7 Timeless Skills for Any Real Estate Market

Provided By: RealtorMag.org

 

The real estate profession changes every day, but the qualities you find in top-performing practitioners do not. The details may shift as technology rolls forward, yet the underlying skills are always the same. If you can master these, you'll be successful in any market.

 

Skill 1: Meeting New People

The simple fact is that if you never meet anyone new, you will never have anyone new to sell to. Whether you encounter them for the first time in person, online, or over the phone doesn't matter. Get one-on-one with them in a conversation about their needs, and you've at least started down the path to success.

 

Skill 2: Making Personal Connections

You don't have to be the best at everything to succeed in this business. You just have to be competent and likeable.People buy from people they like. Develop the ability to connect with your clients and make them trust you, and 90 percent of your sales process is done. Want a quick way to engender trust? Tell the client something that it's not in your best interest to tell them. Show them that honestly is more important than anything to you.

 

Now, this doesn't mean to tell them that you got sued last week — that will make people nervous. But it could mean mentioning that the houses in another neighborhood have the same amount of space and are less expensive. They know that you get paid more if you sell them a higher-priced house. Showing them something in their best interests instead of yours makes you trustworthy.

 

Skill 3: Following Up on Every Lead

Follow-up is a big area where agents fail. If you aren't going to take every lead you get and work it to death, then you'll never be a top performer. Working every lead until it either closes or is clearly not a lead anymore is critical to building the solid pipeline that's required to keep your business continually producing. This means that you need a system to make sure that nothing gets dropped or forgotten. Throw away your Post-it notes; they should never be used as a place to write down a lead. All leads need to be kept in one place, and all of them need a minimum amount of information. That includes:

 

The person's name

Contact information

What property they contacted you about (or where they came from if it wasn't from a property)

What their timeframe is for moving

If they're buying, selling, or both

If they're buying, what they're looking for and in what area

What their emotional hot buttons are (what they get excited or angry about)

If you don't have all of the information you need, don't be afraid to contact them again for more information. And once you have the information you need, continue to contact them on a regular basis to make sure they stay on track. Don't worry that you'll be bothering them—instead, worry that they would otherwise forget who you are or feel ignored by you.

 

Skill 4: Asking for What You Want

This is typically a big problem with real estate rookies, but you'd be surprised how many veterans forget this piece of the puzzle, too. It's not always easy, but you have to ask for things to get them. Ask for the sale. Ask for the appointment. Ask for the phone number of the person your client wants to refer.

 

Don't wait for people to call you, for the clients to say they're ready, or for the buyers to tell you that this is the house they want. Be direct. Ask them, "Is this the house you want to buy?" "I'll get your house on the market tomorrow if you'll sign right here." "Which is better for you: Monday at 6 p.m. or Wednesday at 3 p.m.?" "Why don't you give me your friend's number and then you don't have to think about it anymore?" All of these are great closing questions used by some of the top practitioners in the industry.

 

Skill 5: Setting Appropriate Expectations

Once you have the contracts signed and your clients are committed to the process, then it's all about meeting expectations. And make no mistake, there will be expectations—whether you set them or your clients do. This is why it's important to set those expectations yourself; you don't want to get blindsided by something the clients decided to expect without consulting you.

 

The best real estate professionals are masters at setting expectations. They know what reasonable timeframes are, and they don't make promises they can't keep. They let clients know immediately if things need to change and they set the new expectations quickly and decisively, leaving no room for the clients to wonder (and worry) what happens next.

 

Skill 6: Taking Care of Details

You must treat you business like a business. This means that having a system in place to make sure that deadlines get met, appraisals are ordered, home inspection responses come in on time, appointments aren't forgotten, and problems are solved. You should even have systems to make sure that your clients—and, if you're really smart, the other side's clients—have handled all of the details that they need to attend to. Hold on to every deal and work it until it closes, letting nothing go. In saving multiple deals from certain death each year, top performers improve their closing ratios and increase their per-hour earnings.

