Anyone Can Sell Real Estate

Real estate agents – you either love us or hate us. We are the greatest people on Earth when we get that deal together for you as either a property buyer or seller or we are lower than the low when things aren’t going in your favour, the market has hit a snag, or a boom for that matter. And apparently we have magical super powers to control the market and make people buy property if they talk to us for too long. Newsflash, people: it’s not easy. It’s not rocket science either, but like any profession – you either have what it takes or you don’t.

This misconception that being an agent is an easy, glamorous job and all you need to do is pop your For Sale sign in the ground and watch the buyers clamour for your attention while the money rolls in, couldn’t be further from the truth. Yep it can definitely be fun, and you can make awesome money at times, but every deal is different, they definitely don’t just fall in your lap and many will suck the life out of you and make you no money. Any agent willing to admit to it out there will agree – so you have to take the good with the bad, like all things in life.

I haven’t got a clue how to be a truck driver, surgeon or ambulance officer… but after almost 14 years in the game, I reckon I know a little about real estate. And I also know that every career requires a certain work and moral ethic, knowledge through training and experience, and the right intentions from the start. My mentor gave me the best advice I could have gotten very early on in my career – “Start the way you want to finish.” It’s something I now pass on myself.  

My point in this story is that behind what the public may think a real estate agents life and work is like, the reality is more often very different from the perception. I’d like to think my take on what it is to be a real estate salesperson will offer the following things for Joe Public to think about: 1) Offer some clarity to anyone with an opinion on agents, their worth and what they do to earn their money, and 2) Give a high five to those agents out there who are rocking a career many wouldn’t look at twice (even more so after reading some of these home truths)

For starters, ask yourself if these sound like something you’d be happy to take on in your career:

Am I prepared to work 7 days a week and be available all hours of the day, early evening (and a lot of nights) for my client and customer calls, appointments, emails, contract negotiations, home advice, financial and legal follow up, building and pest inspections, second, third and “just to measure up the fridge with Aunty Mary so she can have a look” inspections? I’m sure there are more but I got tired just thinking of these and took a client call at 7.42pm while writing this.

Am I self-motivated & organised enough to be self-employed? Because even though you might have a boss, they aren’t going out there to find the business and then do the work for you.

Can I afford to work my butt off… and not expect to be paid for a month? Two or three months? Or not at all after putting in a couple of months work for a client who takes the property off the market or the deal goes belly up through no fault of yours, legitimate or not?

Am I able to multi-task and juggle numerous clients at once, and at the same time, not allow my career to consume my life and drive me and my family absolutely nuts?

Would you be happy to jump for a customer who absolutely cannot see your product at any other time than the one they have specified, after promising you that it will totally be worth your while to reschedule your entire diary as “This is the one” or “Don’t you want a guaranteed sale”, only to have them disappear off the face of the Earth the following day and lose the ability to answer or return your phone call after being so very wordy in convincing you they are ready to buy it today with the “finance approval” they got off the internet questionnaire?

Do you like people or at the very least, can you ACT like you like people? (see above) Could you possibly obtain a sideline degree in psychology for some of those people?

You have to be able to answer yes to all of the above if you want to continue the story. This is a very demanding and stressful industry.

Then there’s the whole money perception. The notion that agents make tons of money and work very little is WRONG. If Joe Public jumped into this game thinking they were walking into a motza of moolah, then after the shock of a dose of reality in the first six months, if they made it that far, they’d soon realise that if you didn’t meet the above criteria of a successful agent, then working a salaried or wage job is where it’s at. Because that provides a guaranteed pay packet and they’d work a lot less hours – a lot less. Depending on many different factors, you could make 50 cents an hour or $500 an hour by the time you get to settlement day of your deal. Every deal is different and there are no easy deals. In most instances, the office owner will also get a chunk of the salesperson’s commission (we call it “The Success Fee” – you don’t get paid if you don’t get a result), to help pay their office costs, rent, employee wages, superannuation, insurances etc. The ATO also takes their cut, and you need to set aside money for your own expenses like fuel, personal promotion, the love/hate phone that lives by your side, and those weeks or months that you might not be doing it as easy as everyone who isn’t an agent, tells you it is

Let’s look at an example:

You sell a home for $300,000.

Let’s say your commission is 3%. That’s $9,000.

Take off the GST and in most cases the office you work for takes half for their expenses to keep you employed. Now you’re left with $4050.

Let’s say you pay approximately 30% of that in tax (or $1215), and now you’re left with $2835.

Oops, nearly forgot. You worked your butt off for two months for this deal (Average days on market is 99 days at the time of writing but let’s be a little generous). You spent countless hours preparing sale documentation, on the phone & sending emails/faxes to your seller, the buyer, mortgage broker, solicitors, council, building and pest inspector, any contractors required etc. Physically attending follow up or contract inspections, showing Mum, Dad & Uncle Bob (who will tell you that their niece or nephew have paid too much because they sold a house 15 years ago and “know how real estate works”) and to measure up something and check if the curtains will match the couch. Five hours a week would be a safe estimate, so that would be a total of 40 hours of your time.

