A career in real estate can be a rich and rewarding experience, but before earning your license, there are three things to consider.

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Selling your home? Click here to learn more about our home selling system.

You’re aspiring to earn your real estate license. Great! Before starting the process, though, I’d like to offer three tips for you to know beforehand:

1. The ability to generate business. There’s a fairly common misconception that as soon as you’re licensed and working at a brokerage, clients will be lining up at your door for help with their buying and selling needs. This couldn’t be further from the truth. It takes time, energy, and effort to see success, and you’ll be vying for business in a crowded field of agents. For perspective, here in Brevard County, we have over 4,000 agents. Therefore, you’ll need to develop the qualities and skills that make you a cut above the rest in the eyes of consumers.

2. You need to have money saved up. The real estate transaction spans 30 to 45 days until closing, and that’s only after you’ve earned a client’s business. When you’re first getting your business off the ground, it could foreseeably be three months before your first transaction, so be prepared for that financially.

3. Learn to enjoy rejection and failure. Having a thick skin is part and parcel of finding success in this business. You’re going to be inundated with calls, texts, emails, and the like all hours of the day, night, and weekend, so knowing how to prioritize is crucial. In addition, you may run into situations where you’re certain a friend of yours is going to turn to you for help buying or selling a home, only to discover they went with someone else. Every agent, including myself, has been there, and it’s natural to take it personally. Despite that, your mental toughness has to prevail in those moments.   

If you have any questions about what it takes to crack into the real estate profession, don’t hesitate to let me know. I’d be happy to help!   

Your home doesn’t need to sit on the market for months. Here’s how to sell it in 30 days or less.

Buying a home? Click here to search all homes for sale.
Selling your home? Click here to learn more about our home selling system.

If you want to sell your home quickly, there are five tips you should keep in mind:

     1. Stage your home. Home staging requires a few steps—start from the outside and work your way in. Your curb appeal is very important; put down fresh mulch, replace your old mailbox, and get a welcome mat. Inside the home, you want to remove family pictures and other personal items. Declutter living spaces so buyers can picture themselves, their own furniture, and their decor in your home. Deep clean the house by targeting areas you don’t normally clean, such as baseboards, walls, etc. Finally, clean your windows to let in a lot of natural light for showings.

     2. Keep an online presence. Around 95% of buyers find homes online, so you want professional photography that really makes your home stand out. You also want aerial shots that showcase the exterior, 3D walkthrough tours, and even a video of your home.

     3. Write compelling copy. Once you’ve grabbed buyers with your great pictures, make them stay with a great description of your home. Tell an enticing story about your property that will make buyers want to come and see. Avoid all typos and any grammatical mistakes, as these will detract from your message.

“95% of buyers find homes online.”

     4. Advertise on social media. Ads on social media sites are seen and heard more than TV, radio, and print advertisements. You want to showcase your home on sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. It’s a small cost considering the amount of exposure you’ll receive.

     5. Price correctly. List your home at the right price from the outset. You do not want to overprice it and have it sit unsold on the market. When it’s on the market for a long time, buyers will use it as leverage to get a lower price. Do your research on comparable homes and find the right price. This is where hiring an experienced agent comes into play.

If you’re looking to sell your home, have any questions, or need further information, feel free to reach out to me. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

If you want to have an optimal home selling experience, learn from past sellers by avoiding these five common mistakes.

Buying a home? Click here to search all homes for sale.
Selling your home? Click here to learn more about our home selling system.

Homeowners in the past have made a number of mistakes in the process of selling their homes. Today I want to help you avoid their misfortune by telling you what mistakes to avoid and the potential costs of repeating them.

 1. Ignoring the competition. A lot of times, sellers focus on the specific characteristics of their home that they believe other homes don’t have. This overconfidence sometimes leads them to overprice the home. In reality, the best pricing strategy is based on your immediate competition. The special features your home has may indeed add value to it, but be aware of how much value, exactly, those features are likely to add when compared to other properties. You need to take a realistic view of your home that’s divorced from your emotions when you give your home a list price.

 2. Becoming too emotionally involved and unwilling to negotiate. Homeowners who have lived in their home for a long time tend to become really emotionally attached to it. This becomes a problem when they ignore sound advice from their agents and are unwilling to take a step back and negotiate with buyers from a purely financial perspective. Put your emotions aside and negotiate using tactics that don’t revolve around your personal feelings.

 3. Failing to declutter and depersonalize. Many don’t seem to understand how clutter and personalized decor can distract a buyer. Homebuyers can be looking at multiple properties in a short span of time, so it’s vital to make a good first impression on them when they visit yours. The best way to do that is to remove all personal items from the home—photographs, memorabilia, etc.—and clear up all your clutter. The goal is to give your home clean, simple flow so that your buyer can have the best experience (and by extension, so that you can get the most from your home sale).

“You need to take a realistic view of your home that’s divorced from your emotions when you give your home a list price.”

     4. Over- or under-improving your home. Sometimes, during their efforts to get a home ready for sale, sellers go too far with their updates and don’t get a good return on their investments. A lot of times, all a seller really needs to do is spruce up their curb appeal and maybe update some outdated features, rather than remodel the whole home. On the other hand, some sellers don’t do enough. A lot of home preparation is just small repairs and purchases, so failing to shell out the necessary expenses is a wasted opportunity to make the biggest possible impact on the buyer. Some very simple projects can go a long way in your home sale.

     5. Limiting showing times and not being accessible. Everyone has a personal life, and few want people coming in and out of their home at all hours. This is completely understandable. However, I’ve seen a lot of sellers who just aren’t willing to allow short-notice showings or are generally restrictive about when they’ll do a showing. This really limits the buyers, as some may be coming from out of town with only a small window of time to actually do the showing. To avoid pushing away otherwise interested buyers, be flexible and cooperative with your schedule.

If you have any questions about selling your home, you can always reach out to us. We’d be glad to give you expert advice about how you can sell your home for the most money possible and in the shortest amount of time.