Hey guys, I’m using CE shop to complete the required course hours before examination.

Do you recommend thoroughly going through this coursework slowly vs. completing it quickly and using myprepagent practice exams/other material to study then complete the exam asap.

I’m aware that passing the exam is the barrier of entry *before the barrier of entry - which is affiliating with a brokerage doing legitimate business.

Currently taking tedious notes of each unit like a college course though I don’t want to waste my time if theres a more effective approach.

All opinions are appreciated. Thanks.

All the best.

Hello fellow realtors I have a seller who is willing to take pictures of the inside of their home, but does not want it on third-party websites like Zillow and Realtor. I know this can definitely impact the price and time of the sale but I just don’t know how to approach this properly and if I should try to get them to use the photos online respectfully of course or if it’s a privacy of valuables to remove them etc. He said that he’d be willing to share them to preapproved buyers only. Just looking for some suggestions or out of box thinking on how to handle this properly. I know I can speak to my broker, but I just like everybody’s opinion.

Thank you in advance This is in Virginia

Hi Everyone, I am a unlicensed assistant in North Carolina. I logged into my canopy to pay my Q1 dues and see that I have a Code of Ethics cycle ending this year. Do unlicensed assistants need to take a ethics course? I did not think any CE courses were needed as a unlicensed assistant. Thanks for the advice!

I've knocked thousands of doors and 9 out of 10 acquired leads are 6+ months out. Yesterday was different! I knocked a short street with an old expired and luck would have it, a neighbor was literally on their computer searching for real estate agents to list their home (they showed me the computer screen). I did tour of premises and showing them move-up homes later this week.

It works people! Get out there!

Hello Everyone,

I wonder if anyone has an experience with the Seller Score function of Remine. They claim the success rate is over 50%. How do you also approach to this home owners?

Thanks for your feedback

Hello everyone! I am 23 and just got out of the Army and I really don’t know what I want to be. I love the idea of being a real estate agent as you work hard, play hard but all I hear are negatives to this type of work. I am currently in Alaska (my latest duty station) but i was thinking about moving out to NC, SC, FL, or TX. I was doing research and it seems like Keller Williams seems like a good gig. A side note is that I receive 100% disability from the VA so I get around $3,900 a month from that, so I figured that would help me in the beginning when times are tough. Should I go for it?

I spend a lot of time doing this and i get a lot of messages, but it seems like a waste of time. Mostly fb messages that just fizzle out after a few messages. The individuals usually dont approach the conversation even with basic manners. I would like to spend my time elseware, but dont want to miss out if others have had a lot of success. If you’ve had success, what kind of real estate do you sell on fb? By success i mean youve experienced getting at least formal offers, if not a contract, on several listings.

21-year-old realtor here. This year I will sell at least 45 homes and will make about 200k. I don't care about money or even enjoy my job. I have a great team and support system behind me in this business with unlimited growth potential but after becoming Christian am craving something greater than myself.

I'm very tempted to leave the industry behind and join the Marines while I'm still young and able. Advice from Former Marines is greatly appreciated.

Hey all! I'm looking to get into a real estate course to get my 150 hours to be able to take the exam in Oregon. Does anyone have any recommendations on where to take the course, or where to avoid completely?

Hey realtors. how much do you think “appearance” plays a role in selling homes and being taken seriously?

First of all, I'm not working as a real estate agent. I'm just an individual have license.

While I'm in college, I got real estate salesperson license. I did bachelor of management for healthcare as my major, and Biology in minor, applied to Dental School

I had an option to take couple real estate classes to fill up my electives, and those classes were qualified for salesperson licensure along with my other classes.

Now our family looking to purchase another house near my area that I grew up from child and we are really friendly of. I know I can process the purchase with salesperson under supervision, but I couldn't find any brokerage that allows me go under them to do my own transaction, probably max one transaction in like 3-5 years.

So I ended up trying getting the broker license with no direct "real estate" college degree to save buyer side commission payment.

I read one article that they may give experience wavier (but still requires education that I didn't take of) with business related college degree. But I don’t know this is a real thing (couldn't find more specified info on DRE), and I wonder anyone have done it.

have anyone gone through this track?

Edit: I'm willing to spend $ and my winter time to complete exam prep and take a test.

Hi Friends, for anyone that does Apartment Locating, how do you go about getting photos of properties to promote for social media? Is it simply calling the communities and asking for permission to film/take photos? Or do you use the property's content with their permission?

I am an agent in Texas and my brokerage has not a single person who's done apartment locating so I will be getting it started for us. I have located many times before, but never actually marketed the service.
I want to make sure I'm not breaking any rules (I am more familiar with marketing home sales but not this)
Any advice would be appreciated, or if you can point me to a great source of info, that would be great as well.

Gm, I am a part time realtor who is listing a vacant lot for my FIL this week. I was curious about any advice you all would have for me for this listing, and specific docs to focus on providing, etc. Any advice is welcomed, thank you!

Do you leave after a certain time period?

Do you wait even if it’s been an hour?

