February is New Agent Month at Inman. Follow along as we go deeper on the tools, tech and tips you’ll need to survive and thrive in 2024. For curated content crafted just for first-year agents, be sure to subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Basics.
Pulse is a recurring column where we ask for readers’ takes on varying topics in a weekly survey and report back with our findings.
When you’re first starting out in real estate, your knowledge may be limited to what you learned in your licensing class and real estate “facts” that you’ve heard here and there from friends and family. It’s not until you’re in the trenches day to day, handling your first transactions and getting to know the lay of the land that you truly start to develop your knowledge base.
That’s why we asked (and you answered): What are some common misconceptions new agents have? What did you have to figure out as a new agent. What have new agents asked you about over the years? Do they tend to be confused about marketing, transactions, contracts, business operations — or something else? Here’s what you shared:
- New agents typically are a rudderless ship. Most have little knowledge about running a business, let alone a real estate business.
- How much money new agents will make the first one to three years
- Where do I begin? There are so many of them. I will go with the first one in mind: That you don’t have to listen to anyone/answer to anyone (because your you’re “own boss”) and the fact that you will get “all of this time off.” I will say this, if you find yourself with a lot of free time as an agent, you’re probably not doing a good job in real estate.
- They think it’s easy money and don’t understand it is you running your own business.
- That anything in their license training will be remotely relevant to their job. When was the last time you needed to concern yourself with the “northwest corner of the southeast quadrant along the third meridian”? Also, if you think it’s easy money, please step aside.
What did we miss? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
