Realtor Success: 5 Qualities of Successful Agents

To be a successful realtor it’s going to take more than just getting your real estate license. Knowledge of the area around your listing, attention to detail, passion, knowledge of the purchase process and communication are extremely important to have a successful real estate career.

Local knowledge

When you sell a home, you are not only selling the home itself but also the neighborhood. Ask questions about your buyer, i.e. what do you like to do for fun, do you have pets, and what do you do for work? Uncovering that the buyer likes to go out to discover new foods is your ticket into sharing all of the wonderful and unique places to eat near your listed home. If your potential buyer has a dog, they will be interested in knowing where the local park is, or any good walking trails around your listed house. If your buyer says they work from home, it’s a prime opportunity to talk about the local coffee shops they can bring their clients to when the time comes. You knowledge of the area will give your buyers confidence in the purchasing your home as they can not only picture a life in the home, but in the neighborhood as well.

Organized with attention to detail

As a realtor, you are dealing with a person’s most valuable asset; their home. So ensuring that you triple check your numbers and dates is imperative. Think about this situation: you have a buyer very interested in your home, so they make an offer. They offer to buy the home at the listed price of $449,000, but in the paperwork you accidentally change the second four to a 9, so you have $499,000 in the agreement. You can imagine how much frustration that would cause the buyer, and your credibility could drop. Taking the extra minute to triple check your numbers will pay off in the long run. This also comes into play when you are listening to facts about the buyer. If they mention they have a dog and you ask them later if they have a dog, they will feel as though you are not truly listening to them. You want your buyers to be impressed with how much you remember about them and impressed with how organized you are with their paperwork.

Passion

Just like in any form of sales, it’s important that you are passionate about what you do, and believe in selling homes. You need to have a deep happiness in finding people their perfect home. If you have been worn out in the past, it can show as you present future homes. As much as buyers are searching for a perfect house, they are also searching for a mentor to help them with process who’s just as excited as they are about finding this home. In the end, it could be the real estate agent that is the deciding factor between two houses.

Knowledge of the purchase process

Your buyers are going to ask you a ton of questions from the color of the cabinet, to how much time before you pull credit score. While it’s not your duty to know exactly when the lender will pull credit, it is your duty to communicate the purchase process to your buyer. Think of this as a board game. Once you are complete with one stage, you advance to the next step in the process. Give the buyer an overview of the process once the offer has gone through and remind the buyer what they need to do in their current phase. Buyers don’t like to be surprised by anything in the process. So clearly communicate what they need to provide to whom by when and the process should be very straightforward. Your buyers will feel confident in you if you continue to let them know where they stand without them having to always ask.

Easy to contact

This is a simple and crucial quality of a successful real estate agent. Your buyers/lender/builder/ etc. will need to get a hold of you during the process of selling the home, so make it easy on them. I’m not saying be available every waking hour of every day, but if your buyer leaves you a message, it’s important you contact them back, and in a very timely fashion. When a customer is only remembering how tough it is to get a hold of you, it may hurt your relationship going forward. The inability to contact a realtor is extremely frustrating to a buyer, and could hurt your customer service survey scores later on. You don’t want this buyer to call out how poor of a communicator you are on public reviews.

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If you fit all 5 of these qualities, you are on your way to becoming a successful realtor. In the end it’s about the relationship you have with your buyer and focusing in on these traits can help solidify a buyer on your listed home. Check out the Marketing Desks to get assistance with marketing your listing, and marketing your great reputation with potential buyers.