This mind-set has increased in intensity and breadth with expanded online access to real estate information. It has been further developed as companies like Zillow and Trulia grant broader information services in the real estate industry segment.

      When times are booming, a segment of consumers and new homebuilders begins to question the value of the agent’s services against the associated fees. During the best of market times, some homebuilders even go so far as to sell their houses without allowing agent representation – or compensation.

      The silver lining is that when times are good, so many properties are moving that the few listings affected by the agent-is-unnecessary mind-set hardly limit opportunity. Plus, booms don’t last forever. When the market swings back and forth, as it will many times during your career, you need to be prepared to adjust your offerings. The ability to master your present marketplace trends while working to prepare for the next market shift is the skill of elite agents.

Securing Customers and Clients

      Imagine that you’re on the game show Jeopardy!, and you’re given just seconds to provide the most important response of your career. Imagine that you’re asked to write down the question that prompts the answer: The function that makes or breaks a real estate agent’s success. (If this book contained music, you know what tune would be playing right now.) Okay, time’s up. How did you respond?

      The moneymaking reply is: What is creating customers? How did you score?

      Did СКАЧАТЬ