Assuming you called after 10 minutes to check on them and they had a stupid excuse like “yeah I had to stop somewhere”

I know nothing about home ownership. Recent dental school graduate. Want to explore the idea of homeownership. What can you tell me about doctor’s loan? Is it true there is no down payment necessary? What should I pay attention to?

I am back with my latest installment, and the latest post time as well as it is 11:27PM on Sunday when writing this (my rule is to get every update written by the end of the weekend).

Let's get right to it, goals from last week and the results.

#1: 10 personalized video messages

Not complete.

I had this scheduled for a specific day of my week when there was no meetings or outside the office tasks to attend to. I conglomerated the list of topics, duration times, and recipients during my OH last week so I was prepared to record all of the clips one after the other like an assembly line and send the individual videos off throughout the week at ideal times (mid-morning when people are at their desk, or late evening after dinner when people might be on their phone on the couch).

I got 5 of the videos done and they were all review requests for previous clients, I tried to add an item of value to each one, whether that was a note of a property near the clients house that recently sold or publicly available infrastructure construction info that may affect their commute to work/school. I did not get the other 5 completed as I unexpectedly had to leave my desk for some client work and given how tight my week was scheduled I had a feeling I wouldn't be able to carve out more time to do the remaining 5 videos, which may have been a self-fulfilling prophecy but regardless 5/10 wasn't the goal.

I did mention that this would be ambitious and speaking honestly I think I tend to underestimate how mentally draining recording several videos in a row can be, especially with only bullet-point notes instead of a full-on script.

#2: OH Sat or Sunday

Complete.

I ran 2 open houses this weekend, on both Saturday and Sunday. As I have mentioned before, I am located in a very cold climate so when I confirmed the OHs on Tuesday I did not expect the weekend to be as cold as it was. For reference, today it was -18 degrees Celsius on the mercury and -26 degrees with the wind chill. I was hoping that the cold would encourage people to come out for an "outing" but it didn't really turn out that way.

Saturdays OH got 2 groups, one of them being a Realtor who was doing a preview, and the other being a legitimate prospect who I will be following up with tomorrow with some info about the property and some other items of value. My open house that I ran today also got 2 groups, one of them being a Realtor with his clients, and the other being a group that didn't showcase much interest and didn't stick around long either.

For reference, these 2 OH's would be my 18th and 19th open houses of the year respectively. I have no confirmed clients thus far but I have quite a few database ads/newsletter subscribers. I don't know the specific number as I changed how I input this data into my spreadsheet mid year, I plan to keep better track of this metric starting fresh in Jan 2025.

Something else notable worth mentioning is that a group that I talked to at an OH I ran a few weeks ago reached out to me this week and we have gone on two showing tours so far, this is my first "warm" buyer lead from an OH this year.

#3: Create rental profile for client/closing gift

Complete.

So one of our repeat clients from 2023 recently bought a townhouse that they plan to rent out for a few years until they downsize from their current home in the same city and spend the majority of their time at their vacation property we helped them buy in a different region of the Province as they get closer to retirement.

This client is very type-A and although they were always respectful, it was not easy keeping them fully satisfied, they were a little bit of a trickier personality type overall. That being said, the fact that they came back to use us again was something I viewed as a compliment as they admitted to us early on in the relationship that they had already burnt out a few Realtors with their high expectations.

Since we are closing on their townhouse soon I wanted to think of a gift that would be useful to people with their background (highly successful, minimal extra time). I know that they will be looking for tenants and self-managing the property as a rental, so I created a branded walk-through inspection document/editable pdf that I will present to them at closing. I will also be offering to take some pictures of the property on closing day and write the description for a for rent ad on rentfaster.ca, this is in addition to a gift card for a date night as well.

I am conscious of how I do not want overstep my responsibilities as an agent and not a property manager so I want to be careful not to bite off more than I can chew, or sign up for more responsibilities than I can reasonably attend to. That being said, I am considering paying for the rentfaster ad ($47.90) and 3 in-app credit checks for potential renters ($20 each) to get them set up to find tenants as soon as possible, but I have not decided on this yet.

As closing day is still 1.5 weeks away I still have time to think about this, I want to go above and beyond to showcase value but I don't want to take it to far either...

#4: 1 new review

Complete.

As I mentioned in the video goal above, I sent out 5 review request videos this week, which has worked pretty well for me in the past. I sent out the clips on Wednesday and this morning I received 2 5-star reviews from a former client with some very thoughtful comments in there as well.

I have to give a shout out to a commentator, u/LabtestedRE from a previous post who gave me the idea to ask for the review by telling the client to "imagine they are talking to a friend about their experience with you as a Realtor, what would you mention?" (I am obviously paraphrasing). It ended up being a really natural way to ask for the reviews on my videos so thanks for the idea, I continue using it in the future.

#5: Create neighborhood analysis excel sheet

Complete.

So the story behind this one is I really want to have all of my "brain-dump" marketing ideas in one place so I can easily look and find something new to try if I am ever feeling uninspired or stuck. As I want to continue to touch base with previous clients and bring items of value, my plan is to start conglomerating information regarding developments, zoning changes, construction, and other neighborhood information in a master excel that I can use as talking points whenever I want to reach out and connect again.

