Webinar Replay: Getting Started in Real Estate

July 28, 2022

In this webinar, Dawn Pfaff, founder and President of My State MLS, with over 20 years of real estate experience as an appraiser, broker, investor, real estate license law instructor, and real estate tech entrepreneur, teaches new agents how to get started.

There are new tips for agents that are stuck too.

Watch the webinar and let us know what you think. Like and subscribe to these free webinars on our Go Home TV YouTube Channel


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Video Transcript*

Dawn Pfaff

00:07 - 00:25All right. I am so happy that all of you could join me here today. We're going to talk about how to get started in real estate. This just as a new agent. But it doesn't matter if you're already in real estate. I mean, most of you hopefully are licensed already. And some of you've been working real estate for a while.

00:25 - 00:48But maybe you're stuck. And that's what prompted me to want to do this webinar is because I've been reading a lot of the Facebook group mastermind groups that I'm in that people are stuck because things have slowed down, things have changed, the market is changing and people don't really know what to do. So I try to give my $0.02 in those mastermind groups and help people as much as possible.

00:48 - 01:13But then I realized, you know what, it's webinar time. We actually need to get a little more in-depth about what we're going to do in real estate to be successful. That's the idea, right? We want to be successful, and we want to know what to do and how to get started. That's what this webinar is all about. So I'm going to hit my slide show right now and we're just going to get we're just going to roll right into it.

01:16 - 01:35First things first. Real estate is not a job. Everyone's like, oh, you know, I lost my job or I retired and now I'm going to get real estate as a job. Now, real estate is not a job. Becoming a real estate agent or broker is a business. It's an investment. And you have to invest time and you have to invest money.

01:35 - 02:01You don't get paid unless you have a closing for the most part, unless you have a real estate related W2 job. But most people don't. So what you need to do is treat this as a business. It's very important, very important that you have to make investment in yourself and in this job. So the first thing you want to do when you start any new business, because this is a business, is make a business plan.

02:01 - 02:27Now, the business plan needs to have goals where you're going to focus, what your objection objectives are or your plan. So in order to start this plan, the first thing you should ask yourself is what type of real estate do you want to do? Everyone gets into this and the first thing they think of, the only thing they think of for the most part is I just want to sell houses.

02:28 - 02:52Houses that are risk sold, resell resale houses, use houses. And that's what most people think of. And most people don't realize all the other choices that there are. You can get into new construction, sales of condos or high-rise buildings. You can get into land sales. There's land brokers who specialize in just land. There are commercial brokers who specialize in just commercial.

02:52 - 03:20There's business brokers who specialize in just selling business businesses, property management that specialize in short term rentals, long term rentals, vacation rentals, or just representing investors. There's people who just do rentals that don't manage the whole property, but they just get people into the rental. There's people who are investors who get into this business just to buy for themselves and their family, or they represent a company that they buy for.

03:20 - 03:46And then there's people who represent people who want to downsize and go into assisted living facilities and adult living facilities. And then there's people who get into mobile homes. It's they're also auctioneers actually isn't on this list. But we are going to talk about auctioneers as well. Auctioneers can be selling any one of those things. So after you picked one of those things and look at all of them, and if you're not sure what to pick, I'm here.

03:47 - 04:03If you're not sure what each one would be about, you need to send me an email or ask me in the comments of our YouTube channel because we're going to put this as a replay down on YouTube. Like Don, I'm considering becoming a business broker. What would that be like? How would I get started as a business broker?

04:03 - 04:23You can send me questions and comments on our YouTube channel through go Home TV in the comments and I'll answer them, or you can do that through our Facebook page as well. So go to our make sure that you go to our Facebook page and you like my state MLS Facebook page or on YouTube. If you go to YouTube right now and go to Go Home TV, that's our YouTube channel.

04:24 - 04:46You can comment when we put this video up there, so make sure you subscribe to it so you receive the answer because you'll get a notification that I've answered your question and I'll do it personally. You want to pick a broker that specializes in what you want to focus on. That's really important because there are brokers who are just residential retail brokers.

04:46 - 05:03They have anything to do with new construction. They don't want anything to do with land or farms or estates or commercial. And let's just say you don't want to be in that box. You need to go to a commercial broker. If you want to be a commercial broker, that's where you need to learn. That's where you need to get started.

05:04 - 05:17Big, big, big money in commercial. Commercial leases. There's huge money in that. There's huge money in all of these different verticals. So you need to look at each one and which one interests you, which one you think you'll be best at?

05:19 - 05:38Commission split something. Everybody thinks about it first. They're just like, Oh my God, how much is that broker paying me? They give me 100%, 80%, 70%, 50% to start. How much support are they going to give you? You should not when you're first getting started. Don't worry about the commissions, but don't worry about the support you get from that broker.

05:38 - 05:58Worry about the training you get from that broker. Worry about that you're in the right place, that it has the right atmosphere for you, that you're in the right culture. So to say, because real estate is really fun job and you need to find career, it's a fun business investment. It's not a fun job, but it's a fun thing to do.

05:58 - 06:27I think it's one thing to do. I've always had a ton of fun doing all the different real estate related jobs that I do. So you want to you're going to meet a lot of other people in your Brokerage's office and you're going to learn from them as well. So you should like the culture of the firm that you pick, make sure that you interview, and spend time at more than one brokerage and ask what they're going to do for you to do marketing that they're going to do for you.

06:27 - 06:46Do they have a marketing budget? If so, how much is it? Where do they advertise? Where do they use that marketing budget? What's their training like? Do you have to pay for their training in some of these firms? You actually have to pay for your training, but some give you free training. So you want to find out what all those expenses are upfront.

