First things first, let’s quickly discuss terminology. When people talk about a real estate agent, they’re generally talking about someone with a salesperson’s license, which is the entry-level license in the world of real estate rentals or sales. Someone with a salesperson’s license can’t open their own real estate office or oversee real estate transactions on their own; their license must be associated with a broker.
The exact definition and requirements for a broker’s license vary from state to state, but in general we’re talking about a more advanced license that allows you to take on greater responsibility. In New York, for example, you need to pass an exam to get a salesperson’s license, and then you have to work as a salesperson in good standing for at least two years and pass another, much more challenging exam to qualify for a broker’s license.
As a broker, you can start your own firm, open multiple offices, and have any number of agents working under you. But under the law, any mistakes your agents make can fall on your head.
Even people in the media who write about real estate for a living often use the terms broker and agent interchangeably, but it’s important to appreciate the difference. If you’re just starting out in real estate, you’re most likely going to be getting your salesperson’s license, and that means you’re going to be paying your dues and working under someone else for a while. Most agents never become brokers, but every broker used to be an agent. So, if your dream is to own your own business, then step one is to read up on the rules in your state so that you know exactly what you have to do to make the leap from agent to broker—from employee to boss.
Why you need to be positive—and get away from your haters
You’ll never succeed. You’re not cut out for this. This line of work is too damn risky, and you don’t have what it takes to stick with it. You’d have to be stupid to want to work in real estate. You’d be better off working as a temp; at least then you might develop some useful skills.
How do you feel after reading that? Pretty motivated, right? No? You mean you don’t find it inspiring when people insult you and your choices and tell you you’re destined for failure? Imagine that!
Unfortunately, when you make the decision to get into real estate, you’re likely to hear criticism just like that. And the worst part is, it will likely come from the people closest to you. They’ll mean well, they’ll think they’re just looking out for you, but the fact of the matter is, when you’re first starting out, your friends and family can be your biggest doubters.
It makes sense when you think about it—of course the people closest to you would be the ones who would try to talk you out of starting a career in real estate. Who else would care enough to worry like that?
If there’s one thing I wish for you, even more than for you to become rich and successful, it’s for you to be surrounded by people who love and care about you. What greater measure of a good life could there be? So, sure, when you tell your loved ones that you’re planning to get into real estate and they initially express some doubts, accept their comments for what they are—expressions of concern for you and your future. Be prepared to tell them what you hope to get out of real estate and how you plan to get it. (This is one of the reasons why it’s important to have a clear picture of success in your mind right from the start.) Hopefully, they’ll listen to your reasoning, see your point of view, and offer their support. But there may be some people who refuse to support you. And in the worst cases, you need to be prepared to put some distance between yourself and them for a little while.
It’s not hard to see why some people would be suspicious of a career in real estate and want to deter you from going down that path. People are conditioned from an early age to think that a 9-to-5 job is normal, even if it makes you miserable, and that any other kind of work schedule is strange; that the security of a salaried position is worth far more than the unpredictability of a commission-based business; that real estate is a feast-or-famine business and the feast can’t possibly outweigh the famine; and that salespeople are sleazy and cutthroat by nature.
In a lot of cases, those criticisms all stem from a single fact: they can’t picture themselves doing real estate, so they can’t imagine why you’d want to do it either. But think about it: people are different in every other aspect of their lives. Some people learn better from books, others learn better from doing something hands-on. Some people love going out at night, others are happier staying in. Some people prefer thin-crust pizza, other people (somehow) prefer deep-dish. So why should everyone want the same kind of career?
Be ready to tell the doubters that 9-to-5 jobs work for a lot of people. But that doesn’t mean that they need to work for you. Some people like the stability of a 9-to-5; some people find that stifling and crave more flexibility. Some people prefer knowing exactly what their paycheck will be every week; others find it much more motivating to chase commissions, knowing that their rewards will be directly tied to how hard they work. Some people don’t like taking on any more risk than they absolutely have to; others are willing to take big risks to achieve bigger dreams. And if I’m not a sleazy, cutthroat person now, what makes you think that I’m going to turn into one the second I get a real estate license?
Unfortunately, some people will never come around, no matter how well you state your case. Some people just want to be right. They want to be able to say, “I told you so.” And so, they’ll tell you that you’re going to fail over and over again, so that if and when you do, they can be there to enjoy the smug satisfaction of having been right all along.
The scary part is, the more you hang around these people who keep telling you you’re going to fail, the more likely it becomes that they’ll be right.
See, in order to succeed in real estate you need to be motivated, positive, and above all, confident. You need to believe in yourself and what you’re selling. Remember that time you bought a house from that guy who was shaking, sweating bullets, stammering, and telling you that he “kinda, sorta” thought it was up to code and “maybe, possibly” thought it was in a safe neighborhood? Neither do I.
But at the same time, it’s perfectly normal to be nervous the first few times you take a client out to see a property. People get nervous when they’re doing something new, and doubly so if money is on the line. So it’s very possible that you might strike out with your first few clients just from nerves.
And even when you get over those early jitters, no one in the history of real estate has ever closed a deal with every single client they’ve ever worked with. No one. Everyone has bad days. Everyone has slumps. Everyone has those times when they do everything right, but the client just flakes out for some unforeseeable reason. And when that happens, you need to stay positive so you can brush off the disappointment, get back out there, and go find yourself another deal.
It’s a lot harder to do that when you hear your friend’s voice telling you that you’re going to fail echoing around in your head. Instead, every little setback quickly starts to feel like the universe proving your doubters right, instead of what it is: a minor bump on the road to success. It’s all too easy to internalize that doubt coming from someone else and turn it into self-doubt, and agents who are plagued by self-doubt are, more often than not, agents who quit.
That’s why, if you have a doubter in your life who just won’t change their tune, the healthiest thing you can do is to take some time away from that person. Get that negativity out of your life before it infects you. You can always rekindle the relationship in a little while, once your real estate career is on solid footing and you’ve got some closed deals under your belt. Because people can argue with just about anything, but they can’t argue with results.
