How smart do you have to be as a real estate agent?

You need to work well with people, which eliminates 99 percent of the people on this web site.

Considering all of the people in it and the relatively no requirements, I'd say not much at all. Kind of like used car sales people except they dress nice and lease a new car.

One of the best players on our high school soccer team was in special ed. He was kind of like Forrest Gump, but a little less socially awkward. He's now a successful real estate agent. So, if the question is how smart do you have to be as a real estate agent, the answer is, if you didn't ride a short bus to school, you can probably handle it.

And he was a successful agent. To just pass the test and get your license, you can probably be even dumber than Forrest Gump.

Some of them are really bright, but some are idiots.

My experience. Not a realtor but I do own real estate as investments

A good real estate agent is not a plastic Barbie doll or perfect white teeth BS salesperson but understands fiduciary responsibility, due diligence, inspection process, legal process, good brain (talk to the person and you can tell), she/he probably has background in business/finance/economics & an investor herself/himself as opposed to being a pure marketer Bullsh*tter with no brains. Knows how to calculate return on investment and has done many deals and is well known as an agent in the area they’re serving (so offer letters are taken seriously)

The crappy ones are usually the plastic Barbie doll listing agents where maybe they look the part but there is no substance

Depends bro wrote:

My experience. Not a realtor but I do own real estate as investments

A good real estate agent is not a plastic Barbie doll or perfect white teeth BS salesperson but understands fiduciary responsibility, due diligence, inspection process, legal process, good brain (talk to the person and you can tell), she/he probably has background in business/finance/economics & an investor herself/himself as opposed to being a pure marketer Bullsh*tter with no brains. Knows how to calculate return on investment and has done many deals and is well known as an agent in the area they’re serving (so offer letters are taken seriously)

The crappy ones are usually the plastic Barbie doll listing agents where maybe they look the part but there is no substance

That documentation for residential real estate is not complicated and is really just following a check list. Return on investment has nothing to do with single family, owner occupant residential.

Success is having a personality that makes buyers or sellers like working you and subsequently recommend you to others.

For Christ's sake, have you ever met one? I was once a realtor. It is a stain that can never be washed off.

That said, there are a few (a very few) honest, smart, and conscientious residential real estate agents. Bear in mind that commercial real estate is another thing entirely from residential. Commercial brokers are not to be underestimated.

Very smart according to his article.

Jenna Ryan, a Texas real estate broker who took a private jet to Washington to join the attack on the US Capitol, has pleaded with Donald Trump to pardon her after she was arrested by federal authorities.....

.....She climbed the steps of the Capitol, then promoted her real estate business to camera: “Y’all know who to hire for your realtor. Jenna Ryan for your realtor.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/16/us-capitol-rioters-donald-trump-pardons

To be a successful realtor you don’t need brains, but you do need two things. Those two things combine into the one thing that you must have to be a successful real estate agent: cleavage.

Then you need to learn to successfully market your cleavage. But that’s a lesson for another thread.

Most of you Mom basement dwellers couldn't even pass the exam to get the job. As with many careers, it's not doing the job that is particularly difficult, it's getting it. Studying for a RE license is difficult, time consuming and incredibly boring material. Lots of legal and ethical issues. Less than half the people that take the exam pass, it's failed at a higher rate than the bar exam.

Whenever I go to an open house or to view a home for sale, to the bewilderment of the showing agent, the first place I go is the basement to check out the electrical, mechanical, and structural systems of the house. I am always amazed about how little realtors know about how the product they are trying to sell is actually made. I suppose there are many people content with buying something pretty rather than well made. I won't consider buying a house constructed after 1980, and certainly not a toothpick and plastic McMansion.

I admit that realtors must have good emotional intelligence, but with respect to intellectual intelligence, I have met many dumber than the bricks that sometimes face the front of the houses they are trying to sell.

RE Exam wrote:

Most of you Mom basement dwellers couldn't even pass the exam to get the job. As with many careers, it's not doing the job that is particularly difficult, it's getting it. Studying for a RE license is difficult, time consuming and incredibly boring material. Lots of legal and ethical issues. Less than half the people that take the exam pass, it's failed at a higher rate than the bar exam.