 

Skill 7: Paying Close Attention to Money

Lots of agents tell me that it's not about the money for them; it's about the people. And that's great. I love helping people, too. But if you don't focus on making money, you're not going to make any. Real estate is your business, your livelihood, and you deserve to be compensated for the skills and services you provide. If you stop paying attention to the money, you'll do things like:

 

Negotiate away your commission.

Not take a referral fee "to be nice."

Work on listings that will never pay you anything close to reasonable compensation for the amount of work they are because you "feel bad for the person."

Take overpriced listings so that the sellers will like you.

Not make buyers sign contracts.

Stay with a broker who pays you a below-market split.

All of these things result in you working too hard and not making what you deserve. It's not your job to right the wrongs of the world. It's your job to make a living for yourself, preferably a really good one. It's not about the number of deals you do; it's about how much money you get to keep when the deals are done.

 

You have to focus on the money if you hope to be successful. If you're not making a profit, you're running a charity, not a business, and you don't get grants like charities do to make ends meet.

 

You have to keep up with changes in technology, industry regulations, buyer and seller priorities, and economic conditions. But the skills that I've listed above will take you further than any new flashy marketing plan or social media technique. No matter what's going on in real estate, these skills will be the difference between a good agent and a great one.

Dallas apartment builders hope less space means more profits

Provided By: dallasnews.com



 

They say good things come in small packages.

Builders are hoping that old saying holds true for apartments.

To hold down monthly rental costs, apartment developers are scaling down some rental units to the size of a hotel suite. They’re betting that renters will make do with less to live in a posh apartment in a prime location.

“If we can give someone luxury living at a price they can afford, they’ll jump at it,” said developer Matt Segrest, president of apartment builder Alamo Manhattan.

At Monaco, Alamo’s new building in Dallas’ Uptown neighborhood, a 571-square-foot studio apartment will set you back $1,459 a month.

While small by Dallas standards, the apartment comes with a view of the Katy Trail, top-of-the line appliances and use of the rental project’s many amenities.

“Our small units are in high demand,” Segrest said. “People want to live where the action is.”

Alamo Manhattan has leased more than a quarter of the Monaco project and is trying to slow rentals to catch up with construction. The average unit size in the entire project is about 800 square feet.

The trend toward smaller apartments started on the West Coast and quickly spread across the country.

The 24-story SkyHouse Dallas apartment tower that’s under construction in Victory Park just north of downtown Dallas will have units that start in size at 577 square feet. The average size in the 336-apartment tower will be about 800 square feet.

“While our apartments are designed to be very efficient and therefore to meet our residents’ budgets, the floor-to-ceiling glass makes the apartments feel like a larger home,” said Thornton Kennedy, spokesman for developer Novare Group.

Dallas apartment architect Mark Humphreys said apartment sizes have dropped as development costs and rents have soared.

“It’s been a hot topic for some time,” he said. “New micro units are now below 400 square feet.

“We have these all over the country, and it’s done great.”

But efficiency apartments have to be done right for renters to accept them.

“The key to us is you have to have a separate sleeping area,” Humphreys said. “They don’t want to walk in the living room and there is the bedroom.”

Humphreys & Partners is putting the bed in an alcove off the main living area to give a sense of privacy.

“It seems to have a lot of legs,” Humphreys said.

At its Taylor apartment project under construction in Uptown, developer StreetLights Residential has studio units starting at less than 570 square feet.

StreetLights partner Tom Bakewell said they appeal to younger renters but not the older, empty nester tenants who are looking at the project.

“Their comment is this unit is too small,” Bakewell said at a recent apartment seminar in Dallas. “Our doors have been open a little over a month now, and 30 percent of our traffic coming in is an empty nester.”

Longtime Dallas apartment analyst Greg Willett said there is renter demand for all sizes of new rental units. But he cautions developers not to produce too many small units.

“You do see a lot of these units in San Francisco and New York, and it works in those markets where the rents are so incredibly high,” said Willett, vice president of Carrollton-based MPF Research. “In the middle of the country, overdoing these would be pretty easy.

“There is demand for this product, but it’s a niche.”

Keller Williams Realty Becomes Largest Real Estate Franchise in North America!

