Our series about real estate agents continues here:

7. Embrace Technology. 

Let us tell you what you already know: the entire real estate market has been changed by the Internet. Twenty years ago, potential buyers of real estate were largely in the dark about their choices; all they had was a string of abbreviations and a grainy photograph of the exterior of a property.

In comparison, the real estate experts were wizards. They had a deep, obscure knowledge of their trade, and customers could benefit from a price from that information.

Welcome to the 21st Century. There are no mysteries in there today. Buyers can watch the area's live video streams, sell house on realestate com au, read the agency feedback, get community insights from current residents, access city traffic and environmental hazards data, check the seller's asking price against local patterns, take virtual tours of every room, even sign digital contracts.

However, if consumers now have increased access to information, agents have increased access to potential customers, too. The way agents communicate with their clients is changing in social media and marketing technologies. Facebook did not exist ten years ago; today, more than 80 percent of real estate professionals use the service in their jobs.

This has not only contributed to improvements in communication but most importantly, advertisement and marketing shifts. The Internet has come to dominate marketing in real estate. That means more ways to meet potential customers quicker, more effectively, and cheaper.

On the other hand, this often means more pressure is put on agents to follow the new instruments. Yet agents who say that they "just don't understand technology" ignore their business sense by replying. Fads and patterns are becoming Internet standards for one reason: they make life simpler, they make it better and they make money for people. Sure, there's a learning curve, particularly for agents not aging with the Internet; but that's no reason to neglect it.

A successful real estate agent remains up to date and continues to learn how to implement and adopt technology to the industry. This means humbling yourself and asking others, who are mostly younger in the know. There are also more formal ways of getting yourself educated. Books to learn. Take the tests. Go to the Lectures. Put the time in.

Finally, it is important to note that when it comes to technology, it just doesn't mean you have to be an expert and you have to recognize that. You still have the opportunity to hire someone else to work with your technology. But you'll have to learn enough to make sure you don't throw away your money. Hiring someone to create your website would be a waste of time because what they generate is focused on last year's customers' demands.

This brings to mind a final technology point: maybe the biggest challenge of using it is the fact that it is always evolving. But this is all the more reason for being interested in embracing it. Hang no longer for some great epiphany: try information. This is part of the job you do.

8. Know the business you are in.

Although more real estate professionals are starting to work globally thanks to globalization and connectivity ease, most agents are still working close to home. It takes us to a significant and often-observed truth about the real estate industry — namely, that it is not a single industry at all, but rather a series of local and national markets.

While we are no longer constrained by geography and borders in certain respects, the real estate profession is still governed at the state level and not at the federal level. Sure, some of the disparities between states in law practice can seem arbitrary; but others occur for a good reason. But no matter how you feel about this fact, you have to recognize it and prepare it accordingly. The market conditions can have a profound impact on how you perform the business, and with whom — and the lower to the ground you are, the more apparent it is. Let's remember, to explain this, two somewhat different urban rental markets.

Students make up a fourth of the population in some areas and occupy an even greater proportion of rentals in the area. This means agents are experiencing two rushes in some areas: first from January to May, when the undergraduates begin to search a place to stay, and then from May to mid-August, when graduates and young professionals obtain their acceptances or work offers. The vast majority of leases run for 12 months, between September and September. Off-peak leases and shorter contracts, including month-to-month agreements, are hard to find, and typically more costly. There are a few large investment companies but brokers and agencies continue to dominate the real estate market in Boston; while most properties are marketed online, tenants almost always have to go through an agent to get to them. 

Flexibility, by contrast, characterizes the rental market. While it has a similarly large student population, they make up a lower total proportion of tenants, contributing to more lease variance. Since Los Angeles is not a city dominated by public transit, most people are driving, meaning renters can be less picky about where they live in relation to where they work or study. Whereas some areas cover less than 90 square miles, within its limits, Los Angeles counts 500 square miles. 

Therefore, while some areas have more than five times as many residents, the population density is a third less than that of some areas. This means fewer people are vying for more property, so finding a good place to stay is simpler, which reduces the competition for expertise from the agents. 

Consequently, companies in some areas are less common, with more property owners doing their own ads and directly dealing with tenants using the sell my house privately online process. However, lower competition appears to mean fewer hoops for tenants to leap through, which translates into more informal, less strict agreements. 

At the same time, some areas have an exceptionally large proportion of people searching for luxurious, high-quality rentals as a major hub for the film industry. Unlike the traditional rental market, high-end market competition is intense, meaning agents handle such listings almost exclusively. 

As these two examples show, your position as an agent has a major effect on how you do your work. For agents in Minneapolis or Detroit, the technology and applications that work for agents in New York and San Francisco may not be right. It is up to you to learn what areas of your business you need to concentrate on, and what approaches you need to employ to respond to the needs of your clients.