Starting a career in real estate! L

[Danzic Knaub]

Hey guys! I’d kind of like to see what y’all would do in my position. I’m sorry for the long read, but I’d appreciate the input.

I just passed my real estate exam in Colorado.!! I’m stoked for the next few years. I’ve been doing research about a lot of brokerages and what to do to start this ball rolling.

Some things about me now.. I work at a restaurant right now making around 40k a year working Thursday-Sunday 7am-3pm. I have been with this place for over five years and within the last year I have been growing a desire to just quit. I’m burnt out on it and I want to turn a career in real estate into my new income source.

Right now I don’t have much as far as financial responsibilities, maybe 1000 per month conservatively. I just got rid of a lot of my student debt and everything so I don’t have much saved, maybe around 3-4K.

My first question is what are typical hours for a new real estate agent? I’m motivated and ready to work as much as I can to hit the ground running. I’ve been seeing that most real estate agents maintain a second job for the first few years, what hours would this second job have to be to work well? My primary focus and concern would be hours worked as a real estate agent.

Good brokerages to work for at first? I heard Keller Williams is very good for the education that they offer.

I’m sorry for the long long post but I would very much appreciate some input! And any other word of advice would be awesome. Thanks guys!!

[Irene Nash]

Hey Danzic,

Congrats on passing the exam and embarking on your new career!

I think your current job, which I understand you're totally sick of, has hours that are pretty good in terms of working around your new real estate career. I'm not sure if you're considering keeping that job or if you're inquiring about how to structure a different job around your real estate hours, but using your current work schedule:

- Most people work regular hours and want to see houses in the evenings and on weekends. Seeing as you're done at 3 pm even on weekends and don't work Monday-Wed, I think that leaves a lot of quality 'real estate' time. The main bummer is that it will be hard to hold open houses for other agents (to pick up buyers) because of the Sunday afternoon work time. Any chance you could get off earlier on a weekend day?

- In terms of how much time you spend, one thing that is super helpful to do from the beginning to increase the ROI of any time you spend is to work 'smart' by capitalizing on everything that you have and acquire in terms of connections with prospects and people you already know. Most new agents get told they need to cold call every day, but virtually ignore their SOI (sphere of influence, people who already know, like and trust them) and/or have no working plan in place to connect with these people and new prospects regularly in a way that shows the agent's expertise. It's not an overnight thing, but it's like putting money in a high-interest account and increasing that interest at regular intervals along the way - it's HUGE over time.

So practically, this means:

- Letting your SOI know you're in real estate now and would appreciate their business and referrals.

- Finding a comfortable, 'you' way of asking people for referrals in a relaxed manner, so it doesn't feel weird. And then throwing that out there a lot.

- Ask for referrals in a PS in your emails and also in your voice mail greeting, so it's automated. (For some reason we generally just don't like to ask for referrals.)

- Communicate with your SOI twice a month, can vary between email/postcards/something else. I like the Brian Buffini method of using things that demonstrate competence and character at the same time (I don't personally use his marketing but I think that's a great concept.)

- Start early on getting exposed to higher end properties by going to open houses, looking at how they're marketed, etc. I don't mean super high end, which would typically not be realistic for most newer agents, but simply 1.5 to 2 times the price range that you may find yourself starting with if you end up working with a lot of first-time buyers. In 5 to 7 years they'll be using you to sell their first home and buy another one in the higher price range anyway, so don't do what I did and wait 5 to 7 years to get comfortable with higher price points, it's years of potential income lost.

Yes you still have to work hard and put in the hours, but any question about hours relates strongly to the ROI you get on those hours, which in my experience can be greatly increased by those things I mentioned.

If you stick with your current job for a while it may relieve a lot of pressure and allow you to grow in real estate without feeling under the gun. (I'm no stranger to the restaurant business and can understand why you're ready to move on. :) That being said, I don't know any agents who have stayed with a second job for years, I think I'd be looking at keeping it 6 months and then re-evaluating in terms of time, income, stress, etc.

I hope this helps, good luck!

Cheers,

Irene