06:46 - 07:05Sometimes when you pay for the training, it can be better. So if you're willing to make that investment, it can be worth it to pay for that training, pay for a training coach. Those are all things that you're going to have to decide based on how much you're getting started with and how much you're willing to invest in your new business.

07:05 - 07:26Then you're going to want to set goals. Okay, I hate to break it to you, but it's really hard to be successful without a goal because there's just no way to measure it. You're going to need it. So what is that goal? In that goal, I want to sell one house a month every month in my first year is that goal.

07:27 - 07:48I'm going to be happy to just for the first three months, learn the market, understand everything there is to know, learn how to do appraisals, learn how to prospect so that after my three month ramp up period, I expect to sell 2 to 5 houses a month. How big are your goals? So you need to set those goals and those goals should be set daily.

07:48 - 08:11What am I going to do today when you wake up in the morning? What am I going to do today? Write down everything you're supposed to do today and make sure you do each one of those things. What am I going to do this week? What do I expect to have finished by the time the weekends? What do I expect to have completed for this entire month and what are my overall yearly goals?

08:11 - 08:28Write all those out as part of your business plan when you get started. That's very, very important. Now I know you're thinking week. We don't know what our goals are because we don't know what our tasks are because we're not sure. And that's why we're here to watch your webinar and for you to tell us. So that's what we're going to get into.

08:28 - 08:52We are going to do a step by step here. I'm just letting you know that without goals set, you're not going to be able to achieve the kind of success you want because you don't know what that success is. You need to define what success is to you. Okay. Is it happiness? Is it just I'm just going to be happy is I'm going to be happy working with one person at a time.

08:52 - 09:12Make sure you set those goals now. How will you get started? That's what we just talked about. How are you going to get started? Are you going to ask yourself these questions? Very important. Do you have enough money to live for one full year and still make an investment in your business? Whatever you decide that that investment should be 20,000, 30,000.

09:13 - 09:35Do you have enough to live for one full year or do you need to work and make money when you get started? Some people have just retired. They know they want to get into real estate. They've got some money saved up or maybe they have a spouse that supports them or a partner that supports them in some way and they just have the time they can do it.

09:35 - 09:59If that's you and make sure you still have money to invest in yourself and time, then you want to do number one. But if it's not, you, if you need to work to pay your bills because that's the stage of your life that you're in, then that's a completely separate path. These are two separate paths. So we're going to talk about both them and how you can be successful no matter which path you choose.

09:59 - 10:14Okay, so you said one, two, yes. You have the money to invest in your real estate business. You need to make that investment plan. Here's some of the things you're going to need to buy and spend money on. And even if you chose to, you're still going to need these things. You're going to want to make a marketing budget.

10:14 - 10:32You're going to need a logo for your new business. So after you pick your broker, you're still going to want a logo because you have to make your own business cards. You're going to have to potentially buy software like a CRM, you're going to have to buy leads. You can get training, you're going to pay for coaching. All of these things are going to cost money.

10:33 - 10:47Now, if you don't know how much they're going to cost you, you're not sure what I want you to do, especially if you're watching the replay of this or in our questions tab on Ask me. I didn't know we're going to have to spend all this money or do all these things. How much is this going to cost me?

10:47 - 11:09How can I get these done affordably? We can make recommendations to you for instance, I use Vistaprint and I get all these coupons for my business cards. There's online logo companies where you can just pay 50 bucks and someone to make you a logo. You can buy inexpensive CRMs. There's actually maybe some freemium brands that you can buy.

11:09 - 11:34There's some stuff that's already built into your MLS. My state MLS, we have a CRM built right into my state MLS. You can get free coaching on YouTube, believe it or not, tons of free coaching on YouTube. On the Go Home TV channel, for instance, if you go to YouTube.com and you subscribe to Go Home TV, there are a ton of videos on there.

11:34 - 11:59Just like this one. They're going to teach you how to get leads, how to get started, how to make money, how to do open listings, how to do marketing videos, how to become a luxury agent. I mean, there's so many videos on that channel that everyone who watches those videos, if they employ those techniques, they'll be successful in whatever their goals are as long as, you know, their goals are real estate related.

12:01 - 12:22Now, I think you said yes to to you know, you don't have the money saved up. You need to work. You thought that real estate was going to be a job and that you would get paid right away. But now you're finding out that, you know, what can you do? Real estate related that will help you start your real estate career in business but also get paid to do.

12:22 - 12:44And there's tons of things that you can do. And I made a list here. We're going to go over this list. You can be an admin in a real estate office and a transaction coordinator, and you can also do that at any real estate brokerage. But you can also do it as a rental agent or as a property manager, because any of those things is real estate related.

12:44 - 13:16You're going to meet people who are also in the business. You're going to employ techniques. You're going to learn things that you need to learn about how to write contracts and how to get people into a home. Now, one thing you're going to want to do is you're going to want to make sure that wherever it is that you get this job potentially as, let's say, a real an admin at a real estate office that the broker understands with you that you have a real estate license and that you want to get started in real estate.

13:17 - 13:35So you want to make sure that you make that known upfront, that you're here to learn, but that you also need to work while you're doing another job. And this is how I got started in the business. I became an appraiser. I was an appraiser before I was a real estate broker, and I learned appraisal as an apprentice.