Provided By: http://moving-careers.com/keller-williams-realty-becomes-largest-real-estate-franchise-in-north-america/

Keller Williams Realty Becomes Largest Real Estate Franchise in North America
Company reports record growth, productivity and profitability gains;
announces expansion into the United Kingdom.

 

AUSTIN, TX (September 16, 2013) - With a net gain of 12,000 associates in the past year, Keller Williams Realty is now the largest real estate franchise in North America. The announcement, based on publicly available agent count data as of September 9, 2013, was made during Keller Williams Realty’s Midyear State of the Company presentation. Keller Williams is now home to more than 90,000 associates around the world.

 

“We are not a company of complacency,” CEO Mark Willis said. “We have the best business model in the industry and it’s leading to increased productivity, profitability and profit sharing that are at all-time highs for our company and unrivaled in our industry.”

 

In recent months, Keller Williams Realty has shattered its monthly records for listings taken, contracts written, commissions earned, owner profit and profit share:

 

• Year over year, units are up 8 percent, closed volume is up 17 percent and gross commission income is up 18 percent.
• Ninety-five percent of the company’s offices are profitable year to date – a figure that far outpaces the standard for franchise businesses.
• In the past 12 months, the company has distributed $58 million in profit share to associates, a 33 percent increase over the previous year.

 

Features for consumers include:

 

• The ability to search for homes based on criteria or by custom drawing on an interactive map;
• GPS localized data displays homes in a given area that match the consumer’s price range;
• The ability to easily swipe through galleries of photos to decide whether a home fits one’s needs and then add it to saved searches for convenient reference on the app or via the agent’s website, where the saved searches are synced;
• The ability to save notes on properties for future reference; and
• Faster communication between agents and consumers via call, text or email.

 

The strong growth, productivity and profitability gains follow a year of milestones for the company:

 

• The release of the Keller Williams mobile app – personally branded for each of the company’s 90,000 associates. In the past 30 days, more than 58,000 consumers have downloaded the app to their Apple and Android devices.
• Publication of co-founder Gary Keller’s new book, The ONE Thing, which has appeared on 117 bestseller lists, including The New York Times, where it has been on the business bestseller list for 5 months, and The Wall Street Journal, where it earned the #1 spot.

 

Willis used concepts from The ONE Thing to illustrate his presentation, which took place at Mega Camp, the real estate industry’s premier educational and networking event for top producers. “Keller Williams leaders, what you’re doing is lining up a perfect domino run,” he said. “Being #1 in agent count in the United States was our first domino. We’re on our way to knocking over bigger and bigger dominos until we’re #1 in agent count, transactions and volume all across the world.”

 

Keller Williams Worldwide President Chris Heller also announced the company’s expansion into the United Kingdom. In recent years, the company’s global division has announced franchise agreements in Austria, Germany, Indonesia, Southern Africa, Switzerland, Turkey and Vietnam. Heller touted the achievements of the company’s regions outside of North America and welcomed more than 100 international guests from countries including Brazil, China, Colombia, Ghana, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Poland and Russia.

 

“Around the globe, entrepreneurs, brokers and agents are looking for and asking for what we offer,” Heller said. “They crave our models, systems, training and technology. And because Keller Williams can offer all of those at a level they have never seen before, we are attracting tremendous talent and gaining momentum.”

 

“Success leaves clues,” Keller Williams President Mary Tennant said during her State of the Culture update. “And your unprecedented achievements this year all flow from the culture of success, caring and opportunity you created and are enhancing every day.”

   

10 months later, Hurricane Sandy's 'blessing': Treasures wash ashore

Provided By: CNN.COM

Professed "Jersey girl" Christeena Hockin-Minopetros began collecting sea glass from the New Jersey shore when she was 5. She recalls that when she was younger, before the glass became scarce, you could walk home with a bucketful after a day at the beach.

Now, 10 months after Hurricane Sandy hammered the Atlantic coastline, the Florida resident says she's shocked by how many of the frosty relics she found while walking along Sea Bright Beach back home this summer.

 

"It's everywhere," Hockin-Minopetros said, explaining how she found two large bags of sea glass in a variety of hues: brown, white, blue, milky green and a "gorgeous" red piece she can't take her eyes off.

