11 Ways to Predict Your Success in 2011 Real Estate

This year was hardly a banner year—again—for most real estate agents. The question is, will you mire in this or will you break out of these doldrums in 2011 and be successful?

Here are some guidelines for predicting your real estate success in 2011:
1. If you think the term social media is just a reporter who’s really friendly, you are definitely setting yourself up for failure.
2.  If you are still in Agent Shell-Shock Mode, wondering where in the world it all went wrong, you are in the wrong mindset to help yourself or your clients. While what happened to the real estate market and our nation’s economy sucks, it’s still something you have to learn to work with and around.
3. If you are still sitting on the sidelines, waiting for the market to improve before you really roll up your shirt sleeves and get to work… the market is changing  and passing you by—perhaps forever.
4. If you think there will be some magical sign overnight indicating the economy and the job market are suddenly back to normal, you will be disappointed. Recessions don’t typically work that way and this one, in particular, is breaking all the molds for how recessions behave. Americans love instant gratification but that won’t be happening here.
5.  If you don’t see the need to step out of your comfort zone to learn and master new market niches (such as short sales, REOs, real estate investment, rental properties), others in your office and city will be light years ahead of you.
6. If you are resisting new marketing strategies or don’t have a clue how to implement and monitor their returns, 2011 will be more of the same for you.
7. If you still think all you have to do is list a property, put a for sale sign in the yard and enter the listing in MLS for the offers to just flow in, you are living in the 1990s. Agents today use video, recorded messages, place the listing on multiple sites, often create a custom site just for that listing, e-mail, utilize social media to promote the listing, and much, much more.
8. If you think buyers and sellers already know the ins and outs of completing a transaction, you are giving them too much credit. Between how much things have changed with things like financing and the many changes in real estate, it’s your job to step up and educate them on what’s possible, what’s legal, what to expect, what to pay, what to look for and so much more. For instance, buying a short sale or REO is a much different and lengthy process than a traditional sale. Be glad you need to be the educator, it’s part of what makes a real estate agent so essential in any transaction.
9. And what about keeping yourself updated and relevant to today’s market? The Internet is a powerful learning tool. You are reading this article on www.ShortSaleDailyNews.com, but have you filled out the quickie, free opt-in box to get the convenient Daily Headline News e-mail from the site? Or what about our sister site, www.CreativeRealEstateDaily.com? We’ve been adding articles there and plan to have a Daily Headline News email go out starting in early 2011, listing the day’s top four news stories. Receiving either of these will also keep you informed of the regular, freebie webinars we have on topics that matter to Realtors. Keep up on your industry or it will pass you by. Information is power.
10. If you think simply having a website is enough, you are, again, out-of-date. Worse yet, if you posted a website four years ago and have never changed a single word of it since, you need to send out a real estate S.O.S. immediately. Content on sites needs to be added, changed and updated extremely regularly. It helps with your search engine ranking and speaks to your credibility to potential buyers and sellers. You need to demonstrate that you are up-to-speed on the latest happenings in real estate.
11. If you don’t have at least four ways for a potential new client to contact you, it screams out-of-date and out-of-touch. Business cards (and your e-mail signature) need to be crammed with ways to be reached—office number, cell, e-mail, Twitter address, website address, Facebook and LinkedIn information, to name just a handful of possibilities.

So how did you do with the examples above? If you read even two of the 11 and recognized yourself, it’s time to make immediate changes. To your real estate success in 2011!