13:35 - 13:5And that's what you can do as well. You can call local appraisal companies and you can say to them, I really want to become an appraiser. I'd love to learn. I have my real estate license. I have access to the class, and I want to learn how to become an appraiser. You're going to get a lot of no's because a lot of appraisers don't have time to train apprentices.

13:56 - 14:14But there are some who are looking and would really like the fact that you are eager to work. And that's what happened with me. I found a great appraiser and I was really computer savvy and he wasn't. And I brought that to the table and I helped him fix his computer. And then he taught me how to be an appraiser.

14:14 - 14:37And we're still friends and partners to this day. Great, great guy, Jerry Goldman in Ulster County. So he is he was willing to teach me. So you may find someone local who's willing to teach you how to be an appraiser. You get paid right away as an appraiser apprentice because you get paid per file that you type up.

14:37 - 15:02And it's pretty good money, I have to say. And while you're doing it, you learn how to price property. You learn what's for sale, you learn where the foreclosures are. You you learn where the divorce is. Are you who are all this stuff is. And as long as you're up front, make sure that you follow all your picks guidelines on getting leads, but you can get listings that way as well. 

15:02 - 15:24You're not supposed to get listings from properties that you appraise, but you start to meet people who will start to refer you like attorneys who you do work for, accountants, those type of people will refer you work as a broker, so you will get listings to. A lot of appraisers are also brokers and they list houses, so that's a great way to start.

15:24 - 15:43Another great way to start and you get paid profile is to do title closings. You can in many in many states Jake of course is a title closure go work as an apprentice under a title company, call up a lawyer's office and ask them if you can do title closings for them. After you've learned how to do it, you'll get paid while you do it.

15:44 - 16:06A lot of times, just like appraising title, closing is a 1099 gig where you get paid per file that you do. So you getting paid along the way. You're still an independent contractor, so you're still making your own hours. You still have time to do real estate, but now you're making money while you're building up your business. Another thing you can do is home inspections.

16:06 - 16:36If you're really handy and maybe you've been a carpenter or, you know, a plumber or some type of tradesman and that this would be perfect for you. Take the home inspectors class and again, you get paid for file. And you are you are paid like a contractor and you can make your own hours. So that's a really great good to also be, you know, you get into your brokerage business now these are some of my more favorite ones that you can do and that will really build your business.

16:37 - 16:55You can do clean out houses. I love this idea because pretty much all you need is a pickup truck or you can rent a truck. It's a brand and you can put an ad in Facebook marketplace or on Craigslist and say, listen, do you have junk or can take it away? Will will clean out your house for you.

16:55 - 17:16And, you know, it cleans out their house. People are getting ready to sell it. People who need to downsize, people who passed away and the estate is cleaning out the house. Those houses are going to be sold. So doing clean outs, you get paid to do the clean out. And while you're there, what are your who are you going to use to sell this house?

17:18 - 17:36Oh, I'm a broker. I can get it sold for you and I'll do the clean out. And if I get it sold for you, maybe I'll take some money off from the clean out from the commission. Make me a deal. That is a really great way to one get paid while you're getting business and get business moving companies.

17:36 - 18:03Same thing moves people who need to sell their home. People who passed away, people who are getting divorced. There are so many great things that you can do to get paid while you're building your real estate business and you can be really creative about these things. Go to work at an auction house. I love this idea. Find an auctioneer online, call him up.

18:07 - 18:21I want to be an apprentice. I want to learn from you and see if you can get in at an auction house. What happens at auction houses? People who have been collectors their whole life. Hoarders, really. And they need to sell their stuff. Where do they sell it? So at the auction house. So those auction houses again, you're going to meet a ton of people.

18:21 - 18:51You're going to their house, you're going to appraise their personal property, you're going to get it sold for them. And oh, by the way, we can sell your house, too. We can auction your house. Another great way to get listings now. Assisted living facilities do not turn your nose up at looking at the assisted living facility job. They take in the intake person, at the assisted living facilities and the nursing homes and the 55 and over senior living places.

18:52 - 19:15They talk to people all day long who need to downsize. Almost all of those people have a house. Almost all of those people don't know where to start and want to find a place to live before they move out of their house. So what is the first step they make? They, with their children, go to the assisted living facilities and they go to the senior living facilities and they visit them and they say, We're thinking about moving.

19:15 - 19:30It's time to downsize. We're getting on. Our house is too big. We can't take care of it anymore. Or maybe our health has failed and we need to come in here. Oh, okay. Yes. Well, I'll get you a place. We have a nice apartment for you here. Oh, by the way, how are you going to get out of your home?

19:30 - 19:43How are you going to move out of your home? Oh, we're going to need help with that. We're going to want to move in here before we sell our house, because we just want to make sure that we get into a place before we sell our house, because that happens a lot. And then they need help. They need a moving company.

19:43 - 20:10They need someone to help them downsize. And, oh, by the way, they need somebody to sell their home to go to work at those assisted living facilities, get paid, get all these leads while you're doing it and clean up, really clean up because you're going to get paid on both ends. Paralegals tons of referrals at law firms because, you know, when somebody's getting divorced or a state wills trusts all that stuff, they go to their attorney.

20:10 - 20:35So you may want to look into maybe working at a law firm or getting referrals from lawyers, making relationships. And the other thing is to become a process server or a mobile notary. Mobile notaries do closings, so you can do closings like a title closure. Or if you're a process server, well, you're going to find out who's getting evicted, aren't you, where there's going to be some empty units to either rent or sell.

20:35 - 20:58So all of those jobs are related to real estate. You can get paid while doing all of them and you get leads. That's how you can build your business. That is a really great way to build your business. Step three If you have chosen the investment plan route and do not work a regular job out, this is somebody who has the money.

