All Forum Posts by: Sean O'Dowd

Hey there!

I am in the process of wrapping up 3 different licenses in 3 different states. However, I run a TC company so I cover all of those states :)

If helpful, very few agents have licenses in multiple states and those who do typically run a distinct strategy of primary home and vacation home. For example in your situation, that would be someone who buys a primary residence in NY but also wants to work with you to buy a winter home in Florida

Essentially, it's getting double sales from one client. This can definitely be a huge income producer, but only works with luxury buyers who are buying multiple homes

I'm on the TC side of things, but I highly recommend Mercury as a business account. We use it here and it's fantastic, it also makes things very easy on tax season

haha no worries :)

Honestly, conflict studies is a great idea for real estate prep!

Hey Chelsea! Welcome to real estate

So, I'll be 100% honest. I've worked in real estate for years, and we are a transaction coordination company, so we see a TON of contracts...orders of magnitudes higher than any one agent

I have never once come across a mediator used to settle a real estate dispute

I have see arbitration, where a decision is made in (typically) one day outside of a court room. However, arbitration is almost always presided over by a retired judge

I'd recommend Hemlane; they have a ton of functionality and can handle repairs for you

It's been a fairly steady decline since 60 days ago. 

Almost all are within ~5% of list price, so there is definitely a tight bunching around list price. 

Said differently, offering list is now a competitive offer. 60 days ago, offering list was't very competitive

I think the volume of transactions is about the same, but the price delta to homes sold above list has dropped dramatically

For context: I'm CEO of a transaction coordination company. We see a lot of files across a ton of agents across multiple states.

Roughly 60 days ago, 100% of the files our company were working on were homes under contract above list price. It's the first time I've ever seen that before

Now, it's about ~20% of our files are transactions that are under contract above list. It's been a HUGE drop

I'll take the opposite answer here: I don't think you need a website to just get started. 

A website is solely a "credibility" thing. If your goal is to generate leads, then Google My Business, FB, Instagram, even Pintrest are better bets!

Welcome to real estate!

I'm CEO of a TC company so see LOTS of agents. The short answer is, the agents who succeed are the ones who hustle the most. Our clients answer their phone when clients call at 11pm. If there's a CMA that needs to run then, they'll do it that night instead of waiting for the morning

This is especially important, because to your point, the bar to entry is really low. That means being the agent who out-hustles is how you differentiate!

I've seen agents try to do this but it never ends well. As Rick said, you need to split with a broker, so working with multiple brokerages would limit the split

The residential vs commercial brokerage is the big exception, as others have noted. For example, KW has both residential and commercial.