Semi-Retire from Real Estate + Prices and Mortgage Rates to Go Up in 2016 + much more...

885,391 daily readers and growing! December 28, 2015 Semi-Retire from Real Estate Dear Reader, Quality of life. At the end of the day, that is what we all want. Today the average agent is in his 50s so that means that most of us have had a chance to look death in the face. Maybe it was a major health issue of our own, or maybe the loss of someone close to us. One thing is for sure, when we confront mortality, our priorities change. My mother passed away last week after suffering from Alzheimer's for the last part of her life. She outlived her prognosis by several years, which gave us a lot of extra time with her, and now she is finally set free from her disease. But it is still a good reminder that life isn't guaranteed forever and gives me occasion to revisit the topic of how to achieve the quality of life you want from your career in real estate. So let’s think for a minute about what constitutes quality of life. It is subjective, of course, and each of us are different, but most of us have a mix of several common elements including financial security, job satisfaction, loving relationships, health, and inner or spiritual peace. Unfortunately, many of us Realtors find ourselves moving in the wrong direction in pursuit of that ever-elusive quality of life. We find our jobs not particularly satisfying due to increasing stress and decreasing incomes. That leads to less time pursuing and nurturing our relationships and often even adversely affects our health. It’s a downward spiral. But what if you could work a very specific and yet doable plan that would allow you to work hard for a year or two, and that work would position you to get off the treadmill, and begin to reap the benefits of a carefully constructed money machine that could carry you through the rest of your life with minimal new effort? Can it actually be done? Absolutely. But it won’t happen by accident. It will take a very focused, specific plan of attack. It will take your commitment to that vision, and it will take a lot of very hard work. It will come in three parts or phases. I call them Learn, Earn, and Return. I’ll show you what I mean, but I need you to pay close attention for the next few paragraphs. Learn (approximately 3 months). Most agents are more emotional than logical. That’s not bad -- in fact, it helps them relate to clients better. We tend to go by feelings and intuition and not by analysis and numbers. But I need your undivided attention for a few minutes because I need you to think about this concept 100% rationally. Intellectually. And when your mind gets it, I promise you your heart will follow. If we ever want to earn a windfall, we must go where the money is. Who has the money? The customers. If we really want to kill it -- not just make it, but kill it -- we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of coasting along picking up the occasional transaction, like the blind hog that finds an acorn every now and then. In other words, we need to find out where the customers are and then we must go to where they are in order to get their business. Seems simple enough, but most of us refuse to do it. Instead, we follow the crowd, which is usually wrong, and our results are safely the same as every other struggling agent. The good news is that we don’t have to wonder where the customers are. The National Association of Realtors surveys our customers for us each and every year. And year after year the numbers are very clear. This past year 94% of all our customers began searching online and yet ironically most agents generated not a single transaction from their websites. Why? Because they won’t take the time to learn what they need to do. Most won’t even learn how to generate sales leads from their websites, and then the few who begin to generate leads fail to take the time to learn how to effectively turn those sales leads into closings and commission checks. Agents willing to apply themselves to learning the skills of attracting and keeping this new online customer can absolutely transform their practices in about three months. I’ve seen it happen again and again. I’ve also seen agents invest in the tools and then fail to apply themselves to learning this new skillset and give up on their dreams in about the same amount of time. What a shame. Earn (approximately 2 years). After learning how to attract and keep internet business you need a season of growth. First you’ll have to reach your own maximum capacity, and then you will have to begin to refine things. You’ll focus on both quantity and quality. Most agents never have the luxury of shifting to this phase because they never leave the scarcity of traditional real estate. Once you finally understand how to generate a steady, predictable, scalable, flow of high-quality, inbound customers, and then learn how to build and manage those relationships through the home-buying and home-selling process, through escrow, closing and depositing your commission checks, you realize that you have a money machine. Like a big V8 engine, all you have to do is put in more input (fuel and air) and the result will be more output (speed and power). Only in your real estate money machine you will simply put in more internet traffic and the result will be more leads, resulting in more closed transactions. But until you have your machine in place, adding more traffic is like pouring gas on the ground. It won’t produce anything. You will systematically scale up your traffic while maximizing your efficiency until you eventually reach your own personal maximum capacity. At that point you will need to make a decision. Do you want to begin to add cylinders or do you want to be a very fast one cylinder engine. For me, I wanted to add cylinders so I began to bring on other agents. It’s what Gary Keller calls the principle of leverage. For me, recruiting agents was really quite simple. They needed business. I needed additional hours in the day. I gave them the business and they added the hours. We split the commissions. I continued to focus on getting listings and handed the buyer clients off to my team members. Return (onward and forever). Eventually, I reached capacity and handed off the listing business as well and I spent my time managing agents. Sure, I could cherry pick the occasional transaction, or I could list the occasional home for a friend or relative, but I was free. Quality of life was great. My life was my own again because I was no longer on the treadmill. From that point on I began focusing on how I could give back. In my case, I began to share my technology tools with other agents. I began writing books and articles and teaching the lessons I’d picked up during the Learn and Earn phases. To this day, I answer my own phone and I love spending time talking to fellow agents about their practices and I try to return what’s been given to me. I believe there is a law of reciprocity. Whatever you sow, you will reap. If I want to reap corn, I need to plant corn. If I plant beans, I’ll harvest beans. So what if I want to reap success? I need to sow success. And the best way I can think of sowing success is by helping other agents become successful. That’s what the Return phase is all about. So allow me to ask you a few pointed questions and take a moment to be brutally honest with yourself. Has your quality of life been improving over the last few years? If not, why not? Are you doing as much business as you would like to be doing? Are you currently effective in gathering business from the largest customer pool in real estate today -- the internet? Is your website earning its keep? Be honest: Has it produced you a single closing in the past year? If not, why not? Tough questions. Finally, I have one last question: Would you be willing to invest a couple of years building a real estate money machine so that you could then spend the remainder of your days with a fantastic quality of life, returning, mentoring and training -- investing in those not as far down the path of success? If your answer is yes, I sincerely believe I can help you accomplish that goal. First you’ll need to assemble the tools to attract and capture customers. My Ultimate Website can do that in spades.  Next you’ll need to learn how to use the technology. After you master the technology, you’ll need to learn the art of working with online customers. Don’t worry, it won’t take long because my coaching staff and I are there to help you every step of the way. The only part of the equation we can’t supply is your desire and your willingness to work hard. We are more than happy to work with you until it clicks and then through the refinement period as you begin to grow and grow and grow. There’s no extra cost and we’ve got a lot of experience when it comes to doing online business. We’ve helped agents build large teams and we’ve helped agents maximize small teams and solo practices. We are here to help you because when we sow success in you, we will ultimately reap success. The part of my job that I like the very best is interacting with my fellow agents helping them improve their quality of life. You cannot fully understand the feeling of freedom you get when you have the power to generate new clients AT WILL until you actually experience it for yourself. It’s incredible and it completely changed the trajectory of my career. I personally went from struggling to having a team of a dozen agents in about six months time… simply by having lots of opportunities. If you’re reading this and haven’t had a chance to check out my Ultimate Website with LCM technology, I urge you to take a moment to see what all the fuss is about. I think you will be very favorably impressed, and if you decide to try it today, I’ll give you a promo code that will get you an extra $350 in bonuses, but it will only work today. Promo code: “NEWSGENIUS” (all caps, no quotes) Get the Ultimate Website Now (Or check price and availability.) As always, thanks for reading. Matt Jones Broker/President/CEO FavoriteAgent.com Matt Jones is the founder and CEO of FavoriteAgent.com, nationally syndicated columnist, broker, and best selling author. He has been profiled by major media outlets as an innovator and a pioneer in the industry, and CNN's Pulse on America claimed he and his company were "changing the way real estate is done in America."

