Most people have seen advertisements for 100% commissions to agents.  Years ago a now famous company started this model and this company grew very quickly to be one of the biggest around.  A lot of other companies followed suit and now there are just as many 100% commission companies as there are standard commission brokers.  Though now that this system has been around for some time, we (real estate agents) have caught on to the pro’s and con’s.   Most all of these plans require a monthly fee for something – they’ll call it an office fee or desk fee, or something else.  Then you have transaction fees.  You also have to see if the broker offers the full marketing and training support other broker would offer, and in many cases you’ll find the 100% commission brokers falls shorts somewhere.

I would tend to want to discourage new agent from hanging their license with a 100% broker.  Another thing to keep in mind are that these brokers make their money from the monthly fees rather than from closing commissions.  They have more motivation to sign up as many agents as they can.  The more agents there are the less personal guidance and instruction you are likely to receiver from the managing broker, if any.

Starting out your first year at least it would be wise to work for a broker that wants to see you succeed and is willing and able to personally help you achieve success.  That may be training sessions, accountability sessions, personally reviewing all your contracts to make sure you’re getting them right, and encouragement to keep going.   A good broker may even step in provide that bit of advice to help you get started that you didn’t even know you needed.

Personally I think there are many other matters that are just as or maybe even more important that the commission split.  I have a whole list of important topics in my blog about the job interview.  Even if you think the 100% commission plan is right for you, there are enough options now that you can still choose from a list of brokers that offer this plan.

In my other blog posts I mention how the interview should really be about you interviewing the broker, and that’s really how your mindset should be.  What I’m referring to is the traditional real estate agent and broker relationship, not a specialized job, so keep that in mind.   The majority of licensed real estate agents are what I refer to as the traditional real estate agent.   I would describe him/her as someone that is licensed to sell any type of real estate, and works for a broker that represents a full array of property types.

There are over 100,000 licensed real estate brokers, and about 1.6 million real estate agents in the US at any given time, with many going in and out of the field every day.  Especially in the past year with the economic downturn many brokers are loosing agents faster than in the past.  Brokers are hiring agents now.  As they say this is a buyers market and you are the buyer, and brokers are selling their services to you.  You really need to take control of the hiring process to find the best broker for you.  One of the most important ways you do this is during the interview.

Here is a quick guide on how to prepare for and what to do during a job interview with as you become a realtor.

Research, research, research.  You should have put together a short list of brokers that you gathered from all the available resources.   From that short list try to research as much as you can about the company.  During your research you may find most of the answers to your questions, and you may come up with new questions.

Create a list of questions to ask the broker. Here is a sample of some questions you might want to ask.

When was your company established?

Is it a franchise,  or independent?

How big is your company?

How many agents are in your company?

What kinds of recognitions or awards has your company received?

What counties do you serve?

Who is the managing broker of the office that I would be working in, and is the managing broker always in and accessible?

How many offices do you have, where are they, and what are the hours?

Do you provide a conference room, a waiting room, a desk, computer, internet access, access to a printer, copier, binding equipment?

What marketing resources do you have, software, reference manuals, contact lists?

Do you provide marketing material and support? (brochures, flyers, signs, mls listing, newspaper, magazine, local classifieds and online listing services).

Do you provide business cards, name badges, lock boxes, lock box keys, voice mail, website, email account?

Do you have a receptionist, transaction/closing coordination, mortgage services?

Do you specialize in only residential, commercial or both?

Do you have specializations that your company is known for or have special expertise in?

What is the commission split, and do you have different packages?

What are the transaction fees?

What are the office fees?

Are there other fees, what about for any office equipment or marketing materials and supplies?

Am I required to maintain membership on any boards or mls (multiple listing service)?

Do you have any teams within your company, and are they open to working with new agents?

Do I have to maintain a certain amount of office attendance?

Do you require agent to have office duty?

Are sales and training meetings provided, are they required?

Do you offer continuing education classes?

Am I required to do any telemarketing?

Can I work from home or my own office?

Can I create my own advertising?

If you have any other specific concerns or are interested in a particular area of real estate, you should ask a set of questions about those topics as well.

On the day of the interview, take notes (mentally or write them down if you are interviewing at several places) of your impressions of the office.  Try to look at the office from the perspective of a client.

Is the office easy to find?

Is the office clean and professional?