What works for one salesman may not work for another
Pop quiz: How do you sell a brand-new, spacious, move-in-ready, four-bedroom, four-bath home with high-end appliances and fixtures, gorgeous views, and easy access to shops and restaurants, in a top-ranking school district, that’s priced 20 percent below market value?
Answer: You don’t. It sells itself.
If every property were like the one I just described, real estate would be the easiest job in the world. Unfortunately, most properties aren’t like that. In fact, almost no properties are like that. If you’ve ever watched an episode of House Hunters or a similar show, you know that, even on TV, finding a home almost always means compromising, either on the price, the location, the features of the home, or some combination of the above. Being a real estate salesperson is all about the art of getting people to identify what’s really important to them and to accept compromise in order to get the things they want the most.
A little later in this chapter, I’ll give you some strategies for combating some of the most common objections that clients raise when they don’t want to compromise. But first, let’s talk about developing your sales style.
At its core, selling is about influencing people and creating some degree of pressure. People don’t like to think of it that way, because that’s where we get the image of the pushy, obnoxious, fast-talking salesperson, but that’s exactly what it is. If you’re not creating any kind of pressure that’s directing your client toward making a decision, you’re not really selling anything, and you can’t be surprised if you don’t generate any results.
Every client is different, and you have to constantly adapt your sales techniques to fit them—a client with low credit and income who needs to move tomorrow is going to respond very differently than a client with high credit and income who has a flexible move-in date, for instance—but you also have to find a sales style that works for you.
Sales tactics generally fall into one of two categories: high pressure (also called the hard sell) and low pressure (also called the soft sell).
High-pressure sales tactics are ones where the salesperson openly tries to direct the client toward making a purchase, usually by pushing them to make an emotional, impulsive decision rather than one based on factual information. At their worst, high-pressure tactics can amount to little more than the salesperson knocking the client off balance by talking circles around them, keeping them so disoriented that they end up buying something they don’t want without asking enough questions or thinking through their decision. This is precisely where the notion of the pushy salesperson comes from.
Imagine a car salesman who tells you that the car you want is normally $20,000, but if you buy it today, they can get you a special, limited-time price of only $18,000. Now the salesperson has just created a time crunch (the limited-time offer) and an incentive (the $2,000 savings). You’re nervous about losing out on the special price, and you’re excited about the savings, because saving money makes you feel like you’re scoring a victory against the car dealership, and that feels really good. So you take the deal, never even realizing that the actual price of the car was $18,000 to begin with, and the salesman had inflated the price to offer you phony savings.
These days, many people go into any interaction with a salesperson expecting the hard sell. People are a lot more knowledgeable about these tactics than they used to be. With the benefit of any number of informational and review services at their fingertips, people today are basically walking bullshit detectors. For instance, in the example above, who goes to buy a car without looking at prices online anymore? If you try to push someone into buying something they don’t really want, they’re much more likely to stop you in your tracks, walk away, and go work with someone else. Kiss your commission goodbye.
But that doesn’t mean that high-pressure sales tactics are dead, or that they can’t still be effective, or even that they’re always malicious.
In real estate terms, high-pressure sales techniques could be used to rush a client into taking an apartment or a home before they’re really ready, or before they’ve fully explored their options. A common tactic is the old “There are a lot of people interested in this apartment, and I don’t want you to miss out on this opportunity” cliché. These tactics can still be very effective, but if you use them, don’t expect repeat business or referrals from that client.
That’s not to say there’s no place for high-pressure sales techniques in real estate, just so long as you’re being honest. At their best, the salespeople who utilize high-pressure selling are high energy and infectiously enthusiastic by nature, and they translate that energy into getting their clients enthusiastic, too.
I’ve known some salespeople who could get you excited about buying shoelaces, because they seem so genuinely excited by the prospect of you owning new shoelaces. In most cases, it’s a good thing these people found work in real estate, a field where they get to be on their feet, moving, and meeting new people all the time. These people would take a client out to see an apartment, and then they’d be back in a flash with their clients practically jumping out of their skin to fill out an application.
As long as they were getting these clients excited about apartments that actually worked for them, there was nothing wrong with that. It’s only a problem if you’re using that kind of enthusiasm and charisma to get people excited about homes they can’t afford, ones that aren’t safe (either because they are structurally unsound or because you are intentionally misrepresenting the safety of the neighborhood to make a sale), or ones that don’t fit their needs. As long as you keep the client’s best interests at heart, there’s no reason that an emotional appeal can’t work for you.
On the other hand, I’ve also known agents who don’t try to appeal to their client’s emotions at all. In a few cases, I’ve had agents who barely even speak to their clients; they give them a little advance information about the apartment they’re about to show them, then once they get there, the agents just open the door and stand there in the entryway, letting the client explore on their own and the apartment (and the client’s imagination) speak for itself.
Broadly speaking, low-pressure techniques focus more on educating the client, presenting them with the facts, and letting them reach their own conclusion. The above example is low-pressure sales tactics taken to their extreme. (I mean, what’s lower pressure than not saying anything at all?) Not everyone can make this tactic work for them, but everyone can educate their clients.
In real estate, educating your client begins with helping them figure out what they really want. Most people have a rough idea of their perfect home in their mind, but they don’t really flesh it out until someone pushes them to do it. In your first conversation with the client, you should get them talking about what they want—the things that are absolute must-haves, the things that would be nice bonus features, and the things they don’t care about or flat-out don’t want. Many times, this list will end up being inaccurate; they might tell you that stainless steel appliances would be a nice perk, but aren’t necessary, only to turn around and reject an apartment that has everything else on their wish list because the oven isn’t stainless steel. Sometimes people have to face a decision head on to know what’s important to them. But having that initial conversation is a good place to start.
The next part of educating your clients is teaching them about the market. If their budget is $1,500 per month for a two-bedroom apartment, but two-bedroom apartments in the neighborhood they want go for $2,500 and up, you’re not doing them any favors by failing to tell them that what they’re looking for doesn’t exist. It’s much more helpful to explain what’s happening with the market and educate them about some alternatives. For example: “Neighborhood X may be out of your price range, but Neighborhood Y is along the same train line, has a lot of great bars and restaurants like you wanted, and has a lot more apartments within your budget.”
