First Year Real Estate Agent Tips
If this is your first year as a real estate agent, you will find some tips to jumpstart your career.
This is assuming you already have passed your real estate exam and are with a Broker.
It is Game Time! First year real estate agents must jump start their business right away. Regardless if you have been licensed for a while or not, below you will have an outlined plan for your first week.
Day 1 –
Open House For First Year Realtors
Call your broker or office manager early morning. Ask for an in-house listing that is vacant that they think would get decent walk in traffic. See if they have any branded signs you can borrow. *In the future get your own branded signs that markets YOU. First year real estate agents have to understand to brand yourself, not necessarily your brokerage.
Drive over to the location with all of your items including your laptop, notepad and printed flyers. Set up the signs strategically on high traffic roads and other intersections to lead people to the property.
Prepare the open house. Turn on the lights, make sure AC or Heat is comfortable and set up shop at the kitchen table or somewhere you can do work for the day. Do not worry about not knowing what you are doing.
You will learn right away once you put yourself in the field. Don’t worry about people coming inside. Welcome them in and do your best in asking questions. Read the flyer details and get educated on the house itself, any amenities, area location, etc.
You goal is try to just be personable with them. Don’t try to “sell” necessarily. Find out who they are and their real estate needs.
Get Your Marketing Items Ordered
As a first year real estate agent, you must invest into your business. While sitting in the open house, you are going to want to work with your office marketing department or an online resource to order custom business cards, branded open house signs and note cards you can write and mail out (more on that below).
Search online different design options that cater to your style. Simply Google “Branded Real Estate Open House Signs.” Click images at the top and email them to your point of contact.
You will want to work on getting these completed by the end of the day. Put pressure on who you are working with to get things moving along and ordered. We have to keep the momentum moving forward.
Create Your Company
New real estate agents need to ensure this is ran like a business. If your state allows for it, be sure to read the laws regarding it and incorporate.
You can hire an attorney and an accountant to assist you with this. In the state of Florida it has to be your full legal name (IE – YourName LLC). In Florida you can set up your own fairly simple online for $138 at SunBiz.
Set Up Your Accounting System / Bank Accounts
This can be as easy initially as using an excel spreadsheet. FREE SAMPLE HERE. Also you want to set up corporate bank accounts that will include an operating account and tax account for IRS.
Read this entire website and follow my YouTube Channel
My goal is to give first year and new real estate agents my all in writing this content from my past experiences, failures and successes.
Why not learn from a real guy and a real Broker? So, review all the content throughout this site and be sure to watch all of our videos on how to help first year real estate agents succeed.
Someone just walked into my open house?!
Great! You are “killing 2 birds with one stone.” You are getting experience and getting things done. Don’t stress it. This is your first jump start to learning real estate sales.
You can’t do this from home or in an office necessarily. That is why I highly encourage you to do work from the open house. Talk to them as if they were family coming over. Invite them in. Again, don’t worry about “selling” them. Your main goal is to simply get in the process of asking questions. The name of the game is asking questions. So Ask Questions.
Sample Questions For First Year Real Estate Agents
Do you live in the area?
Where are you from? (Remember not all people coming into the open house are buyers. Many times they are potential sellers trying to get an idea of competition before they list their home. We have secured many listings this way).
How long have you been looking for a home?
What type of home are you looking for?
What do you like / dislike about this home?
Is this home a potential contender or can I show you others that fit your needs?
Day 2 –
Start with your open house
Follow the same steps above in preparing for the open house. Today you will likely feel a little more comfortable and confident. Why? Because you are a first year real estate agent out in the public.
So, nice work and congratulations on making it to day two! If you didn’t get much action, reach out to your broker again and find a different house to hold open.
Follow Up
You are going to work on following up on everything from day one above. Business cards, Bank Accounts, Etc. Making sure thing are in motion and getting completed. Create a checklist for all pending items that still need to be worked on.
You are also going to follow up with any prospective buyers or sellers that came in.
Call them “Hey this is Steve with Maxim Realtors. You stopped by my open house yesterday. I just wanted to follow up to see if I could get some feedback from you to provide to the seller.”