20:59 - 21:25I don't need to be making money while I'm doing it. I just want to spend money and get a return on my investment and get as much as possible. What can I do? I tell you a little story and I told this story before. You may have heard the story in some of my other videos, but I love telling this story because there is a guy who built a humongous business in my little town where I lived in upstate New York, very rural town, and he used open listings to do it.

21:26 - 21:40He was well known in the town as a local retailer. He owned a retail store and everybody knew him because they would go into his store and buy stuff. But he wasn't known as the real estate broker or anything. Nobody really knew him as a real estate broker. He had his license for a while, but really didn't do anything.

21:41 - 21:57He just part time. Then he decided, I'm going to sell my store and I'm going to get into real estate. But he had money because he sold his store, so he had money to make investments. And he really understood that if he made the right investment, he would make a ton in real estate. So here's how he did it.

21:57 - 22:17First thing he did was he created a logo, he made his own brokerage, and because he had already had a license for a few years, even though he didn't use it, he had a broker's license. He created his own logo. He created his own company and he bought a bunch of signs, you know, which was signed plays. And he bought like probably 100 signs.

22:18 - 22:35He knew a lot of people because he was a retailer in the town. So he would go to people who had vacant land who they might want to sell or people who might be doing subdivisions. Anybody who wanted to sell their house but didn't want to sell their house. There's a lot of people who want to sell their house but don't want to sell their house for sale by owners to make me move people.

22:35 - 22:51There's a lot of those people you can find them on Zillow that make me move people and you can sell them. Listen, I know maybe you're not ready to do an exclusive right to sell agreement, but what if we did an open you? Let me just put my sign on your lawn. I'll bring you the highest deal. You don't have to pay me unless I sell it.

22:51 - 23:10But if I do sell it, you'll pay me and there's no commitment. So he started doing that within like a week or two driving around town. And I'm like, Oh my God. He just I saw him last week. He just told me he was going to do this. Now, this week, there are signs everywhere, his new business. How could you possibly gotten this many listings that fast?

23:11 - 23:29Well, that didn't happen. He got them all as open listings and he put his sign all around town. And the next thing you know, there was a big billboard as you drive it out of town with his name on it. And then I got the thing in the mail, the penny saver thing in the mail that comes full page ads in there with his logo on it.

23:30 - 24:05And after like three months of this, I'm like, Wow, he's probably the biggest listing agent in town. Within one year, he was the biggest listing and selling agent in that town. He took that maybe $20,000 hi sign investment and turned it into hundreds of thousands of dollars because he wasn't willing to invest that money. And so you invest it in a website where you generate leads, you invest it in signs, you invest it in open listing advertisements which you can do through my state MLS.

24:05 - 24:24And there's a video on that we'll put up in the in the comments we'll put below some of these videos that you can watch that I'm referring to. And you can do all of these things to really jumpstart your business. So to Roots, you either have to work and you're going to get leads while you work or you're going to be willing to invest money.

24:24 - 24:45Just spend money on Facebook ads and social media ads and websites and billboards and signs. And you will become a big listing agent because it's all perception. People have to see your face, and if they see your face in their area, they'll think you're the go to person and that and you do that right? Drive around. Now, who's the go to person?

24:45 - 25:04You all know it. You'll all drive around and go, Oh my God, that person has all the listings. Their face is everywhere, their name is on every sign. Be like them. How do you be like them? Put your name and face on every sign and go around and ask people. You put your sign on their lawn, just sell their house because they're a make me move person for their for sale by owner person.

25:04 - 25:23We're actually try to get the listing. Most brokers will tell you when you first get out of out of school and you're ready to start this job and people don't know what to do and they go on the Facebook groups, in the mastermind groups and they say, Well, how do I get started, everyone? Your sphere of influence, door knockers, sphere of influence.

25:23 - 25:53Doing not doing that door, knock, call, call. Who are you calling? Who is your sphere of influence? Who are you door knocking on without getting arrested? All of those things don't really help you, you know, but they can help you if you understand what you can do with those things and how powerful they can be. So definitely watch our open listings video to find out a really easy way to get open listings.

25:53 - 26:07I'll tell you right now, it's to go to new construction communities and ask them if you can list their open listings and their open rentals. That's what they do in New York City. It works really well. Most of the people who just get out of school in New York City are told, just be a rental agent. I don't want to be a rental agent.

26:07 - 26:25I don't want to sell a multimillion-dollar townhouse. You will but be a rental agent first. Why do you think you get the leads? You get rentals, you list the rentals. You have a way to advertise that gets you leads you those leads. People who rent eventually by people who need to rent might have a house to sell.

26:26 - 26:47So they tell you to get started that way. Great way to get started. And we've done other videos on that and we're going to put up links for those as well for you. Step three, if you need to work while you're starting your business, we told you to choose a vertical position that helps you make the contacts and learn and get your leads and makes connections.

26:47 - 27:11So we already showed you that and all those things that you can do now. These positions, they're going to afford you some room to learn about real estate and earn while you're starting your career as an agent. So that's what you're going to want to do with them. Now, I cannot stress this enough. Plan your day every single day.

27:12 - 27:51Otherwise you will wander aimlessly through the day. So you need to plan your day. And we're going to give you step by step instructions on how to plan your day. You can every day you can decide, well, let's say I want to go the open listing route. I want to get open listings. How do I plan my day, first day, make a list of all the new construction developments and all the rental complexes in your area and all the homebuilders in your area, and then go through Zillow and Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace and write down all the fees both for rent by owner and for sale by owner.

