There’s a statistic you can find on the internet that shows 87% of real estate professionals will fail within 5 years in the industry.
This number freaks me out.
It makes me wonder, what made the other 13% stay?
Real estate is a constant up and down journey. You won’t be able to imagine the number of struggles our clients (real estate agents, agency owners, etc) go through. These struggles involve in different areas such as personal, business, client, market, and financial being one of the most common.
But let’s take the emotion out of it for a while. I mean, I do understand the emotional pain and drama that comes with real estate. But at the same time, nobody cares. Welcome to life!
What I’m curious about is the technical, logical, and fundamental reason why a person isn’t succeeding in real estate. So, there is only one thing we can do – we ask.
Yes, we have asked people that have worked in real estate the reason why they left.
First, we had to get past all the emotional points.
The answers during this phase included,
‘Can’t take rejection’,
‘People are not friendly’
‘The market is unfair’
Okay, we got it.
But, when we asked one step further you get some very surprising and interesting answers. It’s interesting to see what people think that real estate professionals do and what they actually do in reality.
At the end of the day, we need to educate the market more on what a real estate professional does on a daily basis. How much sh*t they have to go through to make things happen.
Here is some feedback from people that joined the real estate and left after.
What were they expecting versus what was the reality:
“When I joined real estate, I thought it was a flexible job. When I started working I soon realised real estate is a 16-18 hours a day, seven days a week gig. No exaggeration. Expect no less than 20 points of communication per day 7 days a week. Email, phone calls, and text messages are all expected. It drove me nuts! I couldn’t deal with the constant communication and demand from my potential clients.”
“Real estate contracts are no joke. They change frequently and it’s a legal responsibility to make sure that every line is correct. I had contracts go back and forth up to 20 times, only to find out that the buyer side didn’t want to move forward. So much work and no results… Ouch.’’
“As a real estate agent, I had around 15 to 20 people that I had to follow up with every day. I was asking simple questions and hoping to get a decision. But it was so hard to get people to move forward or making my question a priority in their day. I felt like I was in a daily constant chase. In the meantime, I also had to follow up with other people that were not making my life easier, such as other agents, inspectors, bankers, lawyers, title company, contractors, etc.’’
‘’The tough part was the fact that I was responsible for many deadlines concerning the contract, handovers, cleanups and even dropping back keys to the owners. Running, running, running…sleep… running, running, running…’’
‘’My deal was to split my commission with my agency while paying high fees to real estate commission boards at the same time. I was motivated to only request 2% commission from my clients to have a competitive advantage. But according to regulations, I was allowed to ask for 3%. I don’t understand why people even discount commission. We do so much work and run around all day to make a deal happen. In the end, we have to co-broke, split and pay referrals. While I did all the work, others benefitted from my generosity.’’
“I never expected this industry to be so hard. The amount of work that goes into selling a property is highly underestimated. I did everything myself. Homeowners expect me to do magic and sell overpriced properties. I need to sell, clean, upgrade and beg for the keys, but only to find out the seller is working with four other agents. No, this business is definitely not for me. I’m done.”
So what do you feel when you read all these feedbacks?
The only thing I thought was, welcome to the world of real estate.
You see, we have to realise that we are selling real estate, not coffee. We are selling one of the most expensive assets in the world. There are billions of dollars in transactions going through real estate. Did you expect this to be a walk in the park?
Nope, only 13% of real estate professionals are able to swallow down, stand up straight and transform into highly producing and performing agents.
Why?
There are many reasons, but let me give you a few:
1.They don’t discount their fees.
2.They take the business very seriously and don’t see it as something flexible.
3.They invest in education, personal development, and industry learning.
4.They believe in themselves and become an authority in their market.
5.They work with integrity, respect (both ways between client and agent), and conviction.
6.They are willing to educate the market and walk away from a deal if they see it’s unsellable.
7.They don’t do it alone. They work with a team and go through the journey together.
… and probably another 100 reasons.
I hate to see people leave the industry because it does have a lot of potential for you.
The only thing you shouldn’t do is underestimating the real estate business!
It’s tough, hard, and exhausting. But it’s freaking awesome! You are going to love it!
Now go hug a real estate professional and say thank you!
