If you are looking for a different and more specialized sales career like becoming a real estate agent or real estate broker, you probably think it is all about houses, walks around the city and more houses. This may be true but the reality of real estate business is deeper than visiting houses. Let's see some basic characteristics and principles that all the agents of real Estate live.
According to the Department of Labor, in 2002 there were almost 100,000 jobs for brokers and more than 300,000 jobs for agents. With these figures, the projection of the number of real Estate jobs is for them to grow more slowly than other jobs by the year 2012. The reason for this is that technologies like Internet allows clients to search by themselves the house and omit the help of the agent or broker. But also, Department of Labor assures that real Estate career will always be needed while the population and new houses increase.
A salaried real estate agent could earn from $15,000 to $83,000 annually. In the case of the brokers, one broker could earn per year form $17,000 up to $145,000.
But the work of the real estates agents and brokers is not an easy matter. Agents usually work for a real estate broker. The broker is an independent business dedicated to sell proprieties of other owners. Both broker and agents work for commissions. And both run the business through two mainly concepts: time and clients.
Time is a flexible and highly valuable matter for real estate business. Professionals in real estate are used to work on weekends and evenings because they work in function of the client possibilities. Time is spent on the long and different place where the houses or properties are. Time is also invested in the finding of the best houses lists according to the profile of the clients they manage.
So, time must be used wisely. A crucial characteristic to become a successful real estate professional is to be organized with your time. Scheduling and putting priorities and tasks for each day is highly important to harvest the best commissions.
Clients are very important. Before seeking and studying clients, real estates agents must define their own service profile. What kind of real estate service do you want to give? Most of the real estate professionals work in residential properties, but also there are fields like the industrial, commercial or agricultural real estates options. But all brokers and agents must learn all about the business.
Real estate professionals need to learn about the financial process, market behaviors, tendencies and usual practices. They also need to have a lot of knowledge about the legal procedures. The situation of the house they will sell is extremely important too. Agents need to know the advantages or disadvantages of the neighborhood, facilities, qualities and history of the house and such things.
Once you have built your product- service profile, you can start to study your potential clients in function of the option you handle. Brokers and agents must study very well their customer and keep with them the more potential ones to be successful. This way, you were forming your own customer portfolio.
Most of the agents and brokers work more than 40 hours per week, these hours pass in an irregular way and often outside the office showing houses or looking for them. Many professionals rather, take real estate like a part time job, mostly elder or retired people because it provides free time for family and such. However, the experts do not recommend part time to succeed in a more competitive real estate world.
On that aggressive business landscape, more training, preparation and experience are highly valued things. In terms of education, the basic for realtors is to be licensed. To obtain the proper license for realtor, the person must be 18 years old as minimum, must have high school degree and pass a written exam. Normally, applicants must pass from 30 to 90 hours of training and must have experience in real estate of 1 to 3 years.
But that does not seem enough. Competition is requiring the realtors to improve their education and many agents are required to have college courses or to be college graduates and finances special degrees.