Setting proper expectations for neighborhoods, properties, and even the steps involved in applying for an apartment or putting in an offer on a home will not only put your client in a better position to make an intelligent decision; it will also help you earn the client’s trust. When they realize that you want them to be informed, they’ll understand that (a) you have their best interest at heart, and (b) you know what you’re talking about. They will want to consult you, and they’ll value your opinion, which means you can influence their decision-making process without having to resort to emotional manipulation or bluster.
Low-pressure selling is not without its own risks. It’s a slower process, for one thing, and creating too little pressure can give a client the leeway to stretch their search on forever, always wanting to wait for more properties to come on the market in case their perfect place should suddenly appear. But when used correctly, low-pressure selling leaves clients feeling empowered, which leads to more repeat business and referrals.
Here’s a real example from clients I worked with years ago: The clients, a couple in their early twenties, were moving to Brooklyn from New Jersey. They wanted to be near the Q train for commuting to work. They had been searching for a one-bedroom apartment on their own for a while, but weren’t finding anything, in part because they didn’t know enough about the less-famous neighborhoods of Brooklyn to know where to look.
I took them to see an apartment in an up-and-coming neighborhood along the Q train that was renting for $950 a month (it’s a sign of just how long ago this was that it was possible to get a one-bedroom anywhere in Brooklyn for that little). They loved the feel of the area, and they immediately connected with the apartment, which had a funky layout that gave it a lot of character. It had odd angles and a lot of overhead storage instead of traditional closets, all of which gave it an unusual, old-world feel that the couple clearly enjoyed.
If I were using high-pressure tactics, I could have ended their search right then and there. I could have capitalized on their obvious affection for the apartment to get them to put down a deposit and fill out an application at that moment, there’s not a shred of doubt in my mind about that. But while I think they certainly could have made that apartment work for them, I had a couple of concerns.
For one, they were moving from a house in New Jersey to an apartment in Brooklyn. If they were moving with a lot of furniture, would it fit the odd angles in this apartment? And second, both of the people in this couple were pretty short, and those overhead storage spaces were pretty high up. They said they could deal with the overhead storage, but that felt like it might be their enthusiasm talking. Would they really want to have to pull out a stepladder anytime they needed to get something out of their closets? My fear was that they would get sick of it after a week and end up with buyer’s (or rather, renter’s) remorse, which would be unfortunate for them and almost certainly mean no future business for me.
Instead, I took them to see another apartment a couple stops further along the Q line. The neighborhood didn’t have quite as much going for it, but it was safe, quiet, and had everything they needed, like grocery stores, pharmacies, and a handful of places to eat out. The apartment was a little cheaper, at $900 a month, but it was a little further from the train and there was nothing interesting about it at all. It was the most straightforward, simple architecture you can imagine, a railroad-style one-bedroom that was basically one cube-shaped room that led straight into another. The drab paint on the walls felt like it came from the hallway of a mental hospital. It was a good amount of usable space, but I could tell it didn’t excite them. I could see they were still thinking about the first apartment.
I took the time to sit down with them and make a list of pros and cons for the two apartments, encouraging them to think about the practicalities of living in each one. Although they both started out excited about the first apartment with all the character, by the time they’d finished listing the pros and cons, they were surprised to find out that the second apartment came out ahead.
They ended up taking the second apartment. Because it was less expensive, it meant I received a smaller commission than I would have with the first apartment. But the couple was very happy there (they ended up living there for three years), and the next time they had a friend moving to New York, they put him in touch with me. I was able to find their friend an apartment as well. So, because I went with a low-pressure technique—guiding them toward the facts instead of capitalizing on their emotions—I ended up making an additional commission, coming out ahead in the long run.
In truth, you’ll most likely end up utilizing a combination of high- and low-pressure sales techniques to fit your clients and, more importantly, to fit your personality. If you’re a low-key person by nature, trying to get your clients super psyched up about an apartment could easily come across as too forced. At the other end of the spectrum, if you’re the sort of person who can’t sit still, you probably don’t have the calm, collected demeanor to pull off something like standing silently in the doorway and letting the clients explore the apartment on their own; they’d just end up getting freaked out by you standing there, fidgeting.
Take a moment to think back to times when you’ve convinced someone to do something or change their mind about something. It doesn’t have to have been convincing them to buy something, it could be as simple as getting them to agree with your point of view in an argument.
How did you do it? Did you work an emotional angle to make them think with their heart instead of their head? Did you hammer them with facts until they threw up their hands and gave up? Did you poke holes in their argument until they decided they ought to switch their position? Did you present your case and let them come to their own conclusion (which, of course, was the conclusion you wanted them to reach)?
However you did it, that might be the foundation of your personal sales style. It will take you some time—and probably some trial and error—to craft your sales style, and to get comfortable enough with your own strengths that you can adapt on the fly to fit your clients’ individuals needs and circumstances. But once you find your style, everything else is just details.
Why time management is the key to real estate success
As a real estate broker, there are a thousand different things to keep track of at any given moment. There are calls and emails to and from buyers, sellers, renters, and landlords; ads to post, showings, closings, lease signings, open houses, and the daily search for new listings. Managing your time well is the biggest key to success in this business. It’s especially important when you’re first starting out, so that you develop good work habits early on.
A lot of people get into real estate sales thinking it’s something they can do part-time, either while working another job or doing something else on the side. To be sure, I’ve known some wildly successful agents who only worked part-time. They were the sort of agents who could go out on one showing and come back with a deposit with staggering consistency. But that kind of skill level is incredibly rare. And each and every one of those agents who was able to be successful doing real estate part-time started out by doing it around the clock.
So, maybe you’ll end up becoming one of those exception-to-the-rule agents who knocks it out of the park with every client so often that you can make the kind of money you want to make in real estate while only working part-time. I know a lot of agents who will be jealous of you. But don’t expect to reach that level right away.
