Be a Million-Dollar Real Estate Agent...with 6 Techniques

What's up you guys? It's Graham here.

So I want to share with you guys the easiest, simplest, fastest, bestest, coolest, most awesomest tips to be a better real estate agent. And just as a forewarning on this, some of these might actually sound like I'm kidding around, joking—no, I'm actually being serious with this.

The reason you might think I'm joking with a few of these is because it's so common sense. But the sad reality is that I see many people missing these things, and it's so common sense that sometimes you would think, like, why would you ever miss something like this? So I wanted to make an effort to point these out in this video. All of these tips are super common sense, but they make the biggest impact in terms of your career in real estate.

My first tip definitely falls in that category; I'm just like, are you kidding me? Because it's so easy to do. But I would say from my experience, probably 70% of agents miss this. All it is is just making sure all the lights are turned on. [Music] It's so easy; so many agents decide to skip this part, not turning on every single light in the property and then showing it.

I was actually up really late last night just doing some background research on this and crunching the numbers and figuring out why people wouldn't turn on all the lights. And all my research has basically pointed to one thing: just laziness. Come on, like just turn on all the lights; it's really simple to do.

Now my reasoning for this is that generally properties look a lot better when all the lights are turned on and everything is well-lit and illuminated. Now, I'll be the first to say that some properties don't really need all the lights turned on or you might turn on a corner lamp and it barely makes any difference. But my thinking is that even if it makes the property look just 1% better by turning on that light in the corner than leaving it off, I would rather make the property look 1% better by spending like 10 seconds to go over and turn on the light just so it looks 1% better.

Now, if you don't turn on all the lights, it might just look a little creepy like this. So anytime you're showing a property, just make sure you get there a little bit early, turn on every single light you can, get the mood perfect, and then show the buyer around. Make sure you just go the extra mile and just make sure no light is left off.

Now my second recommendation is to always use professional photography anytime you're marketing a listing. I'm really sorry, but an iPhone is not professional photography. It so blows my mind that people will take iPhone pictures and then crop them really badly and then put them on the MLS and try to market like a million-dollar listing with an iPhone photo.

Or they'll have like the seller sitting on the couch in one of their pictures. Or like I've seen one—it's actually kind of cute, maybe you know, maybe this isn't a terrible idea—but I see somewhere like the dog is in every single picture, kind of posing in the listing. I think that's kind of cute, but like you get what I'm saying; professional photography makes a huge difference.

Oftentimes when it comes to a listing, the photograph is actually going to be what the buyer sees first, and then everything else is second. Think of the picture as something that just gets their attention in the first place to look into the listing further. You have a bad main picture; it's gonna end up turning like 80% of people off, not to even look at the listing.

You could have an amazing listing, but if the picture doesn't do it justice or if the picture makes it look like crap, then it's a listing that many people are gonna overlook. Now especially when you're going into the higher-end price points, good photography can make the property sell for a few hundred thousand dollars more than just using really crappy pictures.

Now on the other side of the coin, if you're a buyer or investor, you can usually end up getting a great deal without a lot of competition by going to listings that just have really bad pictures because the average person is overlooking this. But from a seller standpoint and a listing agent standpoint, you don't want to do that disservice to the house or to your client to have really bad photography.

Honestly, the way to see it is that spending money on good photographs is probably one of the highest yielding investments you can make in a listing.

Now my third recommendation—and again this is one of these things, it's just like I can't believe I have to say this, but I have to say this—make sure to show up on time anytime you're showing a place. I've seen it happen so many times where we show up to a house on time. If I'm representing a buyer and we show up at 3 p.m., our appointment was for 3 p.m. and the agent's like, “Oh, I'm running late. I'll be there in only 25 minutes.”

That sets such a negative tone for the entire listing. Even if the buyer sticks around and waits for the person, they're going into it already just a little bit upset that the person was late. But in all seriousness, just showing up on time is hugely important and extremely overlooked from my experience from so many agents who just don't show up on time.

So my fourth recommendation is that when you're showing a home, you actually speak with excitement about the home. Preferably, you tour the person throughout the house, and you don't just sit there on the couch like every other realtor and say, “Take a look around and let me know if you have any questions.” That seems to be what every realtor just loves to say.

The thing is, when you say something like that, the buyer will just take a look around, but they'll often miss a lot of things that you can point out. A buyer is not generally going to know the quality of the marble that's used in the countertop or the quality of the floor. They probably won't know the materials that are used in the bathroom or where some of the high-end finishes are used throughout the house.

