How Best to Break into Your Local Market as a New Real Estate Agent

Breaking into the real estate market as a new agent is not only difficult, it can be quite intimidating as well. How do you approach new clients and convince them you can meet their needs? If you are competing with a seasoned agent in your area, how do you one-up them to win new business? These are questions running through every new agent’s mind as they start their real estate business. In this article, we share three ways you can break into the market without having to spend a ton of cash on advertising and expensive marketing tactics.

Become a Local Expert

These days, access to information is almost free, which is why this should be your first move. Commit to becoming an expert in the real estate market in your area. To achieve this, you will need to spend time each day diving deep into daily hot sheets on the real estate market. Do not just skim through this data either. Drill down into which homes sold last week, why they sold at the price they fetched, how long the home was on the market before the sale, etc. This data will help you become a knowledge broker, a type of agent that most clients will be willing to work with because of the demonstrable knowledge you have of the market you serve.

Preview Properties

While you may not have gotten a listing yet, it is always free to preview properties. By previewing properties, you gain an on-the-ground perspective of what the seller is putting on the market. You will get a feel of how the house is, what it feels like to live in it and the various features it has. This first-hand knowledge will prove invaluable when you start talking to prospects and they describe what they are looking for in a home, which is not always just quantifiable things but also more emotion-bound things as well. As you have already experienced the properties, you will be better placed to offer insightful feedback to prospects.

Network with Established Agents

The best way to learn is through experience. But since you do not have any experience yet, the next best alternative is to look for those who have that experience and learn from them. If you can find a senior agent to mentor you, you would be getting a crash course on experiential learning without having to make all the mistakes they made over the years. While this is not always easy owing to the competitive nature of the market, finding someone who does not service your area can be a great way to avoid conflicts of interest. If they can teach you all they know without feeling as though you will directly compete with them, you will have a win-win situation.

Conclusion

As a new agent, your greatest hurdle will be to show prospects that you know what you are doing. As you do not have any homes you have sold yet, you will need to employ these methods and others to convince prospects that they can trust you with their property transaction. The ability to demonstrate this confidently will help you break into the market even if other more-experienced agents are currently servicing it.