New real estate agents

[Roberto Rivera]

I'm getting my real estate license in Michigan this year. My question is what should be my main focus in the first 6 months? And for seasoned agents, what was the biggest mistake in the first 6 months of your career?

[Russell Holmes]

@Roberto Rivera My advice isn't coming from a seasoned veteran, I've only been a Realtor about 3 years. But long enough to know what I'd have done differently the first 6 months. Some good advice above about getting yourself out there, so I won't repeat those.

One huge one: Be honest with yourself about what type of real estate you're interested in, and hone in on learning everything you can about that. You don't have to sell big homes to make a lot of money.  Some would never want a $150-200k buyer when $400k pays more. I'd personally rather work with an investor than a $500k homebuyer.   We also just got a 1031 buyer under contract on four new homes under $200k at the same time.  That $735k 'deal' is WAY more enjoyable for us to help deploy than somebody extremely finicky picking out a $735k house.  I've had others buy and contract deals back to back.  Homeowners don't do that. I've sold houses from $80k to $425k and the biggest headaches are on the $350k+ properties.

  I became active on Bigger Pockets in 2017 while running a non-real estate service business with my wife.  I asked stupid questions, read more than I can remember, and learned an absolutely incredible amount from other investors and agents within this BP community. Then I got to a point of becoming licensed to jump in and get involved.   At the same time, the "Realtor Industry" is really set up to pull you towards what everyone does:  Market profusely and cold call endlessly to get those over-median-priced listings that everyone else is chasing in this career with a quite low barrier to entry. Or be a buyers agent for a top producing agent like that and earn money but not learn much about listing. Doing that you're competing against both the seasoned veterans with huge market share as well as the fast paced training environments of some brokerages in town.

I did a little of that, I dropped some money on marketing, I sent Realtor-y post cards, I made several hundred cold calls.  What I realized was that while those and many other methods are very truly productive for some, they just weren't 'me'.  I felt out of my element putting out this "Buy a home with me" vibe everywhere.  I connected better with BP investor mindset than I did the SALES-SALES-SALES vibe of many office teams. 

A wheel doesn't need a million spokes, but it likely needs at least three.  You don't need to be good at all lead gen methods, nobody is.  But you should be good at more than just one or two. If you go through five or six to find your best two or three, that's fine.    Out of the hundreds of ways to build a transactional business, don't get shiny object syndrome and try to do them all.  I did get a listing from a cold call, so proof of concept was there but the hours of phone calls after felt anti-productive to me. I know others who close 20+ deals a year on their cold calls alone.  Same with open houses, sponsoring local sports teams, etc.  They all work for someone, but it doesn't mean it's 'your niche'.

I'm with a brokerage with great training, I utilized a lot of it early on.  This isn't about brokerage, whoever you join you want to make sure their training suits what you're looking for in the nuts and bolts of how to close deals. That could be a brokerage training system or could be linking up with a great team or agent to train you personally. But if you're here on Bigger Pockets asking, you might not be looking to be smiling on every bus bench working only in the retail real estate realm.

I got licensed in 2/2018, my wife got licensed in 2/2019.  In 6/2019 we closed up shop with a service business we were doing well at to go full time in Real Estate.  We work from home, we hunt deals, and many of our clients are out of state buying homes based on videos and emails. The locals are local investors we've met in some way through the BP network, or sphere of influence folks we've known from before.  We don't 'buy leads', we don't 'cold call'.  Honestly the vast majority of our leads come from people finding me here on BP, often digging up an old post I wrote as a new Realtor or not even licensed yet.

  The secret to 'getting leads' on Bigger Pockets is, there is no tip or trick.  You can't self promote here, you can't blast your services out there saying "use me" every time your city pops up.   People you see with huge post counts and low vote counts aren't adding value.  You have to almost completely forget the 'lead gen' aspect to both get and give value within the BP community and let people looking for you seek you out. Research and share interesting data or projects about your market. Ask questions on topic threads that are of interest. I was reached out to recently by the leader of my town's Chamber of Commerce about a post I made here on how cool our little town was....two years ago. Luckily she approved of the message...whew.   It's a long game.

Connect with other local investors, brokers, PMs, realtors, etc. I just closed a sixplex with local investors I know from a local meetup group, one of whom has a Realtor license but I brought value to the deal through my previous due diligence so I earned the commission. A BRRRR I just completed with a JV partner was first under contract for another investor I met at the local meetup and we picked it up when he wanted to exit. Our JV cash partner was my very first client back in 2018 who also found me on BP. Over time I've then become so busy at times that I haven't plugged back in to BP in awhile since I'm out in the field doing deals. Then I'll feel the pull and dive back in on forums.

I can't possibly respond to everyone who reaches out though I wish I could.  I can't find deals that meet everyone's needs either.  But I do all that I can.  When starting out, seeing all that paid advertising, paid social, paid leads, etc turned me off completely but felt pressure that it was the only way....it's not.  We send some targeted direct mail to off market leads, not blanket every-door-direct-mail with pictures of our family and pets on glossy cardstock.  You might seek out something in between my anti-paid-lead methods and full on Zillow Premier agent, but every Realtor ends up with a niche of some sort.  The faster you work to find and excel in that niche, the more people will seek you out for it and the less you'll have to market.

Just my $0.02 for what it's worth, nothing negative against anyone who does use the methods I don't and sees success!