Thereafter ask more questions and see if you can set a time to show other properties. “It sounds like this property doesn’t work for you. However, I have some others that may interest you. Would you like to see them later today or would tomorrow be better?”
First Year Real Estate Agents Must Build Their Sphere Of Influence
Follow step by step the following article How To Build Your Real Estate Agent Sphere Of Influence. This is the lifeblood of your real estate business. You will get the most traction and sales immediately by following this system step by step.
As a first year real estate agent, this is the easiest source to get business quickly.
Day 3
Follow All Above.
Yes. Follow everything above and hold another open house.
Go through your check list and ensure things are getting completed. Continue to work on your Sphere Of Influence. There are more people to add to it that you are not thinking about…
Go through your phone, email addresses and social media accounts.
First Year Real Estate Agent Must Focus On A Niche Market
New real estate agents are lost and scattered most times. You have to narrow down your focus. Do not be a jack of all trades in real estate.
Become great at 1-2 niche target markets. Outside of your Sphere of course.
What are these markets?
Go through our list of 52 Niche Markets For New Real Estate Agents. Go step by step and read each one. It is so extremely important to concentrate on a Niche that you are going to enjoy working. The last thing you want to do as a new real estate agent is to get into this business and despise it.
Finding the right market to target will take some time but choose wisely. Once you have it, Google or YouTube everything you possibly can on the topic. Also, type the topic in the search bar at the top and see if we have a more in depth article on it.
And… My goal is to do a video on almost every niche. So be sure to Subscribe to our channel below.
Day 4
Schedule For First Year Real Estate Agents
Go to What Is The Work Schedule Of A New Real Estate Agent. Developing a schedule for yourself is vital to your success. By following New Real Estate Agent Advice – Jump Start First 5 Days, you already have gotten accustomed to a schedule.
So keep at it! Follow the plan from that article and stick to it. If you neglect or let other people dictate your schedule then how will you get consistent results? You won’t.
However, if you plan to do 5-6 open houses a week, it is inevitable you will get leads and start closing deals.
If you do 5-6 open houses a week for 2 weeks then stopped, what will happen? I think you can answer that. So as a new real estate agent, just stick to the schedule and you will be fine! You will see the results. Just have the belief and it will come your way.
Day 5 –
Commit
This was a simple process for your first week as a new real estate agent, right? Great job if you are on Day 5 and followed this step by step. You should be proud as this shows that you have committed yourself to success!
Moving forward on week #2, you have freedom. So don’t get lazy. Follow these steps again using your schedule you created. Remember your schedule doesn’t have to be filled in for the entire day / week. Just the important aspects like your morning routine and the income producing activities.
Day 5 you will want to do all the follow up items above. But also, I want you to take 10 minutes and picture yourself making your first commission check.
Picture yourself as a successful real estate agent. Picture yourself achieving your top 2 goals you have dreamed about. And now commit to yourself and your loved ones that you will stick to your schedule.
Under no circumstances will you veer away from it. Under no circumstance will you let failure detract you from being consistent. Rather take it as a learning experience. Under no circumstances will you allow yourself to get lazy or complacent.
The answers are all here on this site. The strategies and the step by step procedures are here. Keep reading multiple times.
Have you ever watched a movie more than once?
I personally am not big into movies or TV. More so YouTube and reading. But when a good movie comes along like Wolf of Wall Street, I will watch is a couple times.
What happens is, you will catch something that you didn’t see the first time. Or you may think a little differently about a scene after watching it a second time. Has this ever happened to you?
This is the same for reading. Read and reread the content on this site. Pick up some of the recommended books. Read and reread them. You will pick up more ideas and your thought processes on certain topics will change and evolve.
Just like the book Rich Dad Poor Dad. A book that changed my financial picture forever. I truly have the option to not have to work any longer. Something I will not do because I love selling real estate, buying and flipping real estate and I love to provide content like this site to help others.
I have the true freedom now just by reading and rereading. Not to mention playing the Cash Flow Game for hours on end. Yes there were plenty of times where I had doubt. Didn’t know where my next check was going to come from. But I can tell you one thing that is my go to every time is reading and rereading powerful books and content.
As always, if you feel the content in these articles are helping you as a new real estate agent, please share with others. Thank you!