Starting a real estate career means you’re taking a chance on yourself. So give yourself the best chance you can and commit to it full-time, especially at the beginning.
Here’s a simple schedule you can follow to make the most of your day. This is geared toward agents working in rentals, but it can easily be adapted for sales:
7:00–9:00 AM: Post ads. Many of the most popular sites organize their ads in the order in which they were submitted, meaning the sooner someone searches that sight after you post your ad, the higher up in the search rankings your ad will be. A lot of people who are searching for a new home do their online searches while they’re eating breakfast, or right when they arrive to work, so this is a good time to get your ads out there to catch those morning searchers.
9:00–10:00 AM: Training. Take some time to wake up your brain and get excited for your day by learning something new about your business. If your company offers daily training, great. If not, there are tons of places online to pick up new sales techniques or learn about the latest market trends. Whether you’re reading an article, watching a video, listening to a podcast, or engaging in an in-person training session, use this time to sharpen your skills.
10:00 AM–12:00 PM: Plan out your day. Clear out your voicemails and your email inbox. Get back to any clients who asked you to contact them. If you have showings scheduled for later in the day, contact the landlords, supers, or whoever else you need to speak to in order to make sure you have access. If you don’t have four to five appointments set up with clients for that day, contact any clients you can to fill out your appointment schedule. Confirm the appointments you already have on the books.
12:00–2:00 PM: Post ads. If you haven’t set up your appointments by this time in the day, it can be a lot harder to do it now. By lunchtime, people generally have their whole day planned out in their heads, and it can be tough to get them to change it. Even if their plans for the evening are “sit on couch, do nothing,” by this point in the day, they’re looking forward to that. However, this is a great time to post some more ads, because people also tend to search real estate listings on their lunch breaks.
2:00–5:00 PM: Preparation and early appointments. This is the key time for taking out clients who took a half day from work or school to go see some listings. Often this means the client is in a serious rush to find a new place to live. It could also be that the apartment you want to show them is only available to be seen at this time. This is particularly common in areas with large Jewish populations, where a landlord may not be able to schedule any showings after sundown on a Friday for religious reasons.
If you don’t have any appointments in this time slot, use this time to get organized for your appointments coming up in the evening. Where are you meeting them? What route will you take? What features of the neighborhood will you show them? If there are any details about how to access the apartments that you still need to clear up, such as a keycode or confirming a meeting time with a landlord, now’s the time to do it.
And if you don’t have any appointments lined up at all, use this time to try to book some last-minute showings. If that doesn’t work, it’s never a bad idea to post some more ads, to get a head start on preparing for tomorrow’s appointments, or to go out and familiarize yourself with your company’s inventory by visiting properties. And it’s never a bad time to go out looking for new listings!
5:00–7:00 PM: Appointment time! Ideally, you should have four to five appointments booked for the evening. This is the most popular timeslot for showings. People get out of work and they want to do their apartment hunting before heading home for the night. Landlords love it when you bring them clients who are coming straight from work. Why? Because it means they have a job! Rush hour means traffic could be a nightmare, so be sure to factor that into your travel time. For each appointment, plan on showing them one apartment, plus one to two backups in case they don’t love the first one as much as they thought from your ad.
7:00–9:00 PM: Late appointments. The later it gets in the evening, the more difficult it can be to get access to apartments that require a landlord or super to let you in, because they’re ready to call it a day. On the other hand, it’s often the best time to get access to apartments that are still occupied, where the outgoing tenant has agreed to let you in, because they are now home from work.
If you’re not out on appointments, it’s a great time to post ads to catch people who are getting serious about their search. At this time of day, people who are looking at real estate listings aren’t doing it casually to amuse themselves while they’re scarfing down a meal; they’re making a point to take time out of the evening to see what’s on the market.
9:00–10:00 PM: Look ahead. This is the time to set yourself up for success tomorrow. Send yourself anything you need to be able to access from home, if you can’t get it wirelessly. Organize your leads and appointments for tomorrow. But most importantly, take a little time to reflect on your day. How did you do? Did you get as many appointments as you wanted to? Did they go the way you hoped? What did you do well? What could you improve on? There will always be circumstances that are out of your control, like a client canceling on you at the last minute, so don’t waste time worrying about things like that. Focus on yourself, and what you want to do better tomorrow.
Why five appointments? Five appointments may sound like a lot, especially if you could end up showing each client as many as three apartments apiece. I recommend aiming for five appointments a day for a few reasons:
Meet some of the people you’ll be seeing every single day in real estate
Every client is unique…up to a point. You won’t have to be in this business for long before you start to recognize certain archetypes that repeat over and over. Understanding what type of client you’re dealing with can help you quickly and easily determine the best way to help them. Here are some of the most common clients you’ll encounter.
Let’s get this one out of the way first, because it’s the easiest, although unfortunately not the most common. Sometimes you get a client who’s been looking for a long time, and is ready to just be done with it. They have all their paperwork together, they have all their finances together; if you can find them something they can live with, they’ll take it. Let them know that you understand how they feel, that you get that looking for a home is like having a second job, and now you’re going to take that burden off their shoulders.
When you get a client who’s truly ready to make a decision from the first contact you have with them, drop what you’re doing and help them. If every client were like this, real estate would be the easiest job in the world.
They’re moving from another city, they’ll only be in town for a couple of days, and the only thing they’re here to do is look for a place to live. When an out-of-town client gives you a call, it’s like a gift falling into your lap. You couldn’t ask for a more motivated client. All they want to do is find someplace before they have to go back home. That’s a highly stressful scenario to be in, especially if they don’t know their new, soon-to-be home city very well yet, so they will be extremely grateful for your help.
It’s important to lock in an appointment (or even multiple appointments) early with an out-of-town client, because it’s very likely that they’ll be contacting multiple agents from multiple companies.
The most important thing you can do for an out-of-town client is to set realistic expectations well in advance. Someone moving from a small town to a big city, for instance, can easily get massive sticker shock if you don’t give them a real sense of what they can get for their money ahead of time.
