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Top Five Great Traits of Highly Effective Real Estate Agents

1. Patience: There are several facets of a real estate agent’s job that require patience. Most importantly, you need to be patient with your client. Purchasing a home or other property is often the largest purchase of a person’s life. You client needs and wants the time to make a wise, informed and well-thought-out decision. They only get one chance to make the right decision. For this reason, you will need to be patient with your client. Often, a client will find a property they want to make an offer on only to suddenly renege. You may also have to show a client more than 15 homes or properties before they even start getting serious about making a decision. These types of situations require vast amounts of patience.You will also have to be patient when searching the market for properties to show to your client. Depending on what they want or don’t want, you could be searching an online database for hours looking for properties to show. This can be especially tricky if your client isn’t quite sure what they want.
2. Honesty: This trait may seem obvious. Everyone should be honest, right? Honesty isn’t always so easy to come by in the world of sales, though. The reason it is so important to be honest as a real estate agent is for the same reason you should possess any of these other traits…your reputation as a real estate agent depends on it. Most real estate agents pick up new clients through word-of-mouth. If you treat a client with respect, they will most surely recommend you to another person who will recommend you and so on.  Honesty in real estate simply means being frank with your client about the condition of the property and how much money they will need to put into the property to get it to a satisfactory condition. If you say to a client, “Isn’t this kitchen beautiful?”, but the kitchen has 20-year-old appliances and army green linoleum floors; it will be very apparent that you are just trying to make a sale, and you will lose the trust and recommendation of the client.
3. Math skills: Real estate is all about money, and money is all about numbers and math. If your math skills aren’t up to par, you will find transactions in the real estate business difficult to grasp. Real estate is also about average prices and appraisal amounts. As a real estate agent, you will be expected to learn about the basics of an appraised value, and you will need to memorize the values of homes in different areas and neighborhoods in your market. This will help you get the best deal for your client and will also make you better prepared for any questions your client may have about a home’s value.
4. You must be a self-starter: If you want to succeed in real estate, you will need to possess the ability to push yourself without any pressure from above. It is true, some people work best under situations of supervision. Once the supervisor has stepped away, they become relaxed and inefficient. As a real estate agent, you will often work from home and make your own hours. Your success will depend on how many hours you decide to put into it. You will be responsible for marketing yourself, finding your clients, finding properties to show, scheduling show times, scheduling open houses, etc. The more you work, the more money you’ll make. However, if you find it difficult to get things done without direct supervision and a time clock, you may find it hard to work as a real estate agent.
5. Assertiveness: This does not mean you need to be pushy. Being assertive is really important when working on two things: marketing and getting your client what they want. When you are just starting out as a real estate agent, you will need to have the confidence to get your name out in the community. You will need to constantly remind your family, friends and acquaintances that you are now working as a real estate agent and would appreciate their business and support. Spreading the word about your business will require an assertive marketing strategy.  Also, when your client makes an offer on a property, you will need to be assertive in getting them what they want at the price they want. This is when it’s OK to be pushy with the seller about a certain price or deal your client is interested in seeing go through.

Lindsey Webster has been a rehabilitation counselor for 15 years and also owns the site http://www.mastersincounseling.org  Masters in Counseling. She likes to write about different topics related to counseling and careers.

Editor’s Note:  Lindsey Webster has hit a home run.  Her analysis is spot on.  Interestingly enough she comes from outside the industry with a clear view of what it takes to compete in an extremely competitive world.  Thanks, Lindsey.