Is there a receptionist, and is he/she friendly and responsive?

How is the waiting room, is there a waiting room?

Take a look at the conference room, the desks, the office equipment.  Look around to see if there are other agents around.   It’s actually a good sign if there are less agents around than more, it means they are busy selling real estate and not sitting around the water cooler.

If there are agents around try to remember to introduce yourself to them after the interview, or before if you have enough time.  Ask them about their experience at this office.

When you meet with the broker it’s always polite to let them start the interview and let them tell you about their company.  A good interviewer should always provide time for you to ask questions, so you will be able to ask your questions then.  You may find that the broker covers many of the questions you had, so it would be a good idea to cross them off your list to save everyone’s time an to show you’re paying attention.

One thing to look out for is the broker wanting to close the deal during the interview.  As in wanting to get you to sign up right then and there as a new agent.  If this is what you want to do that is fine, but if you have other brokers you want to interview with you should wait till you’ve had a chance to speak with all the brokers on your list.  Real Estate people just get in the habit of trying to close the deal, and if the broker does this, this is a good sign of the office culture.  It may work for you, it may not.  The better sellers are usually able to get the deal closed without a hard sell in my opinion. Either way you should always be polite as your reactions represents you.

One last thing after the interview it’s always good to send a personal thank you, even if you decide you don’t want to work with that broker.  It shows your professionalism, and you never know when you’ll run into that broker in a transaction.

I wanted to provide as many resources as I could come up with to get you started on your search to find a real estate broker to work for.  So, here I have accumulated the top sources for real estate agents to find brokers, and in no particular order.

The Traditional Methods are:

Word-of-mouth.  This is very common.  I worked for a broker once that I had heard about through word-of-mouth.  This may seem like a good idea, as you’re getting a recommendation testimonial of sorts.  Well, it didn’t work out that great in my case.  If you do hear about a great broker, ask as many questions as you can from the referrer.  Then interview the broker and follow up on those same questions.  Don’t forget to ask important questions that related to you and what you think you need to succeed.  Training, one-on-one mentoring, office duty, mandatory meetings, no mandatory meetings, etc.   Remember the interview is about making sure the broker is right for you, not if you qualify to work for the broker.

Top Producer Ranking Lists.  Realtor.org puts out an annual Top 100 Companies list.  When I got started I thought why not work for the top company in my area, then I can get the best training, right?  So I went to work for the highest ranking company in my area.  It was a huge company.  I’ll admit they had a lot of resources and great training programs with accountability sessions.  The only problem was I had no experience or interest in Residential real estate, and I was looking at the Top 100 Companies list for residential real estate companies.  I later figured out that my expertise is in commercial, so I should stay with commercial.  Seems like common sense now.

“Hiring New Agents” sign in front of a broker’s office that you drive by.  Well, by coincidence the Top 100 Company that I worked for had an office near my home and it must have been my lucky day because when I decided to try to interview with this company that office had a sign out front looking for new agents.  I realized later this hiring sign was a permanent sign.  At least I can say I did some research before I came calling on the now hiring sign.  I hope if you’re just getting started you don’t just sign up with a broker because it’s the first place you drove by.

Direct mail and email.  Congratulations, you just got your real estate license and also membership into the broker mailing list (and home inspectors, decorators, appraiser, so on).  You will now receive never ending emails and direct mail from real estate brokers looking to hire you.  I actually signed up with one broker because of a piece of direct mail.  I worked for that broker for about three years.  The funny thing is I never met anyone associated with that company in person.  I recall talking on the phone maybe once or twice with the managing broker.  I think the rest of my communication was through emails or fax with the office staff.  Obviously, I don’t recommend for new agents to go this route.

Hey, it’s the information age, what about using technology to find a broker.

Here are Online resources to find real estate brokers:

Standard “Job” sites.  You may know the usual suspects for job sites.  I’ve listed a few of the biggest.  These job sites, though are a do it all for every industry.   Just keep in mind that when you do a search for real estate jobs, you are going to get a lot of results for real estate related jobs that are not necessarily real estate salesperson jobs.  It takes a little bit more digging going through these sites.