So, not too bad — about $70 an hour! Oh, sorry – I forgot the 100 hours you spent in the beginning to find and secure the listing, and then the buyer, when you were letterbox dropping, marketing yourself to find your clients, initially talking to the client, being interviewed against an average 2 – 3 other agents to get the business, putting together your promotional, appraisal and market reports, putting documentation together, organising photography, signage, more letterbox drops to promote it, putting all the property marketing write up together for online, social media and print advertising within the client’s budget, running searches in your database and calling potential buyers for the property plus dealing with the ones who call as a result of that marketing, replying to emails to answer questions, setting up inspections and showing the property to anywhere from 2 – 40 potential buyers, sifting through the serious ones and the tyre kickers who struggle to work out how to return a call. By the way, this was spread over six weekends and you spent your entire Saturday and Sunday working. Finish up with at least 8 more hours of the after settlement process of finalising the sale, pulling everything down, setting up your future contact processes and following up with the buyer and seller in the following weeks, months and years to make sure everyone is still happy after all their stress of this process.

So, with all time spent from start to finish – which in this example is 148 hours, and you made a total $2835. Do the numbers – you got paid $19 an hour. Not bad, but hardly glamorous either for over two months’ work. Whoops. Forgot the $150 you spent on fuel, the 10% ($283.50) that’s suggested to set aside to re-invest into your business, promotion, and tools of the trade so that’s another $433.50 you spent – now you’re down to about $16 an hour. Still not horrible, definitely not deserving of the “easy money” tag agents are lumped with. The hard work paid off but keep in mind you started the selling process for this deal over two months before it came together and it took at least a month later to get paid. And now you can pay your own personal bills, eat, mortgage or rent and hopefully get involved in those pesky networking events to keep some momentum around your business.

If you’re still not convinced, keep reading.

In order to maintain a successful career, you will need to be certified (different to the crazy we spoke of earlier). It’s not exactly PhD stuff but you do need to gain your qualifications, maintain them regularly, keep up with changing laws, rules and regulations and participate in regular training in the latest real estate trends, marketing ideas, systems and tools to stay on your game and ahead of your competition. You need to promote yourself constantly. Some cold call. Some letter box drop. Some doorknock. Some are networking gurus. The great ones find time to do some, all and more of these. Half of people fail at this point because they realize that they actually have to put in effort now to look for clients. Something like 80% of agents don’t make it past their first year in the business – that’s a sobering number. Business will NOT come to you – you must be looking for it, asking for it from everyone you know. Every day. And then if you’re trying to take a day off, everyone you talk to wants to know “How’s the market going?” If you’re too shy to have that conversation with someone you just met or to give them your business card and confidently ask them to call you for a spectacular real estate service, then real estate ain’t for you. You need confidence and an outgoing personality.

The best description I’ve seen of people who will be a successful real estate agent is “People who are outgoing self-starters who thrive in a fast-paced environment where the scenery and schedule always change. And they do it with a smile on their face while making it look easy. You need to be able to roll with change gracefully and accept working like a madman for a month or two non-stop, as well as knowing that you could be without work for a month or two non-stop. You are your own boss. You are your own accountant. You are your own secretary, bookkeeper, appointment scheduler, customer service department, IT department, PR department… all while assisting potential clients buying or selling their homes. And you have to have a little bit of the crazy about you – you know, to maintain your sanity.”

Try taking a holiday when you have a few clients needing you! If time-management and organisation aren’t your strong suits, you will run yourself ragged. You still have to be there for your family, take time for yourself and fit in community, volunteer or sporting commitments as well.

Don’t get me wrong, most agents LOVE what they do and when business is good, life is great because the great ones have spent countless hours, days weeks and years honing their craft to become successful in any market – and they’re the ones you will see through the good times and bad. Easy money? Glamourous lifestyle? Sometimes, but more often the hard yards, personal and financial sacrifice, and a go-getter attitude to success for themselves and the people we are privileged to steer through what is one of the most expensive and emotional life events of home ownership, is what makes an agent a very unique breed of person. And undeserving for the majority of agents who cop the flack the industry seems to attract for the sins of a minor few. I hope you’ve enjoyed a small snapshot into the life of an agent. There really is much more to it – and to the wonderful people in our industry who are there to help you with all your real estate needs.

**Shane McLeod is the Gladstone RE/MAX franchise owner and Sales Director at RE/MAX Gold Gladstone. He is a born and bred local with over 14 years in the real estate industry and a well-respected community member. Visit REMAX Gold Gladstone