27:51 - 28:11Go through every expired listing, not new expired things that expired a year ago that have not yet sold. That's important because the stuff that just expired is probably under contract or you're going to be hard pressed to get those. Go to somebody who wanted to sell a house a year ago and find out if they still want to sell their house.

28:11 - 28:31But they were maybe the wrong time of the market for them and maybe they want to list now and then you can work on trying to get hard to get exclusive right to sell listings, which is the Holy Grail. Everybody wants them. You can do that when people are referred to you. Now the next thing you need to do.

28:31 - 28:54So another day's worth of work or multiple days worth of work. A week's worth of work is to learn how to value properties. So you should take classes on how to value properties. You should watch our video on Professional Search, which we actually teach you how to value properties, how to use professional search works for any market in the country, at least for residential land and multi-unit.

28:55 - 29:19You can learn how to value those properties and I actually teach you how to do it. I teach you how to make a CMO, teach you how to make an appraisal in those videos. So again, go to go on TV and look for the video on pro search and that should be several days of your getting started should be I'm going to learn how to price property.

29:19 - 29:35I'm going to learn about every active property in the market. I'm going to learn about every pending property in the market. I'm a about every sold property in the market. You can do that with Pro Search and we show you how in that video. That's very important. I mean, you should even be doing this job if you don't know how to value property.

29:35 - 29:52I got to say, that is the number one skill that you need because the house is really what good is it if you don't know what somebody should offer? How are you really representing your client if you don't know what a property is worth? That's the whole thing. That's what makes you the expert. You have the access to the data.

29:53 - 30:12So that's what you want to do is make sure that you know how to appraise property. Now the next thing you can do is you can join mastermind groups. And these are the groups that I talked about on Facebook that prompted me to want to do this webinar in the first place because people seem lost. You know, they post up their, oh, my God, I don't know what to do.

30:13 - 30:35I'm stop. I haven't had a deal all year or I haven't had a deal this month. Deals are drying up. Join those mastermind groups because people will help you. And granted, I know 90 out of 100 answers are going to be doorknock, make phone calls. Your sphere of influence. Yeah. Okay. Stop telling people that. That doesn't help anybody.

30:36 - 31:18Instead, what you need to do is real, actionable items like I've just told you in this entire webinar. Okay, I've just given you a wealth of ways to get leads, and you can do that all through my stimulus. And you can rewatch these videos in this webinar as many times as you need to. The other way you can do it and a lot of people do this, is they get a coach, there's a lot of coaches out there.

31:18 - 31:26I'm not here selling coaching, but there are a ton of coaches out there. And these guys, I am very out there and you get Brian's opinion and there's a whole bunch of of hosts or coaches out there that will help you. There's this leader guy if you want to spend money on coaching, I don't think it's a bad idea that works for some people.

31:26 - 31:45You can use our Go Home TV channel. It's like a free coach. You can also, like I said, put comments here in the questions and I will personally answer them for you. I will help you. The other resource we have here is we have Joe Mendez, who works at my state MLS and a lot of you might know him.

31:45 - 32:07He does a lot of our demos. Him and also David Mahnke. David Mink does a lot of our webinar and demos as well. And these are resources for you guys that you can ask them questions by sending an email to office at my state. MLS will answer them myself. Joe, Dave, we will answer these questions to help you like Don.

32:07 - 32:37I'm stuck. What do I do? Somebody called me up. They found my number, they call me up. They're like doing what do I do? I'm stuck. I got them started. I was like, Try this. They tried it. It worked. So I'm telling you, this stuff can work for you. And we're here to help you guys. So what I want to do now, I want to ask you all to ask me your questions if you're stuck, if you came here for a reason because you're stuck in your new you want to try you want to see what you can do to get started.

32:37 - 32:57I want to hear what you have to say. So I'm going to be looking at your questions right now. And I want to know what questions you have that I didn't already answer that I can help you with. So in your in the questions box there, ask away. Here's a little. Oh, wow. That is a huge list of questions and they're small.

32:57 - 33:15So I'm going to get close to the screen here. Is there a way to advertise that is more effective? I don't know. More effective than what, but I'm assuming more effective than you're currently doing. So, yeah, there is a way to advertise that. Very effective. I mentioned these open listing ads and I do a whole video on them.

33:15 - 33:40So again, you're going to want to watch the open listing video, ad, video, because I actually go through step by step. I'll give you a few steps right here. So you can get a clue on what we're talking about. But what you do is you go out and get open listings, or if you have existing exclusive rights to sell listings, exclusive rental listings, you put those listings into my state MLS and then you click the Facebook share.

33:40 - 33:59This is always your best way. I click that you're looking at the listing. There's got to be a little f there for Facebook. You're going to click it. It's going to share to your page. Now, after you're going to you're going to make that a post on your page, then you're going to boost that post to generate leads.

33:59 - 34:17Is there going to be a choice? You're going to click Boost the post, and then it's going to say, What do you want to achieve with this boosted post? You want to collect leads, then you're going to select the click leads. It's going to let you fill out a little form. Okay, you want to click leads? What kind of leads do you want to collect?

34:17 - 34:40So you'll be able to ask questions like, Are you looking to sell a house? Do you need to move? You know, ask questions that you would click on a lead form, then pay for that ad? You don't pay a lot to I was paying like $10 a day on some of my ads and I was targeting the areas where I worked location wise, and I was targeting people who needed to move.