But if you take the time to educate your clients, show them around, really make them feel like they’re making an informed decision, they’ll genuinely appreciate it, and that appreciation can very easily translate into referrals or repeat business.
A dreamer is a client who wants something they can’t have. Sometimes it’s simply that they don’t know any better—for instance, someone who’s moving out of their parents’ place and has never had to know anything about the market before. But just as often, it’s someone who saw people living in a giant, impossibly cheap apartment on TV and believes there must be something like that out there for them.
Watch out for phrases like “My friend has a place just up the block for [insert unrealistically low amount],” or “I saw an ad for an apartment for [insert unrealistically low amount] in this neighborhood online the other day.” If their friend really lives in a building that’s priced so far below market value, why aren’t they asking their friend if their landlord has any vacancies? If they really saw an apartment being advertised for so little, why didn’t they respond to that ad, instead of responding to yours?
The fact is, sometimes people hear something thirdhand, or they catch a piece of a conversation out of context, or they misunderstand something they read somewhere, or sometimes they literally dream something up out of thin air, and they convince themselves it’s true. You’re not doing them or yourself any favors by playing along. You’re a real estate professional. You’re the one with expert knowledge of the market. It’s much kinder in the long run to tell them straight, “For the neighborhood you want, apartments go for X to Y dollars,” to get them to understand the reality of their situation so you can show them something in a different neighborhood that they could actually afford, than to spend weeks showing them places they would never qualify for.
When a client has just started looking for a place to live, they may feel like they have all the time in the world. But in a competitive market—and where isn’t a competitive market these days?—if they don’t get serious in a hurry, they could find themselves in a tight spot. It’s your job to educate them and earn their trust (two things that go hand-in-hand), and get them to appreciate the constraints of the market in order to generate a realistic sense of urgency.
Just understand that they might not respond to, or appreciate, any attempt to rush them into a decision. Even if they love an apartment, someone who just started looking might not be heartbroken about letting it pass them by, because they think there’s another one around the corner. But if they let one place pass them by, and the next place doesn’t measure up, that can easily ramp up their stress level.
The shopper doesn’t need to move right away. They’re just looking to see what’s out there. It’s usually someone with at least four months left before their target move date, and often with enough of a budget that they can afford to be picky. They might not be motivated to go after a property unless it meets literally every single criterion they have, from the most important must-have features to the tiniest wouldn’t-it-be-nice.
This could end up being a long-term relationship, so don’t rush it. A shopper won’t respond favorably to pressure. They’ll interpret it as you getting desperate for a commission, and they’ll take their business elsewhere. So let them take it slow. You can even offer to help them shop around. Just don’t let a shopper chew up too much of your time. While their higher budget may ultimately mean a higher commission, it’s still just one deal, so you can’t let yourself get swept up in the notion of a big payday. If it starts to feel like the shopper is acting like you work directly for them, and like they’re the only client who could possibly matter, even though they’re not actually compensating you for your time, it’s time to pull back and focus on other clients for a while.
Oh, and never call them a shopper to their face. Let’s keep that just between us, okay?
Roommate situations can be tricky. They come in all shapes and sizes, from couples moving in together for the first time to students who all have guarantors covering their rent, to friends moving to a new city together, to complete strangers who found one another on Craigslist.
The one thing that all roommate situations have in common is this: no matter how much they say they’re all equals in the decision-making process, someone is always in charge. It’s rarely an official position, and it may not be just one person, but there is always at least one decision maker.
Your job will be a lot easier, and everyone will end up much happier, if you can determine who the decision maker is. It’s not always the person who makes the most money. I’ve seen plenty of couples where only one person was employed and would be paying for the apartment single-handedly, but the other person in the couple was actually the one who called the shots. It’s not even necessarily the person who speaks up the most, or who does the most work as far as organizing trips to go look at properties. The decision maker can often be the quiet one who says he or she doesn’t care, and will do whatever everyone else in the group wants, but then says no to everything when the time comes to make a final call about a place.
With couples, identifying the decision maker is generally pretty simple. It’s larger roommate scenarios that can be tricky, especially if not every roommate shows up for every showing appointment. Try as hard as you can to get everyone to commit to showing up in advance, and if there’s anyone who can’t make it, try to get them to agree to let the group make a decision without them, as long as there is a consensus.
There’s also the fact that very, very few apartments with multiple bedrooms have bedrooms that are all the same size. Some are wildly different. Will the roommates all be paying an equal share, no matter what? Or will they pay proportional amounts, and divide up the rooms accordingly? Making sure all the roommates are on the same page about these things can save a lot of time and arguing.
How to get your clients to see an imperfect property in a new light
Here’s the one and only thing you need to know about the perfect home: it doesn’t exist. A place could always use a few more square feet, a few more windows, an extra closet. It could always be a little closer to the train or a little farther from noise. This is especially true in a densely populated city like New York, where people are crammed on top of one another and the competition for real estate—any real estate—can be ferocious.
Learning to overcome your clients’ objections is not about getting them to take a place that doesn’t work for them. If a place isn’t the right fit for someone, it’s not the right fit, and trying to push them into taking a place where they wouldn’t be happy is as shady as it gets.
But every objection is also an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to help your clients see things from a different perspective when reality doesn’t match up to the picture they had in their head. It’s an opportunity to help them to overlook a surface problem to see the potential in a home that could actually be great for them. It’s about doing your part to ensure that they don’t miss out on a great place because they got hung up on its imperfections.
You know the saying, “Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference?” Well, sometimes that wisdom needs to come from an agent.
Pro tip: Never preemptively assume your client has a particular objection. Everyone has different priorities and different opinions. You might walk into an apartment and immediately think, “There’s no closet, it’s too small, and climbing all the stairs to get up here nearly killed me.” But your client could have a clothing rack all ready to go and could be an exercise enthusiast who loves being outside and runs stairs for fun. I’ll always tell you to put yourself in your client’s shoes, but when it comes to objections, respond to the objections your client actually has, not the ones you think they ought to have.
