5 Most Important Traits of a Real Estate Agent

Having being in the industry to see the different cycles in the market and grooming great people to work with in my team, people right outside my industry always ask what is the most important trait to success in the business. This question always lead me to ponder whether there is one that is more outstanding or more important than the rest of the other traits or whether do they have any order of priorities at all.

And then there are these few atop that is worth mentioning and these are the ones that guides my principle not only in the real estate business but to most of the things I do in life.

Be Responsible

To mention that you are responsible is a statement. Wholeheartedly responsible is to be able to do the things even when nobody else might even know or notice that you have done the right thing. In order for you to do well, you would have to be set goals (short, medium and long-term) and stick to them. You would have to plan your week, your months and your quarters and make sure you carry out your tasks. This is responsibility to oneself and plays a crucial part to our business.

Apart from being responsible to yourself, you have many people to answer to as well; Your business partners, co-broking agent friends and clients whom entrusts you sometimes with sensitive information. Your role is to upkeep to do what is right and best of interest for them. Believe me, just as other professions like doctors or lawyers, real estate agents like us tend to tread and even possibly do the wrong things quite easily. You are to differentiate what is being right and wrong and when in doubt, do seek opinions.

Once this trait is being abused, your realtor lifespan will tend to burn to ground zero and usually have very little chance of surviving. Your reputation adds up accolade as you watch this characteristic carefully overtime.

Willingness to Learn

No matter how long are you in the trade, there will be always new things or skills to learn. Flipping e-Books, newspapers everyday tells you so much more on how much variety can real estate offer you in terms of possibilities. Over the years, even the landscape of marketing properties have changed quite a fair bit. Realtors who have been longer than me in the business would know now its not just a 4-line advertorial in classified ads anymore. The market audience behavior changed, you have lesser people who are genuinely looking for real estate just by flipping the newspapers. Online media became a hit.

Imagine if you are one of them that stops learning, what next? Where is the joy of progressing with time? Believe me when you are unhappy, your results in the business would tend to reflect as well. Focusing on learning new knowledge, acquiring new skills will always put yourself in a good position to harness creativity. You might be even creative enough to structure a deal which you might not have imagined possible without the extra knowledge and skills that you could have picked up overtime. Willingness to learn usually links quite closely to the next one which I am about to mention..

Being Humble

I love listening and learning to people from all walks of life. As you start grooming your team, you get fresh ideas from even the freshest people entering the industry. They put them to you and you in turn see if there is any other way to help them improve in their skills with your experience. Team leaders who have been in the industry long enough knows that this is a fatal trait which sometimes even themselves fail to recognize as the most crucial criterion to team building.

Never turn down business no matter how small the deal could be, always try your best to pick up every calls as much as you can even though how busy you can be. We know this is tough in our industry as it would seem that we are rude when we are doing viewings with clients, but sometimes callers might misread your failure to pick up your phone as “too busy to handle even a call”. A simple apology and responding to the caller that you would call back later would make you look much more responsible, even with the client whom you are physically with in the appointment.

Being humble brings you more networks that you could ever imagine possible. It just makes you more human.

Be Proactive

Reaction to situations quickly is a plus and bonus. Ever emailed some customer service with regards to some enquiries and should the response be in your mailbox or should they call you within the next 10 minutes you go “Wow!”? This is somewhat required as well here with real estate. You have all the time in the world to work on some cases whereby the clients genuinely are not serious but there are some which you know that deserves your immediate attention. You focus hard, and you quickly with all the skill sets that you have acquired overtime and boom! Your client gets impressed and sticks closely with you.

Being proactive means following through as well with your clients even though the deal could be long sealed. And this is how you get strong referrals as a continuity to supplement your business.

Be Very Hardworking

Though I would say there are no priorities in terms of traits’ importance, I would have to admit that I’m leaning very closely to this one being the utmost number one. You could sit at home and do nothing while waiting for responses after all your marketing techniques is deployed. Or you could choose to be more active and walk the ground to learn something new and even network with people. I know this particular lady from my Team who has graduated as a telemarketer with us whom actively and constantly think about work. She moves work, breathes and eat work, and the result? One of our constant producers.

All these traits usually links to one another and with the right balance of all the above mentioned, you will not only be successful as a Real Estate agent, but whole as a person.

If you find this useful, you might be also find How would you decide which Real Estate Agency to join interesting as well.

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