Career Builder – standard job site

Monster – major job site

Craigslist – a free board with mixed results

Yahoo Hot Jobs – popular job site

InDeed – newer concept of “job search engine”

Real estate specific “Job Boards.” With the rise of the internet and especially the real estate boom of the ’90′s and early part of this millennium many on-line job sites were created with more specialization.  Here are links to a few sites that specialize in real estate related jobs.  Even though these sites specialize in real estate some of them still include real estate related industries as well.

Agent2Broker - recruiting board for real estate agents

Real-Jobs – focuses on the commercial real estate industries

iHireRealEstate – real estate sales and real estate related industries recruiting

SelectLeaders – results include aggregate listings from other job boards

Industry Websites Directories. A good resource to find a list of brokers in your area is a search of directories provided by industry websites.  You may not be able to see information related directly with employment, but it is a way to find active real estate brokers in your area.

Realtor.org – National association of Realtors

Loopnet – Leading commercial real estate portal

Social Networking.  One of the biggest trends online is social networking.  Wouldn’t you have guessed it, there are social networks just for real estate agents too.  You may be able to start following  brokers in your area that are actively providing useful content.  Here are some popular sites:

ActiveRain – blog based social networking

BrokerAgentSocial – articles, forums, and social networking for real estate agents

The main thing to keep in mind with all of these resources is that these are just the starting points.  You should make a list of all of your choices and started ranking them or sorting them by what is important to you.  Once you have narrowed your list down to a hand few then you should carefully interview with each.

So, I say the best way to get started is to know yourself.  What are you interested in?  Do you have any experience in any particular area of real estate?  If not directly, does anyone you know work in real estate?  Do you like houses, do like resorts, do you like urban areas?  Maybe you tried to run a business in the past, did you deal with a commercial lease?  Did you get an SBA loan?  All these thinks can help you find a path that might be just a little easier for you to get started.

Once you figured out what experiences, connections or interests that you have make it a priority to find a real estate broker that can help you use those to your advantage.  Basically, don’t go working for a real estate broker that specializes in farm land when you love the city and the closest you’ve been to a farm was the produce section of your grocery store.

This is where a lot of agents trip up.   How, why?  Well, because there’s just too many options.  No matter how many choices you had for real estate schools they basically are trying to accomplish one thing, that is passing the state exam.  As far as brokers go there ten times (or more) as many and they are all different.  They have differnt goals, differnt philosophies, different backgrounds, different expertise, and the list goes on and on.

The easiest thing to do is just go to work for the first broker that you cross paths with.  If you go that path you need to act quick, because brokers are sharp.  If you were a broker and looking for new agents where would you look.  Most of them look for the latest agents to pass the state exam, so within days of passing you’ll get enough brochures in the mail to fill a file cabinet – a big one.

The choice of which broker to work for should not be taken lightly.  If you already think you know who you want to work for, I say think again.  Have you really looked at all the important factors?  There is a lot more to consider than the commission split, or even office fees.  There’s at least twenty or thirty items that are extremely important to find out about your broker before you start.  When you interview with a broker you shouldn’t go from the mindset of “I hope to get a job offer”, you should be thinking do I want to work fot this broker.

In future blogs I hope to cover as many areas as I can that will get a new agent going in the right path and avoid a few of the mistakes that I made.

So, how do you take the state exam?  Well, for my state of Georgia you have to register to take the exam at state certified testing facilities.  These facilities are not government offices and are not staffed or funded by the state, but are authorized testing centers.  All they do is have rooms with computers and people come in to take the test.  They are pretty strict.  You have to show your ID, your registration reservation, and you are not allowed to bring in anything other than a (plain old school) calculator.  The test is all on computer.  Please confirm with your state if the exam is any different.  When I took my test the facility was clean, the staff was friendly enough, and the room I was in was quiet (which was good because I have ADD and don’t concentrate well with noises).

The test I took was all multiple choice.  I passed on my first time.  As I mention in my other post I took the online class that forced me to read every single word of the textbook, so I was well prepared for the test.  Well, I have a confession, I barely passed.  Here is my excuse, due to some confusion at the real estate school I took my course, my records were not updated for over a month after I finished, and I couldn’t schedule my state exam until the mix up was resolved.   So I had over a month for all the material to evaporate from my brain.  I was worried a little, but just grit my teeth and took the exam anyway.  Thankfully, I passed.  When you are studying, realize you are going to take a state exam and try to pay attention.