Here are some of the most common objections, and tips for how to handle them:
Working in New York City, this is probably the most common objection you hear. A lot of apartments are small, and sometimes it seems like they’re constantly building them smaller.
Obviously, the size of an apartment is one of those things that can’t be changed. But it can be put in perspective. First of all, there are more creative, space-saving storage solutions available today than ever before, and most of them are very affordable. End tables, coffee tables, and even chairs, beds, and couches are all available with built-in storage these days. Creative shelving can also dramatically add to the amount of usable space.
Oftentimes the complaint won’t be about the whole apartment, but the size of one of the bedrooms. The client will say, “I can’t get my [X]-sized bed in here.” That’s when it’s useful to have a tape measure on hand, and to familiarize yourself with the measurements of different beds.
Go ahead and measure the room right then and there. Have your client help you. If the room really isn’t big enough…well…unless the client is willing to downsize their bed, the complaint is legitimate, and there’s not a lot you can do except to move on. But a lot of times, a room looks smaller than it is for whatever reason. Sometimes rooms just look small. Clients will often be surprised to find just how easily their bed really could fit in there, and how much space would still be left over.
And possibly the best way to overcome this objection is to remind the client why they want to live there in the first place. This is especially true for out-of-town clients who are moving to the city for the first time. Someone moving from the Midwest to New York might be completely shocked, because $2,000 a month would get them a huge house where they live now, but might get them only five hundred square feet in a prime neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Remind them that they’re not moving to the city for its spacious apartments. They’re moving there to take advantage of everything there is to do outside those four walls. Take them around the neighborhood and show them some of the wonderful things that would be just outside their door. Sell them on the location and its amenities, and they’ll quickly realize that there’s so much to do, all they really need from an apartment is a place to sleep.
This one goes right along with “too small,” in the sense that you can’t change it, but you can make it a little easier to swallow. Again, this is where understanding storage solutions really comes in handy. You can’t magically create a closet for them, but you can show them a smart place to put a dresser, or help them visualize a system of racks and hooks that they could easily install.
I’ve known some agents who carry an IKEA catalogue around with them at all times, just so they can whip it out to show clients the latest build-it-yourself storage ideas. In fact, IKEA is just one of many furniture companies these days that specialize in urban living, meaning they know how to squeeze the most out of small spaces. Take the time to familiarize yourself, so you can familiarize your clients if you need to.
Many clients picture themselves living in sleek, ultramodern high rises, and they don’t want to look at anything else. But it’s the older, prewar buildings that give a lot of cities their charm. If your client scoffs at living in a prewar building, here are a few things to point out:
For starters, prewar buildings are usually really well-constructed. That’s how they’ve stayed up for so long. The walls are typically thick and solid, which means you don’t overhear every conversation your neighbor is having, or accidentally hear Game of Thrones spoilers because they left their TV on. When you’ve had a long day and just need to unwind in peace and quiet, that’s a major plus.
Older buildings usually include heat and hot water in the rent, because there is a central boiler that can’t be controlled by the tenant. That means significant savings on your client’s utility bills—possibly hundreds of dollars every month.
Because of trends in construction and the simple fact that landlords know they can charge more for newer units, apartments in older buildings are often larger than newer apartments that cost the same amount of money, so you get more space for your buck.
Older buildings contain a lot of wonderful design elements that you just don’t see in newer structures. Point out architectural elements like tin ceilings, crown mouldings, art deco details in the lobby, or anything else that shows off the building’s vintage touches. When clients feel like the building is a part of the history and fabric of a city, they will often view it in a new light.
Just as there are clients who want to live somewhere modern, there are clients who picture themselves living in a vintage brownstone. They think newer buildings are soulless boxes that lack character, and they don’t like that newer buildings tend to make tenants pay for their own utilities. When you have a client who wants old-world charm, but all you have to show them is modern convenience, here are a few things to mention.
Yes, newer buildings tend to make the tenants pay for their own utilities, but that’s because they actually get to control their own utilities. No more waiting for the landlord to decide whether it’s cold enough that the heat deserves to be turned on, or warm enough that it’s time to turn it back off (which is much worse, in my opinion). The client would have their own thermostat, so they could decide exactly what they want the temperature to be. And most thermostats these days have built-in timers, making it easy to keep costs down by turning off the heat during the hours of the day when no one is at home.
Apartments in prewar buildings may tend to be a little cheaper than newer constructions, but apartments in the kind of classic brownstones that most Old World lovers picture themselves in are actually hugely expensive, due to the rarity and demand.
New buildings are, well, new, and that comes with some perks. For instance, you don’t have to worry about appliances breaking down, because they don’t have any wear and tear yet. You also don’t have to worry about dealing with damage accumulated over years of use by other tenants, such as damaged walls or floors, or sometimes even rats or roaches that have been attracted by years of reliable food.
A brand-new apartment may not have the character that your client was hoping for, but that doesn’t mean they can’t give it character of their own. A brand-new apartment is a blank slate, just waiting for someone to come along and make their mark.
And of course, be sure to capitalize on any modern amenities that the client might not be able to find in an older building, such as fitness centers, laundry, dishwashers, video intercoms, security systems, recessed lighting, green features like bamboo floors or energy-efficient appliances—heck, some new buildings even include wi-fi in the rent.
You’ll generally get this complaint from people looking at apartments on the upper floors of walk-up buildings. They take a look at all those stairs, picture themselves moving in with all their stuff, or having to deal with the stairs at the end of a long day, and they just throw up their hands and say forget about it.
The truth is, though, living on a high floor comes with its share of real advantages:
People have concerns about ground-floor apartments. They picture them as dark and noisy (both from the street and from people coming and going all day and night), and they worry about the security risks if the unit has doors or windows that open right onto the street.
But there are plenty of perks to living in a ground-floor apartment, too:
A lot of these advantages are erased if the building has an elevator, I grant you. But if you’ve ever seen the looks on people’s faces in a high-rise building when the elevator breaks down, you know that elevators aren’t everything.