I wouldn’t correlate the passing rate to the difficulty of the exam. People taking the bar are generally structured students that made it through a rigorous law school program. Any person off the street can take the real estate exam. I’ve never taken it, but I did take the Series 7 and it was a joke. If you can memorize, you can pass.

I know plenty of average IQ realtors that make a killing. It’s more about people skills than intelligence. I have an above average IQ, but admit that I would not be a very good realtor. It’s a grind and a hustle. The ones that can polish their people skills, understand the market and actually care about their clients do very well.

You have to be okay with stealing peoples money.

Yeah you just have to be a people person really, and that does not require intelligence. Intelligence could help you being a better people person, but a dumb person could also be a people person too. And again, you need to be okay with stealing peoples money.

Real estate agents are able to get big lump sums because the house owner receives a huge chunk of money and it's like a lottery win, losing money is irrelevant when they have too much so they make a dumb decision to not care if the real estate agent steals some.

definition of a bandit wrote:

Yeah you just have to be a people person really, and that does not require intelligence. Intelligence could help you being a better people person, but a dumb person could also be a people person too. And again, you need to be okay with stealing peoples money.

Real estate agents are able to get big lump sums because the house owner receives a huge chunk of money and it's like a lottery win, losing money is irrelevant when they have too much so they make a dumb decision to not care if the real estate agent steals some.

I’m not suggesting that real estate agents are underpaid, but it’s a free market. Nobody forces anyone to hire an agent. You can sell by owner and list it on Zillow for a reasonable fee. You can also negotiate a smaller commission with your agent although there is only so much room the broker will give them.

I’ve used an agent in the past because I felt she could get it done and command a higher price than I could alone. Plus I didn’t want to deal with the headaches of showings. Going back and forth with lenders and buyers agents, etc.

My neighborhood today, there are only 2 houses for sale and both pending. One is a by owner and it is probably the highest price per sq ft in the neighborhood. He had a contract in a couple of days. If I were to sell in today’s market, I’d skip the realtor.

I have been in real estate for over ten years and before I develop my project, I always ask for help from real estate agents who analyze my project and further promote it. A real estate agent has to be educated, smart and a little crafty in order for his business to flourish. I am confident that it is because https://www.qualidiag.org/ has all of the above qualities that I have been working with them for as long as I have. In order for your project to be perfect, you need diagnostics. That is the key to the success of so many companies

When I sold my condo, the agent I went with came on the recommendation of a co-worker. Here's the thing. He had never sold a condo before as his experience as an agent was in new home communities.

He comes in and basically says "I know very little about the community, the fees and condo sales in general. What I do know is that if we price this correct, it will sell quickly. I'm not going to give you the fancy marketing speech about how many sites I can list your home on, etc" along with some other stuff.

I liked his bluntness and his honesty. Went with him.

We had 2 offers within the first 48 hours (and this was 5 years ago)..because it was priced right. Maybe it was investors. Who knows. Who cares.

He actually said "I don't make as much money on the 2nd offer, but it's a better offer overall". We went with the 2nd offer.

CrispyChicken wrote:

Whenever I go to an open house or to view a home for sale, to the bewilderment of the showing agent, the first place I go is the basement to check out the electrical, mechanical, and structural systems of the house. I am always amazed about how little realtors know about how the product they are trying to sell is actually made. I suppose there are many people content with buying something pretty rather than well made. I won't consider buying a house constructed after 1980, and certainly not a toothpick and plastic McMansion.

I admit that realtors must have good emotional intelligence, but with respect to intellectual intelligence, I have met many dumber than the bricks that sometimes face the front of the houses they are trying to sell.

The realtor will focus their energy based on what customers typically look for that sells the house.

If you are only looking at houses built before 1980, you are immediately eliminating most houses listed for sale.

And it's not like you or any customer like you is buying a house every year.

And if you, as a buyer, eliminates a house based on what the realtor knows about the electrical, mechanical and structural details of the house, you are only further limiting your options.

Of course if you are only looking at open houses for fun, you're just wasting the realtor's time.

And if I was selling a house, I wouldn't want my realtor pointing out any mechanical flaws. That's for the home inspection and rarely ends the deal but it it could alter the sales price.