 We can thank Sandy for the finds, said coastal geologist Cheryl Hapke.

"This is an epic summer for a collection of beach glass," she said.

Sea glass, or beach glass, begins essentially as garbage -- broken glass dumped into fresh or salt water. Over time, waves, water and sand smooth its sharp edges. It's the smaller pieces of sea glass that usually get brought onto shore for people to pick up, Hapke said.

It's well-known that hurricanes erode seashores and hamper tourism, but, according to Hapke, a storm like Sandy -- which boasted record-high waves in late October -- can filter larger, coarse materials from the seabed and wash them onto the shoreline.

That's good news for beach-side businesses that sell their finds.

 

As Sandy swallowed beaches and deterred patrons, businesses in southern New Jersey's Cape May Point suffered, said resident Jeanette Bartolomeo. Her son-in-law's Sunset Beach Gift Shops, where Bartolomeo works as the jewelry manager, were among the few fortunate.

 

Never mind the sea glass; Bartolomeo's eye is drawn to the "Cape May Diamonds" -- clear quartz pebbles that, when polished, resemble real diamonds -- and Sunset Beach Gift Shops are known for their collection.

 The pure quartz pebbles, which break off from pockets of quartz crystal in the upper reaches of the Delaware River, have always been in abundance, but bigger pieces churn up after a storm.

That's why Hurricane Sandy and the February nor'easter were "a blessing," Bartolomeo said.

 "Thank God they keep coming in," she said.

 Though Sandy didn't damage Cape May as much as other parts of New Jersey, many residents and visitors assumed beaches and shops there were closed, so Cape May tourism suffered and business was slower than usual, Bartolomeo said.

"We had people calling, 'Are you open now?' " she said. "But we were never closed."

 

Gov. Chris Christie's administration announced last week that every public boardwalk and beach along the New Jersey shore is now open, after 10 months of renovations and "beach replenishing."

 

Bartolomeo said she's already seen an increase in tourists this summer at Sunset Beach, where visitors can be found scouring the beach for the quarter-size "diamonds" washing up on the shore.

Despite the good news for many businesses, Hockin-Minopetros is concerned that beach replenishing -- by which sand from other areas is used to revitalize an eroded beach -- might affect the abundance of sea glass, much like she worries construction and spiking insurance rates along the coast could affect the shoreline's pristine quaintness.

"I'm afraid New Jersey's shoreline will be one big McMansion, and that saddens me deeply," she said.

In addition to the sea glass she collects to craft into jewelry, which she sells, Hockin-Minopetros also keeps a personal collection of about 500 "really fantastic" pieces, most of which she collected while living in Greece.

But her best piece is one she picked up in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, she said.

The heavy, 8-inch-long, clear glass is actually a deck prism, which sailors used in the upper deck of a ship to illuminate the ship's passageways below deck. It's one she won't be selling, she said.

 

"I only keep the real unusual," she said.

Dallas developers step up to fill Midland’s housing crisis

Provided By: www.bizjournals.com

A group of Dallas-based developers have started a new $12.8 million urban loft project in downtown Midland as part of the city's overall plan to mitigate the housing shortage tied to the oil and gas shale boom.

The public-private partnership project, dubbed the Wall Street Lofts, is the west Texas city's first downtown residential housing. Midland is constructing an adjacent parking garage for public and private parking.

Shale drilling in the Permian Basin in West Texas has brought an influx of workers who need places to live. In the past, Dallas-based hotel developers have stepped up to help with housing, however, developers can't build fast enough, which means a room could rent for $150 to $200 a night, in some cases.

 

The four-story, 108-unit building, which includes 5,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor, will help mitigate that demand. The developers say they expect the residential units to be quickly absorbed because of the severe housing shortage.

 

The development partnership includesRoger Gault, Robert Gunby and C.W. Fields. Compass Bank is providing the construction financing. Greystar Real Estate Partners will lease and manage the project.

 

Midland's unemployment rate is 3.4 percent, which is well below the state and Dallas-Fort Worth unemployment rate, which sit at 6.4 percent and 6.9 percent, respectively, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics.

The project is scheduled for completion in December 2014.