I did not sign up for this #TRENDING Prices and Mortgage Rates to Go Up in 2016 » The monthly mortgage payment on a home is determined by two elements: the price of the house and the interest rate you pay on your mortgage. Recently released reports are revealing that the experts Read more » 5 Biggest Turnoffs for Homebuyers » If you are on the selling end, there is nothing more important than you need to know than what make Read more » Write an Ad That Sells » Imagine sitting at your kitchen table, having your cup of coffee and you break open your laptop and Read more » Four Real Estate Trends for 2016 » Whether you are buying, selling, or renting, there's no escaping Federal Reserve's anticipated Read more » Create an Instagram Ad That People Like » Getting on the Instagram bandwagon Read more » 10 Cities Where Salaries Go the Furthest » Salaries tend to be highest on the East and West Coasts, but the high cost of living usually means Read more » ECONOMY Cities With the Biggest Rent Increases » Families are facing much bigger rent checks this year -- especially those living in cities in the South and West. Read more » More Homebuyers Don't Want to Work With Agents » A survey commissioned by online brokerage Redfin of 2,134 Americans finds one in five buyers made an Read more » This Isn't the Next Housing Bubble » Home prices are rising rapidly, but economists are deflating concerns that another "housing bubble" Read more » Homeowners Spending Like It's 2006 » U.S. housing is finally lifting itself off the mat. Read more » Consumer Confidence Soars--Homes and Cars Reaping the Benefits » Consumer confidence surprises many and surges in August, according to today's report from the Read more » 30% of Homes Lost Value Over Last Year » Not all American homes are rising in value. Read more » TECHNOLOGY Technology Disrupting Real Estate Industry on Two Fronts » Tech companies who want to venture into the real estate industry are facing the tough challenge of bringing about change without totally disrupting the "institution." Read more » New Commission Bidding Site Challenges Traditional Commission Structure » Ontario home buyers and sellers will soon be allowed to provide electronic signatures on real estate Read more » Realtor.com Claims They are Fastest Growing in Online Real Estate » Zillow is still the clear leader in the online real estate industry, but Realtor.com released some Read more » Project Upstream to Consolidate MLS Data » Project Upstream, as far as I can tell, is all about consolidating the MLS data. Zillow currently Read more » Did Your Website Survive Mobilegeddon? » Google changed their algorithm to favor mobile-ready sites Read more » Big Data is Changing Real Estate » The commercial real estate industry is embracing big data. While the financial and health care Read more » LAW Woman Sentenced to 30 Years in Realtor Killing » The estranged wife of Arron Michael Lewis promised on Tuesday to testify against him as part of a plea agreement that netted her a 30-year prison sentence for first-degree murder and kidnapping. Read more » Man Arrested for Hate Crime After Threatening Realtor » A man was arrested on suspicion of committing a hate crime for using racial slurs and threatening an Read more » Agent Attacked By Man in a Dress » In what is all too common an occurrence, a Realtor showing a home was attacked near Atlanta. What Read more » Son of Murdered Agent Urging Safety for Others » The son of an Arkansas real estate agent who was kidnapped and murdered while showing a home nearly Read more » Agent Attempts to Extort Power Brokers for $800k » A Miami Beach real estate agent — who sported bruises in his mugshot — was arrested over the weekend Read more » NewsCorp Spent $7M Suing Zillow » News Corp (NWSA) Earnings Report: Q4 2015 Conference Call Transcript Read more » MARKETING AirBnB, Realtor.com Team Up to Offer Try Before You Buy Housing » Dive Brief: Read more » 7 Ways Your Body Language Can Get People to Like You » Let your body do the talking Read more » Four Online Strategies to Sell Your Listing » Don't limit your home selling strategies to eye-catching signs and telling friends and family about Read more » Instagram an Important Marketing Tool » Instagram is an important marketing tool Read more » Become a Better Communicator In Your Writing » There's no denying it. It doesn't matter who you are, the type of customer you're trying to reach Read more » Study Reveals Agents are Missing Opportunities in Commerical and Land » A recent survey of real estate purchases by The Entrust Group's self-directed IRA (SIDRA) clients Read more » INVESTING Real Estate Tycoon in the Making » Danielle Moy loved to play Monopoly as a kid. Now, collecting as many properties as possible is more than just a game to her. Read more » U.S. Investors Flocking to Farmland » Investors are flocking to farmland again, hoping to capitalize on what they view as a temporary Read more » Dangers of Crowdfunding for Real Estate Investment » Real estate based equity crowdfunding, known more simply as "RECFunds", is rapidly gaining Read more » Turnkey Properties Popular Investments for Millennials » Millennials and younger members of Gen X appear to be delaying the financial responsibility of Read more »

