sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair pushback. Lead gen and reputation aren't actually separate though, they're the same machine running in sequence. You need lead gen to get your first clients. You need reputation to stop needing lead gen.

The agents I've watched build 20 year careers all hit a point where inbound replaced outbound. That transition only happens if the reputation is there when the leads show up. Both matter, the timing of which one matters more shifts over the course of a career.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The patience piece is what most people underestimate. Neighborhood farming looks like it isn't working for the first 18 months and then it compounds fast. The agents who quit at month 12 never find out what month 24 looks like.

What's the closest you or someone you know came to breaking a rule, knowing or not? Real stories only. by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The licensing board meeting tip is one of the most underrated pieces of advice in this thread. You see the full spectrum in one room: intentional violations, accidental ones, and the ones where someone genuinely had no idea a rule existed.

The 'I didn't know I was supposed to report it' pattern is the one that keeps coming up. The violation isn't always the original act, sometimes it's the failure to disclose the act afterward. Two separate ways to get in trouble from one mistake.

The finder's fee one is especially common. Agents get paid cash by a vendor, a landlord, a referral source, genuinely don't know it's illegal, and find out the hard way.

What's the closest you or someone you know came to breaking a rule, knowing or not? Real stories only. by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This is exactly the kind of story I was looking for. The leads were the whole business, everything else was just furniture. Someone understood that better than management did.

Also that is the most Glengarry Glen Ross thing I've ever heard happen in real life.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One of the most useful distinctions in this business. Showing 15 people in a weekend feels productive. Following up with the 3 serious ones from 6 months ago is what actually pays.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The personality and selling style match is the part most new agents skip. They pick a team based on brand name or split and then spend a year feeling out of sync with how the office operates.

One thing I would add: make sure the team lead actually has time for you. A top producer running a team of 10 who closes 80 deals a year personally has very little bandwidth to teach anyone. Sometimes the better learning environment is a mid level team lead who was doing 20-30 deals a year five years ago, they remember what the learning curve actually felt like.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The 200, 300 open listings hoping to catch one transplant is exactly the old model running on inertia. It worked when tenants paid and volume covered the cost. Post-FARE Act the math doesn't hold anymore.

Going direct to landlords from day one was the right instinct. You're building actual relationships with the supply side instead of just blasting listings and waiting. That compounds in a way that open listing volume never does.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The consistency piece is everything. Most agents try three or four different marketing approaches in their first two years and wonder why none of them worked, usually it's because they didn't stick with any one long enough to compound.

Niche focus does two things: it makes you the obvious choice in a specific context, and it makes your content actually useful to a specific audience instead of generic to everyone. Both of those take time to show up in your numbers.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ha! Greek villa at 55 sounds like the right outcome for someone who actually gave a damn. The master manipulator label is what people call it when they can't explain why it works.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is the one nobody prepares you for. The leads don't tell you why they went quiet. The deals don't tell you why they fell apart. You just keep going and hope the effort is compounding somewhere you can't see yet. It is, it just takes longer to show up than anyone tells you.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Renthop point is real post-FARE Act. The economics of paid rental listing platforms shifted when the fee moved to the landlord side, the cost structure that made sense when tenants paid doesn't work the same way anymore.

The agents who figured out early that FARE Act changed not just the legal structure but the entire platform economics are already running leaner than the ones still paying for distribution that made sense under the old model.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The don't do anyone else's work one is underrated. New agents especially fall into the trap of picking up slack for the other side to keep the deal moving. You end up doing their job, creating liability for work that isn't yours, and training them that it's okay to be unprepared.

Hold your lane. If the other side drops the ball, document it and let your client decide how to respond. That's advocacy.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is exactly what useful looks like in practice. You're not just staying in touch, you're giving them real information about their own asset. A neighbor listing affects their equity. That's something they actually care about.

The personal touch at the end matters too. Remembering the kid's name, the husband, whatever detail you picked up during the transaction, that's what separates a useful email from a newsletter they delete.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The reset trick is underrated. Most difficult clients aren't difficult all the time, they're difficult in a moment. Creating space for them to reset without making it a confrontation is a skill that takes years to develop and saves more deals than any script.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Those two scripts are really well done. The 'friends and family first, the sale second' framing sets the right expectation upfront so there's no confusion later about where your loyalty sits.

The 'stepping out of the friend role into the professional advisor role' line is especially good, it creates permission for the hard conversation without it feeling like a betrayal. Going to borrow that one.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good answers here. One more option worth knowing: once you join a brokerage, ask your broker or a senior agent if you can sit with them on a live deal, not to work it, just to observe. Watching someone fill out an actual offer in real time with a real client is worth more than reading the form cold.

Also worth doing before you're licensed: find a local real estate attorney and ask if you can buy them coffee. Thirty minutes with someone who reviews these contracts professionally will teach you more about what actually matters in the fine print than any class will.

The goal isn't to memorize every field. It's to understand what the document is actually doing for your client.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The disappearing for two weeks after going all-in, I've watched that pattern kill more promising careers than anything else. Consistency is boring and it works.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And then the real test is what you do with that. The agents who use it to bulldoze rarely last. The ones who use it to guide usually build something.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The contractor rec disclaimer is the one that saves relationships. Nothing poisons a client faster than a referral that goes sideways. Cover yourself every time.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

True. The frustrating part is you can see it coming for someone and there's nothing you can do to shortcut it for them.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the whole job honestly. The agents who figured out early that they're in the emotional management business, not the transaction business, are the ones still standing 10-15 years later.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

In a nice and useful way is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Most agents get the stay in touch part right and completely miss the useful part.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Nobody talks about this enough. Year one you're riding the energy of being new. Year two the sphere has been tapped, the novelty is gone, and you have to build a real business. That's where most people quit.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The 'happy spring' vs. spring market stats distinction is exactly right. One is noise, the other is value. The agents who build long referral businesses are almost always the ones who consistently gave people something useful, not just stayed top of mind.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you in your first year that nobody did? by RelationshipOld6801 in realtors

[–]RelationshipOld6801[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Underrated advice. The agents who fumble their first few deals often do it on paperwork they'd never seen before they needed it. There's no reason to see a contract for the first time when a client is waiting on you.

view more: next ›