A client-friend of ours recently posed these questions to me:

What are two good things about our market and/or our industry?

What is your best advice for brokers and managers for keeping agents motivated during challenging?

What is the smartest thing you can do right now as an agent?

How do YOU stay motivated during these challenging times?

I hope that my answers help you to stay UP in a down market.

Just two good things about our industry?  I’m an over-achiever so how about four good things? 

1.     Sellers produce listings and listings produce buyers. 

2.     Looking for unique inventory for buyers, produces seller leads. 

3.     Buyers and sellers pay you to look at inventory that you should be buying. 

4.     There are trainers that do the business better than you do and you can copy them.

These items are all called the “leverage” of real estate sales.  This allows an agent to do the business of three agents by just doing the right activities.

My best advice for agent right now —

Quit waiting for the market to change, you change (or have your agents change).  Agents need to know how to walk from under-motivated buyers and sellers.  They need to write tighter contracts.  They need to close transactions faster.  They need to know what business to walk from.  They need to, in most cases, triple their listing inventory to get the same activity that they had in 2006.

Smartest thing an agent can do right now —

Just mentioned it, but it’s worth repeating – at least triple their current listing inventory.

How do I stay motivated during these tough times?

Earn enough commission to put away 10% of it.  Buy a property that breaks even using a 35% expense factor.  Let the tenants pay it off by applying any positive cash flow to the underlying balance.  Wow, that motivates me!