Was My Home a Good Investment? » Read more » Send Your Child to College By Investing in Rental Property » College fees have gone up to over $65,000 a year says Troy Onink, a contributor for Forbes. When Read more » HOW-TO Avoid These Scams Targetting Real Estate Agents » Cybercrime is far more prevalent these days than its ever been before, and with the vast amounts of money involved in real estate transactions, it means that real estate pros, buyers and sellers could Read more »

Fatal Realtor Kidnapping Causes Agent Community to Change Safety Procedure » A year ago next week, the search for Beverly Carter, the Arkansas Realtor who had been missing since Read more » Separating Myth and Reality in Real Estate TV » I'm surprised to discover that many individuals I speak with are unaware of the fallacies of both Read more »

Dos and Don'ts of Appraiser Communication » Real estate professionals and appraisers both play an essential role in the process of buying or Read more » Sell a Home Quickly in Any Market » Once you list a house for sale, the waiting begins. Both realtor and homeowner want to find a buyer Read more » Home Selling Mistakes That Cost Your Seller Money » Real estate is a local experience, so be prepared for varying conditions depending on where you Read more »

This is the NewsGeni.us e-Brief, a collection of the best real estate news and advice in one place. To cancel your subscription, follow this link http://www.newsgeni.us/unsub.php?email=dsoldit.blogpost@blogger.com&s=2022.

©2015 NewsGeni.us, 212 Northstone Pl, Fayetteville, NC 28314. All rights reserved.