This is a guest post from Ryan: a recent college graduate who writes about personal finance, real estate, entrepreneurship, mobile living, and personal development at Planting Dollars. In his free time he scuba dives with sharks, builds travel websites, and enjoys frugal living in Hawaii.
Have you ever thought it would be sweet to start your own business in college? If you’re not sure of the best business to start consider real estate sales as an option. If you’ve got confidence, believe in helping people with home ownership, and a great work ethic, this may just be your perfect college business, and great resume builder.
The summer before my senior year I took a position as a Realtor with a local brokerage company. Over the course of the following year I closed over $2 million in real estate transactions; You can do the same. I simply had a desire to learn about real estate and wanted to be paid for how hard I worked, not how many hours I put in. Real estate sales was the perfect solution. Realize that real estate sales costs money to get into and that it’s 100% commission; You will not make money until you close a sale.
In between classes I would follow up with clients, do a little prospecting, then get back in and learn about the history of the middle east, accounting, or whatever other liberal arts course I was taking at the time. Time management and the ability to juggle multiple tasks is essential. You’re helping someone with one of the biggest investments of their life, so you have to take it seriously.
If you’d like to beef up that business resume, learn how to start your own business, gain valuable lifelong selling skills, and have the potential to make decent money, here are the steps you should take if you’d also like to sell $2 million in real estate before you graduate college.
Step 1: Find a brokerage company that allows part time Realtors
Simply start acting like a Realtor and cold calling local brokerage firms asking how you can become a Realtor with their company. Brokerage firms like words like, ambitious, go-getter, and self-motivated. Most will have some kind of training program, but often you’re on an island and have to motivate yourself everyday. Get as many interviews as you can and learn about the differences between brokerage companies. Stress that you’re incredibly hard working and aren’t afraid of prospecting. If possible find a way to team up with a more experienced agent.
Step 2: Get your real estate license
Each state has their own licensing laws so you’ll need to get licensed in the state you plan on selling. You can easily just Google your “state + real estate license,” and you’ll find a plethora of information regarding getting licensed. In my experience licensing cost me about $300 in total and took a few weeks to complete.
Step 3: Read as many sales books as possible
Start reading books by success coaches like Zig Ziglar and Brian Tracy. These books will not only help you in your real estate sales, but in your outlook in life in general. Believe you can achieve and you will. If you’re reading this and thinking it’s impossible to do what I did, it will be.
Step 4: Get out there and make it happen
Work hard developing new clients through prospecting. I would go door to door on the weekends, call expired listings, talk to for sale by owners, and do mailings to particular neighborhoods. Through reading about how top producing real estate agents gained their success you can duplicate their models and create your own success. The best book you can read in this regard is the Millionaire Real Estate Agent, by Gary Keller. Also realize that unfortunately Sunday afternoons will be for open houses and not for an all day keggers, sorry!
It’s honestly that simple. People tend to over complicate things, but if you follow these four steps you’ll be able to sell $2 million in real estate between classes as well.
If you have any specific questions feel free to stop over at Planting Dollars and shoot me an email.
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Great idea, Ryan.
I can’t lie that I have some interest in real estate. I’m not sure if it’s a romantic notion or what, but I’ll have to check out some books to follow up on this interest.
Glad you liked the idea Austin. It’s a really cutthroat business so you have to have a spine to get into it. I left because I wanted to travel before I got too old and regretted not seeing the world, but if / when I decide to settle down again sometime I would get back into it, primarily on the commercial side.
Real estate is an incredibly powerful investment vehicle so it would be a great experience for anyone. Just knowing how to value property will help you since you’ll be able to look at each property and quickly determine if it’s a good investment or not. Knowledge is power!
I agree that real estate knowledge extends way past the dollar and cents. Knowing how to value a property and knowing what to look for in a home can really help you in your older years. I have considered many times the option of taking real estate courses. I would be happy with just knowing the basics of property valuation.
Once again, thanks for the great post Ryan!
If you’re curious about learning real estate valuation I’d recommend taking the CCIM courses (CCIM.com). I don’t really consider a home an investment per say, but commercial real estate is where you’ll make money.
Real estate entrepreneurs make money by buying, much like Buffett does when buying businesses low. I’ve seen deals where investors automatically make hundreds of thousands just by buying a property under fair market value.
Where else can you make that much in a day?
I’ll be writing a post in the future about why I don’t really consider a house an investment, but from the obvious point of view is that it’s not a positive cash flow income stream.
Thanks again for letting me post.
Do you mean investing in real estate or working as an agent? Both can be very lucrative. Unfortuneatly, both can have their down sides.
Working as an agent… investing would’ve had an article titled “Buying $2 million in real estate” and then I’d be stuck back in Wisconsin ;(
Impressive Ryan! So doing the math, if you got half the normal 5% commission, that’s 2.5%. Then give another 1% to the agency you work for (parents?), leaves you with 1.5%. 1.5% X 2 million = a nice $30,000 in proceeds just in college yeah?