Life as a New & Part-Time Real Estate Agent

Passing RES exam is only the first step. After doing part-time RES agent for a few months, I realized it is a lot of hard-work and many failed attempts before you can actually get a deal closed. You may have seen a lot of agents driving good cars and earning high commission. But there are also many agents who do not do well. (The same as start-ups. We only hear stories of successful start-ups and never heard the stories of start-ups who are struggling.)

As a new agent, I start to know more about this industry. Each deal closure for projects can earn you quite reasonable commission (ranging between 0.5%-2% or even more). New launches usually have lower commission as the sales are expected to be easy. If the project has been launched for a longer period, the commission is on the higher side so as to incentivize agents. Most developers target “100% sold” to be achieve as early as possible. J Gateway was fully sold on day 1 of launch and it is an achievement that is constantly the Agency’s motivation.

Be prepared to put in some investments even before earning. Besides paying money to join an Agency, you also pay money to be part of a core team in projects. You will also need to fork out your own marketing $ and travel expenses.

Be prepared to be outgoing and reach out to people you don't know. As a partial introvert and selectively extrovert, I joined some colleagues in hyping at various locations, such as MRT station. It was tough as you hyped in the evening till late hours. You may meet some familiar faces who you may not want to see especially if you are a part-time agent. The first 2 deals I closed were friends which I know who wants to buy property. But none of my leads converted. Hence, I think getting leads sometimes is not very effective method as the lead can go to any other agents who are more diligently in texting and contacting them. 

To be part of a project launch, you will need to be part of the project team. Being in the project team, you can also be involved in the days of duty which you can queue for a number to serve the walk-ins. Closure from walk-ins are also not high. Sometimes other agents will sway the walk-ins to other projects. Sometimes you don’t even get to serve a walk-in if your queue number is too high and there are not enough walk-ins to be served. Sometimes you can run off to do other errands, but be sure that you get back in-time (at least 2 persons before your queue number) to avoid missing your turn. The project IC may sometimes update the group-chat to inform the status of the queue. But if you are 30 mins away from the show-flat, be prepared to lose your queue. You may have to re-queue. Sometimes, it makes sense to just stay in the show-flat and wait. But means you will lose other opportunities (if you have).

I have also tried resale and renting when I helped my colleague serve his leads when he was out of town. Maybe because I am inexperienced or not fully aware of the details of the property, I felt somewhat stress prior each viewing. There is also a lot of travelling around when your viewings are packed like crazy without much time interval for travelling. I get stressed when I can’t arrive 30mins before the appointment as the client may arrive early. But you may also end up wasting an hour when the client arrives late. I have tried 99.co. While many people raved how good it is, I didn’t receive much good leads from there. And when I texted the other agents on their property, often I was ignored or turned down. I have posted my own Lakeville unit for rental for 3 months, but only maybe 5 inquiries? While my colleague posted the same for me on Propertyguru, they get faster turnaround time. I suppose 99.co has other value propositions such as their data analysis and prospective. I also found it troublesome to keep refreshing the listing.

As an agent, you need to be very good with synthesizing information and multi-tasking. It can get very confusing when you have too much chat-groups, too much information to read and too much appointments to arrange. I have ever called a buyer thinking that she was the seller, and asking if I can arrange more appointments on the same day for the seller. The buyer was obviously not so happy. 

Be prepared to meet with very different types of people: Nasty, sarcastic, wishy-washy, very tardy, demanding, full of questions which need immediate answers, non-loyal etc… You need to be optimistic all the time to feel happy. I suppose that is also why the colleagues work hard together, collaborate with each other and play hard to de-stress.

The commission is a good motivation but for someone who has been working on regular payroll will need some level of confidence that deals can be closed to cover monthly expenses.

Last of all, which is also the most important factor that makes it hard to decide whether I should do real estate full time is the working hours. As a new mom with a 6 months old baby, it was tough emotionally to not being able to spend time with her. The busiest period of an agent is on weekday night and weekends. These are the times when my baby girl is not in the infant care. It was tough for me to pump milk as well, and my milk supply dropped drastically.