In one of my review request videos this week I included information about upcoming road closures and proposed zoning changes to a nearby field/park that is coming up for a vote with the local City council, so having all that info with links ready in my sheet was already worth the effort.

Stats so far:

Episode #1: No previous goals as it is the first installment, N/A

Episode #2: 5/6 goals complete

Episode #3: 3/5 goals complete

Episode #4: 4/5 goals complete

Episode #5: 3/6 goals complete

Episode #6: 2/4 goals complete

Episode #7: 2/4 goals complete

Episode #8: 4/5 goals complete

Next weeks goals:

1. 5 personalized video messages sent
2. OH sat or Sunday
3. Start school sheet (more info next week)
4. Enroll in 2 education course for winter (more info next week)

Song of the week:

Somebody made for me - Emitt Rhodes

Thanks for reading, see you next week!

42 more to go!

Hey everyone, I am a realtor in the Los Angeles, CA area who needs answers to a couple questions about wildfire insurance? is anybody open to answering a couple questions?

How do I skip trace expired listings? Been cold calling FSBO’s but really want to expand but skip tracing takes forever. Looking for a time efficient way that’s cost effective.

My New Years Resolution (which I'll be implementing in December) is to step up my cold-calling game. I don't have a ton of experience at it but I know I need to to it more. (I'm sure we all do.)

I'm a good conversationalist and come off as knowledgeable, so like everyone, I don't want scripts. But I know I need *something* like that, especially since my goal is to make a lot of "touches." I end up having good conversations more often than not when I reach out, but I find it very hard to get to the point organically.

Those of you who've had success: are there any good resources you can recommend to help hone my skills? Even books, podcasts, etc. about sales would be helpful, although I've found that sales tactics from books don't always translate to RE conversations one-to-one, so something RE-specific might be a better place to start.

Thank you!

EDIT: Please stop replying that you don’t think cold calling works. Respectfully, I do not care and am not seeking the advice of people who don’t do it.

When joining Keller Williams, how long is the contract if they pay for your real estate course?

The federal government recently updated the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive, now covering homes priced up to $1M. This program allows eligible buyers to receive a shared equity loan (5-10% of the home's price) to help reduce their mortgage burden and monthly payments. The catch? The government shares in your home's future appreciation (or depreciation).

With housing prices soaring, this increase seems like a step to help buyers compete, but will it actually make a difference, or just drive prices higher?

Would love to stir up a discussion on how agents are planning to take advantage of the boost!
(US folks, would love to hear about programs you have in the states as well! )

Hi everyone!

Newly licensed agent here!

I got an Op City referral the buyer says he is a cash buyer who likes the furniture so much that he suggested that he offer $400k over asking.

I want to show him the house, but want to ensure that he’s not lying and wasting my time for a free house tour. Can I ask for proof of funds before showing it? I’m in Pennsylvania. Thanks in advance!

Hello! I’m an aspiring real estate agent in the Dallas area here and I’m seeking a reality check or bit of encouragement. Preferably both! I’d love to get your take on the following…

Did you have a stable job before real estate? Was the leap into real estate worth it? What keeps you motivated to keep working in this field despite the potential instability?

I live in california , I would like to become a property manager not a full time realtor. In order to become a property manager , I am suppose to be a full time realtor for 2 years, also take 150 hours of classes and take the brokerage test. In order to take brokerage test I have to prove being a full time realtor, my question is if realtors work on commission how do you prove full time employment? Thanks, if any one has additional information on the pursuit of becoming a property manager, broker or what schools are california complient with new discrimation laws, would be much appreciated.

I'm looking to hire a real estate virtual assistant - what's your experience been like so far? Also where did you go to find your virtual assistant?

I'm looking for the virtual assistant who has strong english proficiency and can help run my back office by answering emails, communicating with realtors, managing real estate transactions, and other basic admin tasks. Where do I find a real estate virtual assistant who can help with these tasks?

I've been in RE for about 9 years now and I must admit, my follow up with open house leads is absolutely horrible. What systems do you have in place for open house leads or any leads outside of your SOI?

As a licensed GA realtor I am not able to see some listings in the Rossville/Cohutta/Fort Oglethorpe area. It seems to be some special area with it's own MLS since it is a major city on a border between 3 states. Can anyone help me figure out if I have access to these listings and if so, how to view them so I can show them. TIA!

I am a broker of a small team. Jan 1 we were a team of 10 including me. I am now down to 5 including me.

2 left to companies who promised them leads & 3 have just announced they’re leaving the industry due to increased association fees & the NAR settlement.

Is anyone else first hand seeing more agents leave their company due to association fees and NAR settlement?

Hi everyone,

To what extent the sun orientation of a small appartment that you are looking to buy as a real estate rental investment is important ?

I found a small appartment (42m2) in a city (Casablanca, Morocco) where there is sea that fits my criteria, the only downside is its sun orientation (north).

I am not sure if that a big issue or no. Any inputs would be greatly appreciated