– What’s up guys? AJ Mida here, in this video, I’m going to be talking aboutshould you be a listing agent or should you be a buyers agent and how do you about doing that? So let’s first talk about the pros of becoming a listing agent. When I got into real estate, my goal was to be arock star listing agent, and there’s a few main reasons. One of the first ones is, isbecause as a listing agent, you’re the most leveraged. What do I mean by that? The reality is, is listingsjust take less time to sell. Meaning, it takes less ofyour time to sell that, which means you’re goingto make more per hour when working with listings.Another reason I wantedto be a listing agent is because I didn’t wantto be spending nights and weekends working with buyers. Typically, when can buyers see houses? It’s going to be nights and weekends. So as a buyers agent, typicallyyou’re going to be working a lot of Saturdays, a lot of Sundays, maybe doing open houses. And for me, I just wantedabsolute control of my time. So it was very rare when Iwas ever working a weekend, and typically I would behome by around six, 6:30 after maybe going on a listingappointment in the evening.So I had a lot morecontrol of my schedule. Another pro of being a listing agent is you can generate leadsat a much lower cost, typically speaking, thanwhen working with buyers. Another pro of being a listing agent is you can generateleads at a very low cost. And in next week’s video, I’m going to be talkingabout different ways that you can generate leads and what you should be focusing on as either a listing or buyers agent. But just to give you a quick example, you can actually call or prospect sellers, expireds, for sale byowners, and you can do that at no cost or very low cost. And when I got started in real estate, I had little to no moneyto invest in leads. Now let’s talk about the consof being a listing agent. The fact of the matter is, sellers are much moreselective than buyers. The seller is the onethat’s going to be paying your commission, so when you’re going out for a listing appointment,they’re truly interviewing you for the job as their agent.And that’s why a lot of new agents typically like to work with buyers, because they know, if they show up and present themselves well, they have a good shotof getting the client whereas the skillset for taking a listing is a little more advanced. However, as a new agent, you can certainly stillbecome a listing agent just like I did, you just got to make sure that you’re working on yourskills and developing them. Now let’s talk about some pros of being a buyers agent. The biggest one, again, isit just takes less skills, really, to work with buyers. However, of course a good buyer agent is going to have a very strong skillset. But a new agent without anyskills, being a buyers agent, is typically going tobe a little bit easier. The buyer isn’t paying your commission, so they’re not going to be as selective. You want to educate themso that they understand that they don’t pay yourcommission up front, because a new home buyer isn’tgoing to understand that.Another pro for being a buyers agent is once you have the client, the only cost involved is thecost of gas showing homes. When you’re a listing agent, you’re going to spend moneyon things like photography, sometimes you’re going to need to pay to actually have the house measured, in some states that’s a requirement. You’re going to need topay to market the home. So if you’re just starting off and you don’t have any moneyto invest in the marketing of a listing, then working with buyers is going to help you alittle bit in that aspect.Now let’s talk about the cons. It takes a lot more timeto work with buyers. And if you don’t know howto quality them properly, and I’m not talking aboutgetting them pre approved, I’m talking about qualifying them to see if they’re seriousabout buying a house, this is even before theprequalification process. You get a lot of lookie-loos. It’s funny in the realestate agent community, we call ’em Pop Tart agents. A buyer calls you, hey Iwant to see this house, and you just pop out and go show ’em. So there is a processthat you need to follow to make sure that thatbuyer is actually ready, willing, and able to purchase a house.I know so many agentsthat will show 10, 20, 30, even 40 plus houses and find out that that buyer is just looking at houses for entertainment or can’tactually afford the house or get qualified for a mortgage. So you’re going to spend a lot of time early on, if you don’tdo a good job qualifying with lookie-loos, and evenif you are doing a good job qualifying them andyou’re working with buyers who are ready, willing, andable to purchase a home, it just takes more time. A listing agent doesn’t have to be there for the inspection.The buyers agent has to bethere for the inspection. If there’s anything thatcomes up for the listing, say, you know I had a property one time that had a cracked foundation. It was the buyers agent’sjob to actually go out and find the contractorsto get the estimates to repair the cracked foundation. And once they had all their estimates, I was able to present those to my client.And if that was satisfactory to them based on the prices and basedon the bids that came in, then we could negotiaterepairs from there. So they had to put in a lot of leg work to do all the due diligence. Ultimately, you got todecide what you want to do as a real estate agent. And of course, you canfocus on both, however, if you’re going to becomean expert real estate agent. Now of course you can work with both buyers and sellers, however you definitelyare going to want to focus on one or the other. And for me, it was a no brainer because if I could make more per hour as an agent working with listings, why wouldn’t I do that? Of course, if you’re goingto make this a career, you’re going to goingto invest in yourself and become better andbuild your skillsets. So if you’re going to do that anyways, why not do it so that you’reworking with more sellers as opposed to buyers? It only made sense for me.And that’s what has allowed me to have such a great quality of life while working as an agent. So many agents who workwith a lot of buyers are just working nights, weekends, and they’re missing somuch with their family. And as a listing agent, you just have so much moreflexibility in your schedule. You control your schedule. So for me, it was A, more money per hour working sellers, low costleads, and more control over my schedule. That’s why I ultimatelychose to be a listing agent. So I hope this video helped. If you have more questions,post them in the comments. And of course, subscribe to my channel. I’d really appreciate that. And next week, I’m goingto be going into detail of the different leadgeneration activities that you can do as both a listing agent and buyers agent, somake sure you stay tuned for when that video drops next Sunday.We’ll talk to you soon. (electronic music).
