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Putting a Face on Real Estate since 1995™
• WCREALTORS Golf Tournament • ABoR TREPAC Movie Night • JB Goodwin REALTORS Annual Company Picnic • Sunfield Grand Opening • and much, much more!
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JULY 2017 • VOLUME 22 • ISSUE 3 Details on page 34
THE
PENINSULA AT
ROUGH HOLLOW
A PRIVATE LAKESTYLE NEIGHBORHOOD
ON ROUGH HOLLOW
The 80/20 difference between REALTORS By Riki Markowitz
I
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n 2016, RealtorMag, the official publication of the National Association of REALTORS (NAR), reported that real estate was ranked the number two “happiest industry.” Some of the benefits of the job include making your own hours and the ease at which you can create the professional culture you desire. There is one dirty secret, though. The majority of individuals who become real estate agents never even make it to their fifth work anniversary. There has always been an impression that
REALTORS swim in money. Reality TV shows about beautiful brokers getting filthy rich off of an inventory of stunning NYC condos and Malibu mansions make it difficult to understand how the median annual income for agents in the U.S. was less than $45,000 in 2016. That means that half of all REALTORS take home even less. We wanted to know what separates successful brokers and agents from the sea of those who struggle or don’t make it at all. To that end, we spoke with several REALTORS who have survived the half-decade mark and created a list of habits and tips that got them where they are today.
A lot of professionals start each workday looking at a to-do list. But according to many of the busiest agents, the only way to start your day is to work the phones. Dyron Taylor, a broker/owner at The Dyron Taylor Group, suggests spending two hours per day on the phone generating leads. “I’m a huge believer that a closed mouth doesn’t get fed,” says Taylor, who is certified in short sales and foreclosures. Most agents don’t like this part of the job because we’ve become conditioned to communicating with friends and colleagues through email, text and social media. Cold calling strangers can make even the most confident person quiver with discomfort.
Featured Event July 23rd, 11 a.m. — 2 p.m. Austin Board of REALTORS
TREPAC Water Fest
TIP: Keep it simple. Taylor recommends introducing yourself and asking the potential client if she is looking to buy or sell. If you get a no, ask if she knows someone who is. “If you can’t do this simple task, no one is going know you’re in the business of helping them find a home or sell a home,” says Taylor, a Platinum Top 50 finalist. Gregory Tran, owner of the Gregory Group, recommends making no fewer than 100 calls every day. That comes out to about four hours of phone time. One way to find your legs in this exercise, says Tran, is to start by calling people you know. By the time you make your first call to someone officially outside of your circle, you should already have worked out many of your jitters and kinks. When you look at the numbers, it’s easy to see that there’s a lot business to go around in Travis, Hays and Williamson Counties. The Austin Board of REALTORS (ABoR) published results of a survey indicating that in the first half of 2017, there were more than 4,000 new homes on the market here, which is about 15 percent higher than 2016. Of those 4,000 homes on the
block, only 450 were for sale by someone other than a real estate professional. According to a report by NAR – also from 2016 – “Eighty-nine percent of home sellers were assisted by a real estate agent.” So don’t look at it as cold-calling 100 strangers a day, but instead, it’s like a scavenger hunt for clients with the end goal of building your referral business. In that same survey, NAR found that 64 percent of sellers who worked with an agent found that agent through a referral by friends or family.
#2 Always Follow Up It’s not enough to simply introduce yourself to as many potential clients as you can. The brokers we talked to also stayed in touch with every buyer or seller they worked with, and those who only presented an opening to follow up later. It’s understandable why someone would be hesitant to make a call out of the blue to someone he or she just sold a home to or found a home for in the last year. But here’s why you should: According to NAR, 25 percent of surveyed homebuyers went back to the agent they
Front Page: Continued on page 28
Features of the Month Column: ABoR—.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .pg. 3 Column: WCAoR—Are you involved?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pg. 7 Column: HBA—HBA seeking builders for 2018 Parade of Homes™. . . . . . . . . . . . . . pg. 15 Expert Commentary: Independence Title— Wire transfer hijackings on the rise. . . . . pg. 17 Column: WCR—What makes you stand out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pg. 18 Associates in Progress: Scott Felder Homes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pg. 25 Associates in Progress: Rough Hollow Lakeway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pg. 27 Upcoming Events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pg. 34