Sometimes it seems like no matter how many apartments you show a group of roommates, there’s one guy who always finds something to hate, and as soon as he does, even if it’s minor, everyone else just gives in. I talked earlier about finding the decision maker in the group. Well, you found him.
If everyone else in the group likes the place, but one guy makes a single negative comment about the paint color and everyone else seems like they’re not willing to fight, it’s usually because the group knows their own dynamic well enough to know that once this guy starts nitpicking, there’s nowhere to go but down.
You should always exercise caution when inserting yourself into a group dynamic—it’s surprisingly easy to find the whole group turned against you, the outsider—but if one person is consistently problematic, sometimes the best thing to do is to remind the others that it may be easier to find another roommate than to find another apartment that they all like.
The goal here is not to split up the group. You don’t want to be the jerk who butted in and ruined a friendship. And besides, if you’re dealing with four people, and one of them gets kicked out, now you’ll have to start all over again, helping them find three-bedroom apartments instead of four-bedroom ones.
Instead, what you’re trying to do is remind them that they’ve already gotten past the toughest part of the apartment hunt—finding a good place. Do they really want to let it pass them by? In many cases, just bringing this to their attention will be enough to get them to at least consider the possibility of finding a new roommate to replace the one who’s refusing to cooperate. And that will often get the troublesome roommate to change his tune and go with the rest of the group, which was the goal all along.
There’s no way to prepare for every possible objection a client could raise. I’ve been in this business for nearly two decades, and I’m still surprised with the reasons people come up with to turn down a perfectly good place.
The fact of the matter is, sometimes clients will turn down an apartment just to prolong their search. It seems crazy—when have you ever met someone in the middle of house hunting who says they wish it would take longer?—but it’s true. Even after looking at countless places, they’re afraid that if they take a place that meets 95 percent of their criteria today, a place that meets 100 percent of their criteria will come on the market tomorrow. And it will be cheaper. And closer to the subway.
That’s why learning to overcome objections is so important. I’ve known plenty of agents who don’t even try to rebut their clients’ objections. As soon as they client says something negative, they just whisk them out the door to the next place. Those agents are also typically the most exhausted and have the worst showing-to-closing ratios. You can end up putting a huge amount of time into a single client and seeing more apartments than you ever thought possible while basically watching your client hunt for that elusive “perfect” apartment, or you can do the job you signed up to do and actually help them find something real.
The single most common reaction to an apartment from a client who’s not quite ready to make a decision is, “I like it, but…”
That phrase is an opportunity in disguise. “I like it, but I wish it had a bigger kitchen.” “I like it, but I wish the bathroom were updated.” “I like it, but I wish it were closer to the train.” When you hear this phrase, your response should be, “So, if I found you an apartment just like this one, but the kitchen was bigger/bathroom were updated/it were closer to the train, you’d take it?”
That puts the client in the mindset to make a decision, which is the most important step in the process. If you have another apartment lined up that fits the description (or you know how to get access to one in a hurry), that’s your next stop. If not, your appointment is done for the day. Head back to the office and start looking through your inventory so you can show them exactly what they’re looking for tomorrow. And if there’s nothing that fits the bill in your inventory already, hit the streets and go find it.
There is no more critical tool in the broker’s arsenal than a good elevator pitch. If you’re not familiar, an elevator pitch is a twenty-to-thirty-second statement explaining who you are, what you do, and why it’s unique. The idea is simple enough: you step into an elevator with a potential client. How do you convince them to work with you by the time the doors open again?
Of course, an elevator pitch is not just for elevators. It could be something you bust out while walking to your car, or while standing in line for a taxi, or while waiting for a table at a restaurant, or while getting ready to board a plane. It’s something you could end up cycling through fifty different times at a networking event. Anytime you have someone’s attention for a short period of time, you can capitalize on that opportunity if you have your elevator pitch down pat.
Crafting the perfect elevator pitch is a tricky thing. Entire books have been written on the subject, and there are experts out there (as well as plenty of people passing themselves off as experts) who give lectures on this topic every single day. There’s no 100-percent-perfect recipe, but there are common building blocks you can use to gather your thoughts and put them into action.
The first step is simply determining who this elevator pitch is for. Who’s your intended audience, and what are you trying to get them to do? As a real estate broker, you’ll need at least two versions of your elevator pitch: one to convince buyers and tenants to work with you, and one to convince landlords and sellers to give you their listings.
Once you’ve got your audience and your goal settled, it’s time to figure out what you’re going to tell them. You need to explain who you are and what you do as quickly as possible, but you also need to do it in a way that will grab their attention. As I tell Rapid Realty agents, just saying, “I’m a real estate agent” is boring. Even saying, “I’m an agent with Rapid Realty” is boring—and I’m the guy who started Rapid Realty. But if you say, “I’m an agent with Rapid Realty, the largest apartment rental company in New York”—now you’ve given your listener something they can sink their teeth into.
Now that you’ve got your listener interested, it’s time to hit them with something special—something only you or your company can offer. Imagine you’re a landlord with a vacancy coming up, and you just happen to bump into a real estate agent who says they specialize in rentals. Sounds good, right? But what piece of information would clinch the deal? That’s what you want to communicate next, something that you can deliver that all the other real estate companies out there can’t. Is it your years of experience? Your technology? Do you have an impressive closing ratio, or an award for the most closed deals in a single month? In other words, if I’m the landlord with a vacancy and I’m listening to you, why should I want to give you my listing right here, right now, instead of going, “Oh yeah, a real estate agent. I should probably talk to one of those.”
If you’re having trouble coming up with something unique, try this exercise: start with the phrase, “We do things differently. We [_______________].” Whatever you used to fill in the blank, that’s your unique reason you can give people to prove why they should work with you. It doesn’t necessarily have to be that you’re the best in the world, you’re just trying to communicate what makes you and your company special at that particular moment.
So, you’ve hooked your listener with what you do, you’ve reeled them in with what makes your services unique, now it’s time to put the ball back in their court in a way that will leave them engaged. A great way to do this is by ending on a question that could spark further conversation. And the trick to that is simple: get your listener talking about themselves. People love to talk about themselves.
