The market is in shambles. Very few Realtors are making a good living. Real estate buyers are different than they were 10 years ago. The task confronting every Realtor is large. More and more work must go into chasing fewer and fewer deals. Brokerages facing the bottom are working for next to nothing to keep their doors open.
Bad market or not, technology and consumer desire are forcing Realtors to gain more and more skills. Most of these skills no one anticipated 10 years ago.
What does it take to succeed in real estate today?
- It goes without saying that you must become a subject matter expert in real estate, but in this market you need to know distressed properties as well.
- Web development. With the number of buyers starting their home search online hitting critical mass, you must have a website. Not only must you have a website, it must be coherently designed and user friendly enough to be “sticky”. You must develop your site to not only be an online brochure, but a lead generating machine.
- Blogging. How are you getting the word out? What are you writing about? How often are you writing? Are you writing enough to become credible with the search engines? Are you simulcasting your blog?
- Mobile marketing. By the end of 2011, 50% of households in the United States will have a smart phone. What are you doing to reach these people? How are you delivering your content in a way that is engaging and user friendly to users on hand-held devices?
- Search Engine Optimization. What is your strategy? How are you going to drive traffic to your website? Websites are not “if you build it, they will come.” It takes a constant effort and flexible strategy to consistently rank high with the search engines. What is your back-linking strategy?
- Social Media Integration. You have a Facebook page? Great. What is it doing for you? Are your social networks integrated around your online hub? Where are you driving traffic? What is your conversion rate? A half effort on this will net less than half of the results.
- Photography. A picture is worth a thousand words. What are your pictures saying? Are you staging your photos? How do they look? Are they selling the story of your home? How is the lighting? Are you maximizing the number of pictures allowed by the MLS? Are you keyword tagging them and sharing them on social photo sharing sites?
- Video and audio production. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a thousand pictures (a million words?) Everyone seems to have an opinion about how to integrate video into your real estate toolbox. Most say disregard quality, use your phone. I respectfully disagree. Professional video produces results. Again, half of the effort nets less than half of the results.
What is your broker doing for you?
On a daily basis, what is your broker really doing to ensure your success and what are you paying for it?
If you are not making the money you want or need to make it in today’s market, you are faced with a choice; become a subject matter expert on the entire above list or join RREA and let us take the burden off of you. Let us work on your behalf.
Every effort by the broker and management is centered around getting you to the closing table. We offer professional video production FREE for our agents in our in-house studio. We offer social media coaching. We offer access to our blog, named “Best Real Estate Blog in Texas” by Texas A&M University. We offer world-class training centered on practical applications of technology.
All of the technology in the world doesn’t help you without hard work. RREA can make sure your work is productive and nets results.
The choice is yours. The time is now. There has never been a better and cheaper time to make a change. Call us today for a confidential interview. 281.288.3500
