Real estate TV shows creating a boom in new agents: how to rise above the herd
Like many cultural changes you can blame this one on TV. When it comes to a new surge in people becoming real estate agents, you can certainly point to the television as the culprit.
Shows like Million Dollars Listing Los Angeles and Million Dollar Listing NY make real estate look like a piece of cake job. Show a few homes. Convince a delusional seller to come down in price. Pocket an enormous commission. And look great doing it.
That’s delusional as well.
There are ways to stay on top of the property game and ways to break into a market quicker. In this technological age, it’s the savvy agent who embraces technology that will get ahead and keep their edge in the market.
One piece of technology that is a must is a map-based real estate search tool agents can embed on their website.
More on that later.
When it comes to becoming a successful real estate agent or staying one, there’s no denying it’s a numbers game. Number of contacts in a network. Number of leads coming in via the website. Number of homes available in a marketplace. Number of short sales, etc.
And according to the following numbers, the real estate business is getting more competitive.
The amount of real estate agents in the marketplace is on the rise. It’s up 30% since 2010. Now there are 1,099,102 agents out there. All working the market for buyers and sellers. Rebounding from a high of 1.4 million agents in 2006, before the Great Recession.
That’s quite a few. As we said and experts confirm, blame it on TV. Who wouldn’t want to drive around in a new Mercedes, wear a $1000 suit and snipe at other agents all day? With television cameras surrounding you. But, of course, that is not the reality.
Housewives, college students and retirees all want to get into the game.
The reality is that selling real estate is a daily grind. Part-timers have little chance of making it work. It’s a profession that requires grit, dedication and keeping it all honest at the same time.
Of course there’s still the old 80/20 rule. Twenty percent of new agents will make a go of it and the rest will probably wash out.
Experts say one advantage newcomers have to the real estate game is their familiarity with technology. They know how to work the laptops, the iPads and the smartphones. They use these devices in everyday life.
These same devices, if worked correctly, can be used to build up a network quickly. Get the word out on new listings. Entice buyers. Disseminate key market information.
That is one of the keys. Unfortunately, a buncho of people including agents are Facebook and Twitter savvy today.
But there is other technology out there that can make a substantial difference in how real estate agents market themselves. Take SpatialMatch, for example. It is a map-based real estate search tool that is tied into a local MLS database.
In this era of the GPS, Google Maps and Waze traffic reports, geo-spatial data is as important and popular as ever. Don’t just tell me you have a listing for a 3/2, show me where it is located on a map.
Show me where it is located in terms of highway systems and municipal boundaries and school districts.
That’s just one part of what SpatialMatch can do.
The other part involves local amenities. SpatialMatch feeds more than 100 layers of hyper-local data into its data widget which is embedded on a broker’s or agent’s website.
This data shows where the golf courses, the yoga studios and the restaurants are all located in regard to any property on MLS.
Because if you are going to be selling to the Millennial generation of homebuyers, you had better have a way to address their lifestyle demands.
This group not only wants a home, but wants a home that is near a park for mountain biking, a Pilates studio for workouts and a chic sushi restaurant for dinner.
SpatialMatch shows all this information. That’s being tech savvy. That’s finding the edge that will move an agent into the 20% zone or keep a veteran agent on top of their game.
It’s encouraging that a career in real estate is popular again. That means that home prices are rebounding. That means that people are more likely now to get a mortgage and buy a home.
But to be a million dollar agent you need the means to separate yourself in a crowded marketplace. Tech savvy agents will check out SpatialMatch to see how it will place them on a higher level than the rest of the crowd.
To read about a boom in real estate agents in one market, click here.