34:40 - 35:03I was targeting people I wanted to target a high end audience. So I targeted people in finance and people who were in the stock market and people in the medical profession and people in the legal profession. And I was always targeting higher end buyers because I had a higher end house to sell. You've got to be careful on Facebook because you're not because of their housing.

35:03 - 35:28You have to follow their rules and you have to say that you are doing housing and you can't do anything discriminatory and be be aware of the fair housing rules in advertising. Make sure you know those laws in your state, but also the nationwide laws on fair housing. But then you run that Facebook ad. I would run a Facebook ad for sometimes three days, sometimes five days. 

35:28 - 35:51So if I ran a five day ad for $10 a day, it cost me $50. I would usually get from that 40 to 50 leads. I'm I'm not going to lie to you. 30 of those leads, maybe 35 of them sucked. It's true. All of your leads, you will be you will be in great shape if 10% of the leads that you get that you paid for panned out.

35:52 - 36:14Because if you think about even one lead of those, all those leads, you got, if you only spent $50 for one lead, that leads to a sale that brings you in five grand. That's a great return. So that's a really great way to advertise. Now, someone saying they feel that the advertising, the design has to be really, really good.

36:16 - 36:40That's what this question is asking here. Now, forget it. You're not advertising an ad that has to be really good. You're advertising a property that people want to buy. And yeah, that property listing has to be really good. Okay, the pictures have to be beautiful and they have to attract people. They should be professional. So if you took the pictures, they should be professionally taking pictures.

36:41 - 37:04But what the beautiful thing is about open listings is if you go to new construction, like new construction condo buildings that aren't built yet, they'll give you professional renderings, professional photos, and they'll let you advertise those. So look at our open listings video for all the advice on that. And you should be advertising listings because honestly, that's what people care about.37:04 - 37:27They're looking for a place to live. All right. People want to know, how do you open once you find a prospect, how do you open a conversation that leads to sales? No, I lead everything in sales. Now. I start talking to people. I just direct about it. I don't even beat around the Bush White House, so I don't give rate.

37:27 - 37:51What's worse, it gets they know you be in the same boat that you were before you ask them, you know, so you have to don't beat around the bush. Just be direct, but be helpful. Every conversation that I have with people, I always go into that conversation with a true desire to help people. But right now I'm doing this to help you guys.

37:51 - 38:15I want you to be successful. I do. I'm successful. I want you to be successful. I have done this. I've been successful at it. And now I want to share that with you, because it's better when when you when you help people, you just feels good and it's what you want to do. So you want to solve people's problems, find out what their problem is.

38:15 - 38:47Why do they need to move? Why do why do they need a bigger house? You know, it's always a life issue or are they getting a divorce? Are they pregnant and having more kids? You know, are they looking to for a mother daughter because they need to take care of their parents, be there for them, ask about their life, find out what's going on with them and see how you can help them and go into it from a place of nothing for yourself.

38:48 - 39:20Just want to help you. This isn't for me. Everything comes back to you. It doesn't matter. Put it out there. Put the energy out there that you want to help people. And it all comes back to you. Everything comes back to you that you reflected back at yourself. So you just want to sure you do that when when being a buyer's agent, what are the options that you can do for them?

39:20 - 39:47When you're a buyer's agent, you need to be representing a person's best interest. I think that every time do any deal, I always believe this. I don't understand the agency or transaction broker any of that stuff. I understand it. I just don't I don't agree that it's always the best course of action because how can you be representing your client in the best way possible if you're also representing the person they're against?

39:48 - 40:11So me personally, I feel that if you're representing your client, you should be representing your client in their best interest. Not yours, not the other guy, not the person whose house is listed for sale. If you're a buyer's agent, you need to represent that buyer. What does that mean? That means that you show them whatever house they want to see, whatever house is best for them.

40:12 - 40:45Don't worry about what you get out of it. Make sure that they get out of it what they need. You will be rewarded. Don't worry about that. It will come back to you. Put it out there to be your best person, to do the best job for somebody know how to price that property, be an expert, make sure that they don't overpay if there's railroad tracks behind the house, make sure that they understand that that train's going to go by every hour or whatever and keep them awake, and that they have to be okay with that.

40:45 - 41:06Or look for a place that maybe doesn't have train tracks behind the house if they can't stand the noise, make sure you point that out to them. Make sure that they understand that the location can never change. That's the most important thing, that they buy a house that has the right location. They have to really understand how important location is.

41:07 - 41:39It's more important than any other factor. So that's what you can do as a buyer's agent. You can send buyers listings, you can collaborate with them. There's plenty of CRMs that have collaboration tools in them. Through my state MLS, you can send them drip emails through all of the MLS is you can send drip emails, but many people have a website that they built where right through their website they drip email to their buyers.

41:39 - 42:04All the latest listings, if you want to see this, let's see how it is. So those are things that you can do for your buyers. Then you have the same question for sellers agents. What are the options for sellers? Make sure you get them the highest price that can get to the table. That not the highest price. The highest price that can get to the table because somebody can make a big offer.

42:04 - 42:25But if they don't have of funds and they can't complete that deal, then that's not the best offer. So make sure that when you look at offers for a seller, you do the right thing by them. Somebody is asking, how do you contact Downsizers? If you're working in a sales department of an assisted living facility, they contact you.

42:26 - 42:48And many of those assisted living facilities have ad budgets and marketing budgets. But when you there's not that many assisted living facilities in many places. So the phone rings all the time, hey, I'm looking for a place for my parents. And those places generate leads through their website. They have legion forms, so those people walk in the door, they come to you.

