Ok, Ok…I have to apologize to all my faithful readers. Those of you who see or speak to me often already know all the changes that have taken place over the past month and a half. Real Estate is a highly changing market and I had to make sure to make changes and position myself with it. Well, over the next few minutes I will try to give a brief synopsis of the changes that I have made to add value to my clients and my own personal business.

Being on my own for the first 14 months of my real estate career was quite a challenge yet accomplishment. I was continuing to move forward and my business was sitting at a breaking even position, not bad for a new agent in a slow market. However, I wanted to position myself to get even farther ahead and offer more value to my clients. I began lightly exploring new opportunities. …more

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Let’s not beat around the bush…I’m a relatively young Realtor. Generally, if I am at a meeting or training session with lots of Realtors, I am one of the youngest in the group. It is up to me to either let this become a hindrance in my career or use it as an advantage. I choose the latter. One of the primary ways that I feel that being young has helped me be successful is that I tend to be on top of new technologies and embrace new trends. I am quick to check out a new website or online resource.

The biggest problem with this is that I sign up for multiple things weekly…most of which I use for a couple of days…decide it will not help me in my business and then ignore it. In the meantime, some of these sites after 6 months or a year begin to grow and I try to revisit them…only to realize that I have no idea what log-in or password I used. I now can either create a second account or work hard to figure out how to get into my original account. I was reading something yesterday and realized that I am not the only one who has this problem. …more

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

The blog spheres have been going crazy with talk in the past 48 hours with the recent DOJ decision that allows online brokerages to have much more freedoms having access to listing databases. After a day and a half of thinking about it…I figured I would weigh in on online brokerages. Unfortunately, I don’t have the most popular opinion among many of the “traditional real estate” agents so may take some flack in the future for this post…but here goes…

As a full service real estate agent…I don’t understand why we would want to stifle a service that actually helps the consumer. Yes, an online brokerage will provide strong competition to the traditional agents like myself who find our business models challenged greatly. However, it is impossible to deny that real estate is changing. Our industry has always been slow to allow change for fear that it will threaten our livelihood. It is good to see this opportunity for change happening now. …more

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

I have posted several times before in my previous blog about the benefits and negatives about Zillow. Another alternative that I have used in the past is Cyberhomes. I haven’t posted much about Cyberhomes in the past due to the fact that I simply felt like they didn’t quite have it down. Well, yesterday I was reading some real estate news and came across an article discussing the new Cyberhomes site. …more

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

As a newer agent, I can still remember coming into real estate. One of my biggest decisions was what broker I should go with. I knew that I could get on with about any broker and had brokers and agents from all sorts of different offices recruiting me. I interviewed and talked with a couple brokers at area John L Scott offices and Windermere offices. I also considered Prudential and Keller Williams. Ultimately, by talking to many people I realized that the size of the broker and brand isn’t what mattered, to be successful I had to find the office that was the right fit for my style so that I could succeed. …more

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Posted in Real Estate Tips No Comments »