One final note about the State Real Estate Exam.  As long as you pass your score doesn’t really matter.  I don’t think my broker even bothered to check what my test score was.  Certainly when you meet with your clients the topic of your state test score never comes up.  I suppose if you made a perfect score you could use that as marketing of your knowledge of real estate law.

Anyhow, good luck on your exams!

Now you have two options: in class or online study. There are pro’s and con’s for each.  I took my classes online, but since have taken continuing education classes in class and online.  I’ve also spoken to lots of agents that offered their perspective.  At the time I got my license I didn’t have a choice.  I was working full time and just couldn’t fit in a class schedule.  If you’re in that situation then the decision is pretty much made up for you. However, the drawbacks are many.  You really have to be disciplined.  I’ve heard that many if not most people that opt for the online course do not finish.  Why?  Is it because they don’t give you enough time?  Not really most courses give you up to six months to finish, which is more than enough.  Well the real reason is because there is just a lot of work.  You have to go through a lot of material and you can’t skip anything because you are quizzed on every section, of every chapter, and then you have chapter tests.  Some courses require homework that need to be submitted as supplement.  There is what seems like never ending reading and quizzes.  But if you are really good at independent study, you will be able to finish and you will probably have a better broad grasp of all the topics and you’ll likely be able to pass the state test the first time around.  What was that about the first time around?  Yeah, I know people that failed the state licensing exam five times.  Make sure you’re prepared.

If you’re schedule is a little more flexible, and you work better in a structured class room environment then you should really consider taking an in class instruction.  There are many real estate schools, and many different styles of teaching.  My first recommendation is to see if the state real estate licensing board for your state offers classes or is affiliated with a school.  That’s your best chance of finding a real estate school that has material that will be close to what you’ll encounter in the state exam.

In class study is great. Other agents I met with spoke about how their instructors were able to take the time to explain difficult topics, how they would point out the important material that might show up on tests or in real life deals, and how they could break down text book concepts and theory into real world scenarios that made sense.  The continuing education classes I’ve had were very helpful.  You can ask questions and sometimes the instructors can elaborate on experiences that aren’t even covered in textbooks.  So, what’s the drawback?  Well, other than finding a class that fits your schedule there are actually some drawbacks.  If you’re one of those people that sit at the back of the class, don’t ask questions when you don’t understand something,  even daydream or skip some classes altogether then you’re going to have a hard time on the state exam.  You may end up being one of those people that have take the state real estate exam multiple times.

Classes are relatively short. Real estate schools in my state offer day classes that last about a month, and evening/weekend classes that last about two to three months.  Consider that.  You could begin a new career in a professional executive level job that requires a license to practice in about a months time.

So, have you decided if in class or online study is right for you?

So are you eligible to become a realtor?

The first step should really be about making the decision to become a realtor.   If you are just looking for a career change and becoming a realtor is just one of the options on your list, then you really need to consider if this career is right for you.  The most successful agents (called Top Producers) I’ve ever met were extremely determined people, that exuded their passion for helping people buy and sell real estate.  I’ll admit I don’t have a particularly strong passion for houses, land, foyers, building materials and such.  At the beginning of my career in realestate I looked at other agents get all excited about these things for which I really didn’t, so I thought realestate sales might not be for me.  Then as time went on, I realized that the passion isn’t about the house or building materials, it’s about helping people.  When you realize that you start thinking ‘well is this house really what my clients want and need?’  If you are able to put the focus on your clients needs over your need for a paycheck then real estate may be a great career for you.  This is a great start because I have some some news for you:

There was a time years ago that the real estate market was so hot that anyone just had to get a real estate license and deals would just fall on your lap.  It wasn’t a big secret and lots of people got their license.  In my opinion the market got saturated with real estate agents and competition got tougher.  Now it’s 2009 and we’re in a deep recession and real estate agents are leaving the industry left and right.  This could be a sign that now is not the right time to become a realtor.  I tend to think now is the best time.  Timeline wise it’s going to take at least a month to six months to get your license.  Then you’re going to spin your wheels for the first several months to a year just getting your bearings.  By that time the economy has got to get better (right?).  With a few sales (hopefully) under your belt and your confidence level high and fewer agents around, you’ll be ready to ride the wave of the economic upswing closing more deals than you can handle.   By the time everyone else realize they need to become a realtor, you’ll have established yourself and you’ll be hiring the new agents as assistants to help you close all those deals.