42:48 - 43:18That's what's so great about that assisted living gig. You know how I recently went through this with both my father's mother, my husband's mother and my own father? We were looking for downsizing places. I also know someone who worked at a 55 and over the assisted living facility was I think was 65 and over assisted living facility and people walked in all the time and they didn't hadn't sold their house yet.

43:19 - 43:51They hadn't got rid of all their junk yet. You get them at the very beginning when you do that gig. So that's you don't even really have to worry about how you're going to get clients. You're going to get clients if you work at an assisted living facility, they're coming to you. Somebody was asking, is a real estate investor for multifamily properties, Airbnb subleasing, wholesaling fixed and flip actually, right after I became an appraiser, I then became a real estate investor.

43:51 - 44:11That was that's how I actually did it. So this question George is asking is, would it be a great way to do it as an appraiser? That is how I did it back in 2000, around 2000, 2001 timeframe. I became a real estate appraiser. Like I said, I told you I'd help somebody fix their computer. And then he taught me how to be an appraiser.

44:11 - 44:33And right after that, after I learned how to value property, I wanted to start buying investment property. And it was perfect because I knew how much to pay. I knew where the foreclosures were coming up. So it was great becoming an appraiser first and then becoming a real estate investor. For Multi-unit, you learn how to value property. You learn about cap rate, you learn about rate of return.

44:34 - 44:59Perfect gig, common appraiser. If you want to become a real estate investor. Yes, George, I definitely recommend it. Julie is asking, what's the best way to approach a contract or building company about representing and selling them? Call them, knock on their door, go to their sales office, go to their office, send a lead form through their website. However, you can contact them.

45:05 - 45:24I recommend showing up in person first. That's always the best way. And after that I recommend following up with an email and a phone call. So in person, follow up email, follow up phone call. If you don't have a listing, how can you advertise a listing? That's when I said to get an open listing. Open listings are easy to get and I did a whole video on this.

45:24 - 45:43There's a big one hour long video on how to get open listing. Super easy to get. You go over to new construction communities and you ask them if they're realtor friendly, if they're realtor friendly, you ask them if they allow you to advertise their properties as open listings. Many, many, many rental properties will allow it. I know in New York they allow it.

45:43 - 46:05In Florida, they allow it. I'm sure many states they allow it. But new construction, condo communities, new construction of high rise buildings that aren't like where they didn't break ground yet. They almost always allow it and they give you all the marketing material because they need you to bring them people because they need to sell out a certain amount to make their investors happy.

46:05 - 46:31And so they need they need everybody to work for them. So definitely look at my open listings video because you will be able to get open listings if you don't have regular listings to start. So you're going to want to watch that video. All right. Let's see what other questions I get here. That is all the questions I have so far.

46:32 - 46:52But what I'm going to tell you all is I'm not done. I will answer all your questions, especially if you want to put them down in the comments either here or if you're watching this replay to put your questions down in the comments below on our YouTube channel. And also any videos that you rewatch on our Go Home TV YouTube channel.

46:52 - 47:18And please, please go there right now and subscribe so that you can get alerts on when this will be posted and also on how I answered your questions. You can then go on that channel, pick one of our videos where we actually show you how to do whatever it is you're looking to do, like get an open listing or be an appraiser or, you know, represented by a representative so you can ask questions down below in those videos related to those topics.

47:18 - 47:43And I will answer them. If not me, then David will answer them. Joe Mendez or somebody else on our expert team and we are here for you. We will talk to you directly. Tom. Oh, Karen is asking, what is the YouTube channel? So we're going to put it up as well. It's Go Home TV, so just go in to YouTube, type in, Go Home TV, click subscribe.

47:43 - 48:09And you can see all of these videos. And then also the replay of this webinar, open listings. Tom is asking open listings representing seller How do you deal with a buyer who has a realtor? Well, you don't. That's the beauty of open listings. Okay. When you have an open listing, you are only representing the if you bring the buyer or your own representing the buyer.

48:09 - 48:36And the seller is unrepresented because an open listing allows any realtor to sell that property, which is why you can't find open listings in a regular MLS search and why most MLS is don't allow open listings. But then listing is such a great way to start your business. So my state MLS decided we're going to allow open listings, but we're still going to protect somebody who gets an open listing.

48:36 - 48:56So we do we do charge a little extra to opt in for open listing membership. And it is because of some of the rules we built into open listings, one to both protect the person who's doing the open listing, but then also to help them advertise that listing without everybody else. We are all the other agents trying to steal that listing from them.

48:57 - 49:20And then also with open listings, we don't want to get internet junk in. Open listings can turn into internet junk. So we put extra protections in for them, but we also put extra protections in so that open the seas, don't turn into internet junk. We expire them every 30 days unless they've been updated, sometimes even sooner than that.

49:21 - 49:40And we don't allow, you know, we have a maximum amount of them that we allow so that we don't get any Internet junk. Plus, we have a staff, a live staff that looks at them and make sure that we're not getting Internet junk. So that's important with open listings, and that's how we decided to tackle the open listings problem.

49:40 - 50:14A lot of analysts are also going to allow because, you know, there are too hard there, too much work. All right. Well, fine. They are a lot of work. But we felt that it was important for people to be able to start their business. So we made adjustments for that. Some of these asking, are open listings treated the same for commercial properties as residential?

50:14 - 50:19Yes, commercial residential rental. Open listings are all the same. An open listing only means that it's not an exclusive right to sell, but the seller is giving you permission to advertise it. That the seller has said if you bring a buyer and you end it a deal is made, you get paid. But if somebody else brings a buyer, you don't get paid.

