3 Skills That Could Make You a Successful Real Estate Agent

If you’re ready for a career change but you’re not quite sure what you actually want to be doing, you may want to consider starting a career as a real estate agent. Especially in the current housing market, there’s a lot of money to be made as a real estate agent as people are trying to sell their homes to make more money than ever before and buyers are desperate to get into the few homes that are becoming available.

The life of a real estate agent can be exciting but also stressful. And while this career isn’t for everyone, it could be a great fit if you have some specific skills and abilities. To help you decide if this career would be a good match for you, here are three skills that could make you a successful real estate agent.

Vast Knowledge of Your Local Area

To be a good real estate agent and to have your skills and abilities rise above the rest, you’ll want to have a vast knowledge of the local area in which you live.

While you can buy or sell homes in an area that you’re not familiar with, you’ll have a much easier time finding clients, selling homes, and working with buyers if you have great knowledge of the area you’re working in. You’ll be able to quickly and easily know which neighborhoods are well established, up-and-coming, and slightly less desirable. You can also prove to be an invaluable asset to people newly moving to the area and looking for recommendations on things like school districts, doctors, restaurants and more.

Without having a lot of working knowledge about the local area you’re working in, you could not only be doing your clients a disservice by not giving them the most accurate or up-to-date information on the buying or selling of their home, but you could also find that you lose a lot of trust from your clients as well.

Being Friendly and Personable

You may have heard before that when you’re selling something, the person you’re trying to sell to isn’t really buying what you’re selling: they’re buying you. And while this might not be quite as accurate when it comes to buying and selling homes, in order to get a client to want to work with you in the first place, you’ll have to sell them yourself.

To make this easier, the most successful real estate agents often have great soft skills involving their communication with others. If you’re friendly and personable, people will want to work with you through this stressful and challenging process. And not only will these soft skills help you with your interpersonal interactions, but if this is really a skill you have, these personality traits will bleed through to your marketing materials and online networking efforts as well, making those more effective, too.

The Ability to Communicate and Negotiate

Along with having a great ability to communicate with others, good real estate agents are also able to negotiate with anyone about anything. This is because in addition to having to try to get your clients the best deal on the home they want, you’ll also find yourself negotiating with your clients on things all the time. Especially if your client has expectations that aren’t in line with the reality of the homes they can purchase, you’ll need to use your negotiation skills to help soften them to the homes that are more in their price range.

So if you’re great at getting people to come around to your way of thinking and compromise with you, whether they came into the conversation on the defensive or not, working in real estate could be a great fit for you and the natural gifts of your charming and persuasive personality.

If you’re considering starting a new career soon, think about whether your skills could match well with the job requirements and lifestyle of those who work selling homes and finding great properties for others to purchase. And if you feel like they do, you may just find that you have a very bright future as a real estate agent.

Getting started as a real estate agent

If you’ve learned that you have the skills to be an estate agent, then you may be wondering how to get started in the industry.  Estate agents come from a whole variety of backgrounds so you could simply apply for any vacancies you see and take your chances. If, however, you want to put the odds in your favor, then you could try learning some useful technical skills.

For example, modern estate agents will often photograph houses for their clients. This means that photography skills can be very useful. It’s even better if you can demonstrate that you know your way around real-estate photography specifically. As with most professions, knowing basic office skills and understanding social media are also very useful.

Last but definitely not least, never underestimate the power of networking both online and offline. Getting your face and name known in your local industry can go a long way to persuading employers to give you a chance even if you have little to no experience.

Image Credits: Precondo CA