All Forum Posts by: Brett Pirie

I would also add this: go get involved in Construction in some way....make friends with a GC, hang around job-sites, volunteer with Habitat For Humanity or similar....even attend the Home Depot weekend classes. If you even understand the bare bones of how houses are built, you will have a HUGE advantage over your fellow Realtors and especially buyers.

Habitat for Humanity is an excellent idea! Years ago I had planned on volunteering with them to gain construction experience and then moved half way across the country and life happened...you know the story. I didn't think they were active in my area, but I just looked them up and they are more active here than I thought. Making friends with a GC is great as well. I have a met a few around me and getting to know them better would help me learn a ton. I've always done my own house maintenance and did a remodel of one house, opening up the kitchen/dining/living room areas. I feel that house knowledge is one area as a new real estate sales person that I excel at. I know the basics of how houses are built. I love looking at houses figuring out how they work, there are some crazy things I've seen out there!

Selling the LLC instead of the house is an interesting idea. That's the kind of out of the box thinking that's fun.

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Thanks @Bruce Woodruff! Your points and story are incredibly helpful. My takeaways: listen to my clients, be humble (they probably know more than me) and assist them. I like your point about business people will know tricks that I don't that can be applied to real estate.

1 Vote

Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:

I was just discussing this with a friend a couple days ago. Remember back in 'the old days' when the MLS was the only access to properties, and it came out every week as a paper magazine, Lol......!

Back then, a Realtor had to actually work at ther job. If you were a buyer and wanted a certain type of property, the only access to these would be the Realtor and their MLS bible. And seller's Realtors had to really work hard to push their client's properties out there to the public and prospective buyers.

Now, I find all they do is list your place on the MLS and sit back and wait for a call. And Buyer's Agents.....in my last several experiences, of my own and friends, relatives, etc....it is usually the buyer that finds the property nowadays. They all look on Zillow'Etc (the MLS is actually inferior in many ways IMO) find a property and have the Agent get them inside the house. All the agent does is submit the offer, escrow provides all of the prompts, and Docusign makes it so easy. Then the Agent picks up thousands for basically doing nothing.

I rarely if ever use a Realtor anymore.....it's just too easy and they are not needed. A great Realtor is still worth their weight in gold though, but IMO, they are only 10 - 20%...

From your experience, what makes a Realtor worth their weight in gold? I'm working on getting my license in New York state and am curious what it is I can do to be worth my weight in gold.

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Thanks for your help, Fred!

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Upstate New York, New York

I'm working on buying a duplex in Troy that needs some porch work. It may be a complete rebuild including roof or repairing it might be an option. It's a large wrap around porch. I've called a half dozen places I found on Angie's List, but I really don't know much about them. Does anyone here have any good contractor recommendations for this type of work in Troy?

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Upstate New York, New York

@Michael S. done and done. Thanks for your help!

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@Michael S. thanks for your help. I cleared the cache and cookies from Chrome as well as logging in from Firefox and Safari, but I still can't post to the sub-forums. If I'm the only one with this problem, I'll just chalk it up to user error and move on.

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@Michael S. thanks for the update, but it's still not working for me. The local real estate sub-forums are still not an option for picking a forum category in the drop down menu.

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@Michael S. any word on getting the bug fixed?

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Thanks @Michael S.!

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All Forum Posts by: Brett Pirie

Brett Pirie has started 7 posts and replied 48 times.

Post: Comically Bad Realtors

Post: Comically Bad Realtors

Post: Comically Bad Realtors

Post: Contractor recommendations in Troy, NY for porch work?

Post: Contractor recommendations in Troy, NY for porch work?

Post: How to start a discussion in a sub-forum?

Post: How to start a discussion in a sub-forum?

Post: How to start a discussion in a sub-forum?

Post: How to start a discussion in a sub-forum?

Post: How to start a discussion in a sub-forum?