50:19 - 50:47If they sell it themselves, you don't get paid. If they decide one day, I don't want to sell it anymore, you don't get paid, but you need those open listings to jumpstart your business. And that's why they're important when talking to a prospect after they say no, how do you lead them to a yes? Well, some people don't take no for an answer, but I don't believe that you want somebody to do something that they don't want to do.

50:48 - 51:09Instead, I asked them how I can help them. I never go into a conversation with I'm going to talk this person into something. I'm not here to talk to you guys into anything. I'm here to give you information. I'm here to help you make money. I'm here to help you learn how to jumpstart your business. The only thing that I want in return is for you to be successful.

51:10 - 51:37Go into every conversation with that attitude. You will be successful. I promise you that if you go in to every conversation with no expectations, that you're just going to be there to help that person. They will recognize that. They will appreciate it and you will be successful. Just give and it will come back to you. That's all you have to worry about.

51:37 - 52:00And then someone's asking, I mean, will the buyer's agent permission be a deal breaker? Oh, time. The deal you make is the deal you make. So when you go to a seller and you say to them, I'd like to list your house is an open listing. I understand that if I bring you a buyer for $900,000, you'll pay me a 5% or whatever percent commission and I want to see what the amount is.

52:01 - 52:23You guys pick the amount you always had, the opportunity to split that with somebody else in your office or somebody else who might have a buyer. You might through through the, you know, down on the down low, down in the cut. You might work with somebody in the middle. I have a buyer for that. All right. Well, I've already got the the seller lined up.

52:23 - 52:43Let's do the deal together. I'll split the commission with you. You can always do that. The split it with them. That's not a problem for the most part. If it is an open listing, though, you're going to be getting the whole commission and those open listings with the condos, the new condo construction ones that I'm talking about, they generally pay five and six.

52:43 - 53:06And even I've seen as much as 7%. They pay to you because they're not cowrote. You get the whole thing, which is people love that. So Tom is asking about a percentage. I don't talk about percentages. So you charge what you charge. We're not allowed to talk about percentages here that would be considered price fixing and we would never want to do that.

53:06 - 53:36But one more thing, guys. I told you all to join mastermind groups. Just just a word of advice. I see a lot of people put questions about commissions, co groups and splits in the mastermind group. Please don't either respond to those or comment on them or put those in yourself. Just warning you all. There is an idea of price fixing when we talk about those things in a group.

53:37 - 54:11So you charge whatever you need to charge. You negotiate the best deal you have for yourself. So that's one thing I can't help you with, but your broker can help you with that because they're allowed to do that. Some of the asking when listing a commercial listing for lease does the least amount have to be specific? But one can also say the amount to be determined or everything's negotiable, right?

54:01 - 54:17So what you want to do is maybe starting at a starting bid. I like to people see I saw a comment in one of the mastermind groups said, oh, my MLS doesn't let me do a range of 900 to 950000. Why would you want to list it like that anyway? Now you're telling somebody that they're willing to take 900.

54:17 - 54:35Why would they offer you 950? Do a starting price, do it like an auction. If you want to do it that way, offer a lowball price. But say it starting at but enter a reserve price because the or say the reserve is not met until you hit that reserve price. And that's the best way to go about it.

54:35 - 54:54And you can list auctions in my state, MLS and New York State MLS. We do allow that with a starting bid and with a reserve price. So you're going to want to look at that as well. The mastermind groups in in Facebook that I'm in, I mean, real estate mastermind, I mean, lab care agents, I mean, a referral group.

54:54 - 55:11I mean, some real estate for women's group. I mean, just type in into groups and Facebook real estate pull list comes up, you'll find a ton just click to join them, ask for permission. Then you have to follow the rules of the group and they'll let you and you'll be able to see them in your feed all the time, every day.

55:12 - 55:35Does my state MLS show more than one open listing for the same property? Buy more than one agent? Yeah, that's the idea. That's what open listings are. But they're ads and they don't show up on the member side. They only show up on the public side. So their ad, they're lead generation ads, but you won't see a ton of them next to each other because we don't put ads next to another ad.

55:35 - 55:59We spread them out among all the results. So that way you won't just see the same thing all the time. But we do display them as advertisements on the public side of our website. All right. Well, these are great questions. You guys are really engaged. I'm super excited that you all came to this webinar and that you were so engaged as you as you are.

55:59 - 56:29And these questions are fantastic. I will answer any questions that any of you have at any time. I look forward to talking to you again soon. We're going to do some more great webinars we've got coming up. So make sure you stay opted into our emails. Check go home TV on, YouTube and check our home page or go home to your TV homepage, which will always have our announcements and make sure you subscribe to our Facebook page or you follow our Facebook page because right in your Facebook feed, you'll get announcements about these webinars as they come up.

56:30 - 56:51Somebody wants to know why they get an open listing membership. Once you're a member of New York State CMOs or my state MLS, right inside click listings, add new listing. And then the choice. I think the last choice on there is get open listings, click that there is extra fee for it and then you'll be able to get open listing advertisements added to your membership.

56:51 - 57:11And it is a membership there. You still have to follow the rules of open listings because we don't want internet junk and we want to help you and we want you to be successful. And that means having integrity in your listings. So we do have certain rules around open listings. Very important. All right. This was great. Thank you so much.

57:11 - 57:21I'm going to leave the questions open. We'll see if we can answer them for you if you have any more. But I appreciate everybody coming and thank you again. We'll see you all soon. 

*Transcript is unedited from a computer-generated output.

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