Carving out a career in real estate can be satisfying and rewarding. However, it’s also a bit of a strain. You can feel like you’re treading water rather than making meaningful progress.
The solution is to look for other opportunities.
You’ll want to mix up your skills and strategies whenever you hit a plateau. Listed below are a few tips to give you that boost you need to elevate your real estate career.
1. Complete additional accreditation courses.
The more qualifications you have under your belt, the higher you can climb the ladder to real estate success.
For example, if you are currently licensed as an agent, it makes sense to set your sights on becoming a fully accredited broker. Once you do this, you can start your own brokerage and hire other agents to work under you.
But even if you’re not actively pursuing accreditation, you should always be reading, watching videos, and learning. For example, do you know what an assignment of contract means? How about the principle of progression?
2. Move into transaction coordination.
Speaking of taking an entrepreneurial approach to this industry, you could also start your own real estate transaction coordination company.
This is ideal if you’re a big fan of wrangling complex transactions. That complexity is part and parcel of every property deal.
It’s also a service that consistently has a lot of demand to keep it afloat. This could be a viable alternative to launching your own brokerage.
3. Choose a particular market niche.
Sometimes you can spread yourself too thin when working in real estate. Far too many try to cater to as many clients and customers as possible to the detriment of their success.
One solution is to specialize. Focus your attention on a particular audience or demographic with which you have found an affinity.
This might mean moving more toward the commercial end of the market, finding spaces for businesses to buy or rent. It might mean lending your support to first-time buyers, building a reputation as someone who can steer youngsters through their first home purchase with ease.
It might mean veering toward clients seeking luxury homes. That market may be slower but the commission payments are sizable.
4. Take every opportunity that comes your way.
Having just mentioned commission, it’s necessary to discuss exactly what this means for real estate professionals, particularly with regards to career progression.
If you’re always obsessing over high-value sales that will net you the biggest payout as a percentage, you might miss out on opportunities to steward lower-value deals. As such, you should quash the temptation to only put your best efforts into the most significant deals.
Treat every transaction as an excuse to show customers what you can do. You never know where this unfussy approach might lead you!
5. Emphasize and improve your communication skills.
Effective communication should be at the core of any successful real estate agent. This could well be the thing that’s holding you back if you’re not up to speed with client expectations.
You need to be responsive when people get in touch with you. You also need to be proactive about following up on the results of previous interactions.
The worst thing you can do is procrastinate to the point that clients feel like you are ignoring them.
Of course, you will need to strike a balance. If you go too far in the other direction, it can make you seem desperate.
6. Use social media to your advantage.
Following on from exploring the influence that communication skills hold over a career in real estate, it also pays to make an effort to foster a presence on social media.
At this point, it’s a given that your real estate business needs a solid, professional website to connect with clients. However, in the age of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, you also must master the social networking sphere.
A good way to go about this is to look at how other established agents and brokers are using social media to their advantage. Learning from those who are doing it right is better than stumbling blindly into it on your own.
Your clients and customers may already be talking about your business on social platforms. Obviously, you can only be part of the conversation if you’re also occupying the same spaces.
7. Do your research.
If you want to earn word-of-mouth recommendations — and ideally collect more clients for your real estate business — then you need to be well informed.
This means that you should research the market you operate in thoroughly. It also means that you need to be on the ball when it comes to providing details about the properties in your portfolio.
8. Work with a mentor.
Lastly, if you’re still struggling to break out of your current role, it can be helpful to link up with a suitable mentor. Find someone who has more experience in the real estate game. Ask if they are willing to impart their knowledge to you.
Your employer may already have this type of mentorship scheme in place. If not, you can still take an informal approach, learning the ropes with the guidance of a real estate veteran.
