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

I have been in real estate for 15+ years. Some people are successfull that are not really that bright, but are real nice, and give people a feeling they can trust them.

Also, you need to know the forms that need to be filled. There are tons. Today, they are mostly online.

And, simple things to look for, like if there is a septic tank. If the town has a big tax assessment pending. All that.

As many have said, it is a people person business. It has little to do with intelligence or even diligence. The exam requires some studying and sometimes a single course of a couple of months. Getting a GED is much more difficult academically.

It is an unnecessary profession. The job can be done online very well without a real estate agent. In some cases there may be value added, but Certainly not 3-5% of the value of your house.

My experience has been near incompetence or outright cheating in every part of a home sale. RE agent does not complete paper work properly or does not properly disclose issues or just lies about them. Title company screws up paperwork. Loan company defaults to whatever works best for them like adding PMI. Buyer / seller has to read all paperwork to keep from getting cheated and MUST check everyone else's work. Might as well do it yourself.

Choose an area (best is your own neighborhood) and 'farm' it. Email, website, drip physical market postcards. Make it as specific as possible to the area you've targeted. Attend social events, may volunteer if others from your target area attend. Listing agent is obviously a better gig than driving buyers around.

I think the most important thing is to learn how to price a home (either for buyer or seller). A former neighbor invited 10 agents to tell him how they'd market his house and the price point. 2 lived in, and specialized on, our neighborhood. They were the lowest price - probably hoped to get the listing on their relationship with the seller and flip the listing fast. He thought 2 highest prices were probably crazy, went with the 3 highest price, and told the rest of the agents 'no thanks.'

After the home went on the market, 2 buyers got in a bidding war, and the home sold for more than any agent priced it. A friend of mine who is a successful agent finds this story horrifying. She can't believe the home seller wasted all those agent's time.

So anyway, if you want to be a 'good' agent, help your listing clients get top dollar. If you want to be a 'successful' agent, figure out how to spend most of your time marketing yourself.

Realtors are more useless than coaches.
Lowest barrier to entry of any profession with the exception of coaching.
The dumbest person I know is both a coach and a realtor.

Common sense, the stuff you already good at like communicating with people but you thought it's now different like you're just about to learn a different language but actually it's just like walking into a different domain, that's it, the business field in general are mostly based on common sense, if you're taught differently like it's something complex as science then whoever did this to you is a lier or doesn't want you to share the domain with him and succeed.

*doesn't want to share the domain with you and succeed.

I know a girl who does some escorting, has an OnlyFans, and is also a real estate agent. She's not all that bright. She's 24, probably a 9.5. But she makes good money showing houses because she sells nice McMansions to 55-60 year old divorced men.

Good for her, she knows her target audience.

Was gonna say, RE is for chicks. Somewhere in the bermuda triangle waypoints of OnlyFans, a Failed MLM Business and "I'm a strong independent BossBabe"

I know a bunch of weak ass dudes from Hs who do it too. (failed serial entepreneurs who defaulted to RE)

Less smart than clever, if you know what I mean.

Interesting information, thank you!

Real Estate Agents must be intelligent enough to speak although grunting is sometimes all that is required. It's also helpful if they can drive.

Minimum IQ:68

Average IQ:89