Is anyone making any money out there?

[Mitch]

Hi 1ParkLake! The answer all depends on what you are doing. I'm a big believer in finding someone who is successful and then copy their model. Unfortunately when I started in Real Estate and wanted to use the Internet there was nobody to copy so I developed my own systems.

We are having a great year and last month had the most sales, 41, in a month we have ever had. Our market is tough right now but our little office is comanding close to 10% of all buyer sales!

Here is what I would suggest:

1. Look at where you are spending your money. To me most Agents spend their money in non lead generating areas. Place your cash only in areas that will generate a return. My guess, as with most Realtors, you don't have the thousands of dollars to brand yourself properly.

2. Sharpen your skills. We have been able to turn tire kickers into sales by by developing our "Buyer Presentation". This let's buyers know from day one what is really going on in the market and where they will need to be price wise if they want to really buy a home.

3. Make sure you get a prequal letter. If they aren't taking the first step which is getting financed, then they are not really interested in buying.

4. Be sure you are spending the right amount of time with the people who will buy. For instance. If you are showing 10 different people in a month and giving them all equal time, you run the chance of losing business. I like to give each buyer a number on a scale of 1-5. 1 meaning they are hot and 5 meaning they are not buying. I spend a lot less time with the the 5's as I do with the 1's!

5. Education. I believe the reason most Agents fail is that they are not properly educated in how to run a business and what do to when the market changes. Since I have owned over 15 companies now, I've been through these cycles. Sometimes it's important to change your business strategy. For instance, we stopped taking listings from Jan. 2005 through Jan. 2009. They just werent worth the hassle. We concentrated just on buyers and grew each year.

Hope that helps a little.

[bogart]

I've noticed that a lot of Agents want to show you a bunch of homes that you are not interested in. Rather than make it happen on the home that you called them about.

[SLP-NYCT]

bogart, how is that?

If you call me on a $700k home and you are only approved for a $500k home, then yes...I will not show you the $700k home.

However, when you call ME, I will ask you a series of questions and then send you a list of roughly 30 homes and set you up on a program that allows you to modify your searches to see what else is out there with different search criteria.

I only show the homes you pick from this list.

So...Where are YOU looking in NY, maybe I can help you the correct way.

[bogart]

bogart, how is that?

If you call me on a $700k home and you are only approved for a $500k home, then yes...I will not show you the $700k home.

However, when you call ME, I will ask you a series of questions and then send you a list of roughly 30 homes and set you up on a program that allows you to modify your searches to see what else is out there with different search criteria.

I only show the homes you pick from this list.

So...Where are YOU looking in NY, maybe I can help you the correct way.

I'm looking in Hudson. I think the agents were used to working with subprime borrowers. I have a forclosure lined up and I think it will go through. It just funny that you ask an agent to look at a specific house and they want to take you on a tour of Hudson County.

You have a good system. It doesn't make sense looking at homes you aren't interested in.

[1pklake]

Thank you for your word of advice! I never had looked at it that way. Cathy

[1pklake]

Ok I will take your advice! Thank you so much. Cathy

[FrankN]

I can understand where you are coming from. Starting in Real Estate can be challenging especially in this market. But as for myself, Team Masse and myself have been booming. Even in this market. One of the things you need to do is before you work with buyers, you want to have them pre-qualified with a lender. I don't normally take buyers unless they are pre-qualified. You want to do this because you don't want to take buyers to see 10 houses to eventually find out they have a 300 credit score. Another thing to keep in mind is to build a relaionship with your buyers. If you just act like a salesman, they won't respond to you and eventually lose interest. Hope this helps!

[BarryC]

The AZ market was one of the hardest markets hit, but our lower priced homes are flying off the market now. Many of the homes my lower end buyers put offers on have 5-10 offers on them. Maybe change is just around the corner for your market as well.

Good luck.

[Del Mar Homes Pro]

In San Diego we're busier than we've ever been. There are more buyers for these stupid foreclosures and short sales than we know what to do with. We write offers every day. The only problem is... NO ONE gets an offer accepted. It's a total pain in the butt. So no, we're not making any money right now, but it's not for lack of effort! And you go to any of these bubble blogs and they talk about how much money Realtors make. What a joke. It's never been easy. A handful of crappy agents make most of the money. In San Diego the most successful agents are former bar tenders, a high school gym teacher, and a few scary high school GRE's who look like relatives of Frankenstein (after all that plastic surgery). The most successful REO agent in town looks like he rides his skateboard to work every day. If the bankers ever met these guys they would sh... their pants! I laugh when I think how I left the law practice to provide better service to real estate buyers and sellers in San Diego. They could care less. Baaaaahhhh say the sheep.

[Del Mar Homes Pro]

Oh dear... too much wine. Caught me at an awkward moment. Real estate is great. My fellow Realtors are great. God bless them all.