There's a lot of things that a buyer will miss when they're walking through a home that you will need to point out. That's why it's so important that anytime you meet with a buyer, you explain to them every detail throughout the house so they can really see it and appreciate it.

The other thing I noticed is that people pick up how you feel. If you're excited about a listing, you can get the buyer excited just with your energy. Likewise, if you hate the house and you don't want to be there and you're not excited about it, the buyer is not going to be excited about it either.

Especially when it comes to someone buying a home, a lot of that is a very emotional decision. So when it comes to the way you speak about the house, just be excited about it and be into it. Even if you have to fake it, at least just know all the facts about the home; at least they can go into it with a basic understanding of what they're looking at.

So my fifth recommendation is another really common sense one; it's just to always pick up your phone and respond to emails as soon as you can. When people reach out to you, they're in the moment and they really want to see it at the time they're reaching out to you. They just want to see the home or they want a question answered, and they're in it.

You will also be fired. The thing is, anytime you wait—generally speaking, their desire for that is going to decrease over time. So if they really wanted the house but you take like a week to get back to them, chances are they've forgotten about it and they've moved on. They're not really into seeing it.

Plus, it shows that you're someone who really doesn't care enough to get back to them in the first place in a timely manner, or maybe it just wasn't that good of a listing to begin with. So it's so important that anytime someone calls you to pick up your phone or if they email you, just get back to them as soon as possible.

I have seen many deals lost even over a weekend. If a buyer wants to see a home, they call you on Friday night, you don't pick up, and then you get back to them on Monday. I've seen it before where they've said, “Oh, I really liked that house, but I ended up seeing something else too. I wrote an offer on that; it just got accepted, but I'll let you know if that falls through.”

And then they never actually fall through and then they end up closing on the deal, and you just missed out on an amazing deal. Your best chance of making a sale is at the time that they're actually reaching out to you. Then every hour that goes by after that, your chances decrease.

So please just make that effort. Pick up your phone, respond to your emails as soon as possible; that's a very easy one that, again, a lot of people overlook because according to my numbers, it's really just laziness or maybe not caring enough. Just pick up your phone, respond to emails; really easy stuff.

So the sixth recommendation actually ties in to the last topic I just mentioned, and that is when a client's ready to write an offer, you are ready in that exact moment to write that offer. Now what I end up doing is I carry my laptop with me everywhere, and then I can pair it with my phone for data or Internet. So it doesn't matter if I'm at the beach like Saturday afternoon or like I'm out Friday night or whether I'm at home; I could be anywhere in the world.

If a client wants to write an offer, I have my computer with me. That's how you should be because the thing is in a really competitive market, you have the most advantage representing a buyer when you're the only offer or if you're the first offer to come in. The longer you wait to submit that offer, the higher the chances are that they're going to get another offer. Once they get another offer, you lose all of your leverage as a buyer or as an agent representing a buyer because all of a sudden you're competing against someone else who may want the property more.

That means that your buyer is gonna have to pay a higher price to get that home than if they just submitted an offer sooner and got that accepted sooner before they had to compete with somebody else. So that's why I'm such a huge proponent of always being ready to write an offer as soon as the buyer wants to write that offer. I don't care if it's really late at night or if it's really early in the morning or like you're in Vegas by the pool drinking and having fun; it’s a great card!

Oh, it might say that—it's hard to do this voice; all these people going into the pool—but I mean, you get the idea.

And then finally, my last tip here is that if you've watched this all the way through and you've enjoyed it and you maybe learned something from it and you want to see more videos like this, make sure to hit the like button. Also feel free to comment down below; let me know your thoughts, if there's anything you think I'm missing or if there's anything you want to add on to this.

I read every single comment; I do my best to respond back to as many people as I can. So feel free to comment down below; let me know your thoughts. Also feel free to add me on Snapchat and Instagram. I post there pretty much daily, so if you want to be a part of it there, feel free to add me there.

Then lastly, I'm pretty much done with this outro, but this one's a good one; this is important. I set up a private Facebook group for anybody who's interested in real estate, real estate investing, anything to do with real estate, basically. And the best part about the group is that it's entirely free. Honestly, everyone in this group, I'm blown away at the support that everyone’s giving each other.

So just a huge thank you to everyone who's already joined. If you haven't joined already and you want to be a part of it, the link is in the description. Highly recommend you check that out, and it's free, so you have nothing to lose.

So thank you guys again for watching; I really appreciate it. Until next time.