Mastering How to Make Money -- How Realtors are Succeeding in Today’s Market

June 12, 2012 - PRLog -- Real estate professionals account for earning a large percentage of real estate industry revenues. But many real estate professionals have had to put their licenses on inactive status due to lower and slower commissions. Some have taken part-time or full-time jobs outside of their chosen field; while others have abandoned the profession altogether to make ends meet in a tough economic market.  

However, armed with a no no-sense reputation for being steadfast go-getters, real estate professionals are capitalizing in a sluggish market.  A great number of industry professionals have successfully sought out and/or created other means of viable income within the industry to add exponentially to their bottom lines.  Real estate agents and brokers have started new companies and added complementary services to their existing businesses to survive in today’s market.

How Real Estate Professionals Make Money

For example, some brokers have “niched” their businesses to target REO areas within the industry. Many focus heavily on providing “BPO” services. BPOs, or rather, "Broker Price Opinions," are professional valuations of properties. BPOs are less expensive and less time consuming than full appraisals and are completed to estimate the value of a property. A BPO is generally two to three pages in length and includes specific information and characteristics about a subject property and other properties that impact assumed value.

Others agents may focus on inspection services, such as providing drive-by occupancy inspections, or other types of inspections, for larger property preservation companies or lenders to determine whether or not a home is occupied.

Still others have focused heavily on becoming foreclosure experts, working with banks and lenders holding large REO (real estate owned) inventory in need of marketing.

Many brokers and their agents have ventured into teaching to add income to their household bottom line. For example, some real estate professionals have figured out how to make money by working with local realtor boards and real estate schools to teach industry classes to newcomers and colleagues. Classes provided by multiple listing services, realtor boards and industry schools can range from varying topics such as marketing, to specific coursework for certification and continuing education purposes.  

Going a step further, many professionals have opted to create and teach specialized coursework under their own newly formed company umbrellas.

Others, still, have opened foreclosure cleanup businesses and REO maintenance companies. Foreclosure clean out, maintenance and REO-repair type businesses are opening at a frenzied pace all over the country.  Another term for start-up companies in this field is REO trash out, or smaller property preservation type companies.  A foreclosure cleanup business handles cleaning out and maintaining foreclosure homes. (See foreclosure maintenance jobs at http://www.foreclosure-cleanup-blog.com.) Duties for these companies can range from removing debris, to interior and exterior home cleaning, lawn maintenance, changing locks, property inspections, gutter cleaning and pressure washing, painting, winterization work, boarding windows and doors, pool cleanup and securing,  minor repairs, and similar foreclosure cleanup duties.

Real Estate Professionals Mastering How to Make Money in Today’s Market

Agents who are successfully starting new businesses within the industry, or those who opt to add complementary services to their current business platforms, are getting ahead quickly by utilizing contacts within their often already existing extensive databases.  

Even with a sluggish market, one showing signs of eminent rebound, agents still account for a large percentage of real estate industry revenues, via commissions and under their own newly formed complementary service business umbrellas.