| Retirees
earn good money in real estate
Two jobs in real estate
can give retirees a very good income plus free time for other
activities -- well, at least when the real estate market is
normal. Right now may not be the best time to jump into a
real estate career.
One real estate job, obviously, is to become a real estate
agent. Another is to work as a real estate escrow coordinator,
which does not require the licensing and continuing education that being a real estate agent does.
But let's start with
becoming a real estate agent, which allows you to work as often or
as infrequently as you wish. Highly successful
agents--the ones who make hundreds of thousands of dollars
annually--live and breathe their work. It is a 24 hour a day job for
them. There are, however, others who only work part time and
have a nice additional income as a result.
|
|
In
general, a real
estate agent is not "employed", by the company or
brokerage
he or she works for, but is hired as
an independent contractor.
As an independent contractor
the agent decides how
much time to spend selling homes and how much time
doing other things. And the payoff can be
substantial: thousands of dollars in commissions for
selling just one home.
|
Many brokers/companies want
only agents who will work 'round the clock, but there are others who do
not mind if an agent works part time. Be sure to ask
about this when you interview brokers. (And yes--you are the
one doing the interview, to see if the brokerage/company fits your
needs!! Not the other way around.)
Also keep this in mind: a well-groomed, mature real estate
agent can easily acquire the confidence of prospective clients by
instantly creating the impression of being knowledgeable
, reliable and stable. And if people are
confident in your abilities they are more likely to refer other
people to you and that is how your business will grow.
It is all in the
details for a real estate coordinator
If you have sold or purchased real estate in recent years, you
have, no doubt, been astonished by the mountains of paperwork
involved. You may have not considered who was keeping track
of all those documents, but the chances are good that it was not
the agent.
These days it is usually a real estate coordinator, a detail-oriented
person, who keeps tabs on all the paperwork. The coordinator
makes sure the documents are
completed and signed correctly and that all deadlines are met
during the escrow process. And if there are any problems,
the coordinator must inform the
agent quickly.
Coordinators usually start
by working on staff for an
agent or for a real estate brokerage. The next step is to launch your own
business and work from home for several agents at a time. Independent
coordinators usually charge a flat fee of few hundred dollars to
monitor and control the paperwork for each sale.
|