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Property Talk - Real Estate as a Career
Property Talk - Real Estate as a Career
Date: 2023-03-07
The rewards however are money, glamour and excitement. Possibly some fame as well. The largest body of real estate professionals that we have statistics on, is the National Association of Realtors in the US which has over 1,6m members. From this group, the average real estate agent is a 56-year-old woman who is college educated.
In South Africa, we have just over 26,000 registered estate agents. The demographic split of this group varies considerably between the cities and provinces. Some offices like our Seeff Zimbali & North Coast flagship office at Nexus House, Zimbali Northgate Suites are regarded as one of the best real estate offices in the country and have a much younger profile.
The most successful estate agents tend to be a little older as it takes years to refine skills and build a healthy client base. For the past two decades, I have been working hard to professionalize our industry and create and implement best practice habits.
The larger real estate brands in South Africa tend to have good head office structures with legal, marketing and admin support infrastructure to ensure their agents are professional and have all the necessary tools to be successful.
The difference between good and great often comes down to leadership and how the strategy and agenda are driven daily. For somebody starting in real estate, the advice would always, therefore, be to join a major brand. This is not always necessarily the case, as my experience was starting my estate agency in 1996 and over time migrating to a large brand.
You will face an industry with a disproportionately high degree of regulation ? some may even say ?over-regulation? and you will find a workflow that can be extremely administratively intense, but the enjoyment you will get from successfully sourcing, listing, marketing and eventually closing a property transaction will inspire you to want more.
One word of encouragement is that the ultra-successful agents I have observed have a range of various personalities. Some massive extravert and some more introverts like me. All however have an exceptionally high level of emotional EQ. All understand salesmanship and the ability to close a transaction. All understand the art of persuasion. All have a wide range of skills including legal and all manage their time unbelievably well.
Agents should be highly regarded in any real estate sales environment as they are the rain-makers. They can facilitate the transaction to ensure it finalises. I believe that 70% of property transactions would never happen in the absence of an estate agent.
Putting buyers and sellers together can be a recipe for disaster with each pulling in a different direction. This is human nature, as every seller thinks his home is worth more than the market value and every buyer wants to try and get the best possible price. In a thousand years, it will still be the same and agents will still be acting as intermediaries between contracting parties regardless of the technology or marketing channels that may be used.
As long as two humans are negotiating and contracting on real estate you will almost certainly need another human to facilitate this process.
Some of the most likeable, energetic, intelligent and enthusiastic people I know are estate agents by choice. They should be wearing superhero capes.

