Sometimes good clients do take a lot of time, simply because their needs and circumstances are more complex.

A “good client” can be buying a condo in Juanita for $175,000 and who takes 3 months to do it. A “not good client” can be someone with two million dollars to spend who wants to treat me like a gopher and find something worth three million that he can “steal” for two million.

Good clients come in all shapes, sizes and income brackets. They can take a year to fulfill their objective or a few days. Good clients are ones where the client and I have a good, open and honest relationship.

As to your comment that agents don’t “understand the concept of advertising and farming”…I suggest that TOO MANY understand the concept of MAKING MONEY and NOT ENOUGH understand the concept of what they do for a living.

There are LITERALLY NO…NO…NONE…NADA….ZIPPO classes on how to BE A GOOD AGENT! They are all about how to make more money!

Here’s how it breaks down in Austin, TX. Average home is $180k. At 3% commission and 20% broker split (for me at least), I can make $207k gross, before expenses, with just 4 deals a month. That’s reasonable volume. The trick is to work efficiently, by being selective about time-wasters and focusing on good clients, as well as recognizning that old school prospecting methods such as cold calling and door-knocking are now officially worthless. Internet marketing is much cheaper and a more effective use of your time.

When an agent passes 36 transactions in a year’s time, they need to hire an assistant. Then they need to make a whole lot more to break even after the cost of the assistant. Managing expenses is better business than stacking up more and more clients, until none of them is getting what they are paying for.

What the agent “takes home” has to do with how many dollars they shell out, and to whom. Way to many, spend way to much, and delegate “agency level” tasks, that should not be delegated, to people who make $15 an hour.

Also, an agent that is “making” gross commission dollars of 100K is taking home a lot less than 100K when all is said and done.

-Russ

Last night, I checked the average sales price of homes sold last week in Bellevue, Kirkland and Redmond and it was more like $650,000. So using $9,000 per side is very conservative.

Tacoma agents may average less per sale, but they probably also live in Tacoma, so their own mortgage payment is more like that of their clients. Not every agent in the country has a six figure income cost of living.

Is it your presumption that every single real estate agent in the country needs to make six figures, when their average client may make half of that?

Remember that in areas where the price of homes is lower, the cost of living is lower as well. There is no ONE business plan for every real estate market. I have sold in seven different real estate markets ranging from averaging $4,000 per sale to averaging $21,000 per sale.

Also, the more I make on a sale, the more time I spend on that transaction. Getting a 4,500 square foot home “Positioned To Sell” takes a lot longer than getting an 870 square foot condo “positioned to sell”.

It can’t be all about what the agent “needs to make”. It has to be a fair price for the job at hand.

I think if more agents followed your lead that they’d be happier, and as a result clients would be better served.