So, instead of giving them a simple yes-or-no question, where they can give you a one-syllable answer and then brush you off, ask them something that will prompt them to start telling you their story. For example, if you’re talking to a potential buyer or renter, don’t end your elevator pitch with, “Are you working with a broker right now?” That’s like asking someone if they have a boyfriend. First of all, it seems desperate, and second of all, they can just say yes and walk away. Instead, try that old favorite, “How long have you been looking?” Anyone who’s been searching for a home more than fifteen minutes will be all too happy to share how long and frustrating it’s been.
With a landlord or property manager, you would vary it slightly. Try, “How long has it been on the market?” Or, “How long does it usually take you to get your vacancies rented?” With someone selling their house, a classic conversation starter is, “What made you decide to sell?” or its variant, “What made you decide to sell now?” Whether it’s financial hardship causing them to downsize or financial gain allowing them to upgrade; a change in their family dynamic; or they’re moving for work, school, or just a change of scenery, everyone wants to tell their story, if you give them an opening.
With any luck, you’ll strike up a conversation and time and circumstances will allow you to talk long enough for you to secure their business. But whether this is the moment they agree to work with you, or just the beginning of a discussion to be picked up later, you’ll want to leave them with something to remember you by. The best example, of course, is your business card.
You should always keep a supply of current business cards on you whenever you leave the house. No excuses. If I bump into you on the street and you can’t give me your card, I’m going to be very disappointed.
But since everyone else in the world has a business card, it also helps to invest in some other small memento you can give out, like a pen with your contact information on it. I’ve seen people give out everything from keychains and refrigerator magnets to personalized toothpicks (which was, frankly, a little odd—if you don’t use it, it’s just a pointy stick in your pocket, and if you do use it, who wants to carry a used toothpick around all day?) and beyond. Giving your potential client something that goes that one little step beyond the norm can make a big impression.
Okay, so let’s go over the checklist one more time. You’re going to identify your target audience and what you hope to gain from them. You’re going to introduce yourself and your business. You’re going to explain one thing that makes your services unique. You’re going to engage them in conversation by getting them talking about themselves. And finally, you’re going to give them your card, and possibly something else to remember you by. And you’re going to do it all in absolutely no more than thirty seconds.
As you can probably imagine, good elevator pitches don’t come together instantly. It takes practice. Once you’ve crafted your elevator pitch, run through it in a mirror. Run through it with your friends and family. Try it out as many times as you can. Cut out anything that doesn’t get right to the point. You want to make it as memorable as possible, not just so your listener will remember talking to you, but also so you won’t have to struggle to recall your elevator pitch when you need it. It’s not just about going to networking events, after all. An opportunity could literally present itself the next time you step into an elevator.
Will you be ready?
How to get your real estate mojo back
Everyone—politicians, programmers, professional athletes—hits a slump every now and again. Everyone has the occasional period where it seems like nothing is going right, and nothing they do can create any positive results. But in a commission-based business like real estate, where your pay is directly tied to producing closed deals, hitting a slump can feel like a career-ending disaster. I’ve been there. And that’s exactly why I’m going to tell you how to snap out of it—and how to avoid making it worse.
DO tell yourself that other people have felt the way you’re feeling now. When I say that everyone hits slumps, I mean everyone. That means that, sure, everyone who has given up on themselves and quit has felt the way you’re feeling, but so have all the greats who pushed past it and went on to achieve their goals. Which one would you rather be?
DON’T wallow in self-pity. When things go wrong, it’s very tempting to focus on how the universe is screwing you over, or to play the What If? game, where you sit around thinking about what would have happened in that last deal if one thing or another had gone just a little differently. Pop quiz: how many deals do you think get closed by playing that game? The answer is zero. What happened is what happened. Learn whatever lessons you can from it, even if that lesson is just that sometimes deals die for no good reason (although there’s usually a reason, so do try to dig a little deeper than that), and move on.
DO set small, achievable goals. You know why soldiers are required to make their bed a certain, precise way every morning? I mean, it’s not like having a well-made bed makes you any better at driving a Humvee, or disarming an IED, or aiming a rifle, right? Well, it’s not just to promote unit discipline (although it’s certainly a part of it). It’s also because days in the military can be incredibly long and draining, and this ensures that they start things off on a productive note. It’s a way to check something off their to-do list right at the start of the day, because we all know that checking things off your to-do list feels great, and motivates you to keep going. So give yourself a list of small, easily managed tasks, so that you can feel that sense of accomplishment as you check things off and get into a positive and productive mindset.
DON’T worry about what other people are doing. There’s nothing worse when you’re in a slump than watching some other agent in your office landing deal after deal. Don’t stress yourself out worrying why you’re not having the kind of luck that someone else is having, and why things aren’t going that way for you. Motivation comes from within. Focus on your own tasks, and you’ll get back in the game faster.
DO cut yourself some slack. You’re going to hear “no” a lot in this business. That doesn’t mean that every no is a failure. A lot of the time, it’s just the price you have to pay before you can get to yes. So don’t beat yourself up if your first attempts to shake off your slump don’t pan out. Just keep going. And treat yourself every now and again. You’re working hard—give yourself the credit you deserve.
DON’T try to be a sharpshooter. There’s a common mistake that a lot of agents make when they’re trying to get out of a slump: they cherry-pick their clients and the properties they advertise to try to set up a “perfect deal,” a home run that will get them back on top in one fell swoop. They delude themselves into thinking that if they can just land that one big fish, everyone will respect them and everything will be great. That may be how it works in movies, but in real life, one deal is still just one deal. If things aren’t going your way, it’s much better to get back to basics, get yourself back on a regimented schedule, and work on getting those five appointments every day. Give yourself more chances, not fewer.
DO get back on that horse. Slumps last as long as they last. Sometimes you just have to push yourself through a certain number of failed deals and unsuccessful client interactions before you get your game back. Some slumps last longer than others, but there’s only one way for them to last forever, and that’s if you give up. Believe in yourself enough to trust that you’ll find your stride again, then get back out there and prove it.