I am a new Real Estate Agent and I am needing LISTINGS!!!!! How can I market myself to generate clients?

Whatever you do...DO NOT USE AN ONLINE-LEAD PROVIDER! They'll bill you thousands of dollars, and give you worthless information in return.

Someday, you'll thank me.

Kay

FSBO really stands for "Fastest Source of Business Opportunity.

Most of real estate business comes from referrals, you need to start with building up a strong social network. Then you can get clients from your friends and friends of friends.

Thank you so much for your help.

Decide on a "Farm" and then get out and start getting your knuckles bloody. Basically, start door knocking. As a new agent, referrals, floor time, and best of all, door knocking are great sources of business.

Here's an off the wall idea I came up with to generate new business.

In my area there is a monthly, indoor flea market, fairly upscale as far as flea markets go, collectables, jewelry, computers, home furnishing, musical instruments, cosmetics, etc.

It seems to be a very popular destination with some of the folks I talked to there saying there were thousands of people that came through over the 3 day run. I talked to one beekeeper selling honey who turned out to be a former Realtor in another state and he said he sold over $1,000 worth of honey this past Saturday and he had 3 huge piles of empty boxes in the rear of his booth that led me to believe he was being honest.

I can rent a booth there for $95.00 for the whole 3 days, take my laptop with a wireless connection to access our MLS and have an indoor open house.

Everyone loves to talk about real estate so I figure I'll pick up a minimum of 2-4 buyer prospects and maybe a listing or two.

I'm going to do it with a partner either in February or March; I'll let you all know how it went.

Jimlee that is a pretty slick idea. I had considered local home shows and conventions and the like but never a flea market. I found that in my area we had a bunch of hotels right on the interstate and all of them let me put a pile of homes books in the lobbies and sitting areas...all with my card attached.

Focus on becoming an authority in the eyes of your target market/farm. If you have decent writing skills, publishing information products and articles are some of the best ways to do this. Perhaps your local free newspaper wouldn't mind featuring your articles, including a byline with your contact info, in their paper...approach them with a few sample articles and pitch your writing. To this end, buy this book:

"Become A Recognized Authority In Your Field - In 60 Days Or Less" by Robert W. Bly

all of these are great. Here is what i think. I have been licensed in texas for a while now and the way i got started was simeple. I went to that for sale by owner .com site and found ALL the fsbo's in my area, sent them all through direct mail a buisness card and a piece of paper with all the benifits of having an agent represent them and work for them. I sent about 100 of so out and sold 3 houses that first month just off of that. So give it a try it might work.

Thank you everyone for all of your help!!!!!!
Misty

Isn't doing that breaking the law in some states? or am I just crazy?

Yeah be carefull some of the fsbo sites are licensed in some states. That would be the same as talking to another agents customer

Okay, That's part of a answer, but more what I was getting at is here in Nevada, whenever I get something from a agent it always says at the bottom something like "If your home is currently listed on the market, please ignore this".

I forgot the full and real wording of it, but it's something like that, what does that fully mean? Why do they put that there? Because state law tells them to or to be nice to other agents?

Shane, around here it's "Not intended to solicit those already under contract." And it appears in all the newspapers/flyers/mailers whenever an agent is advertising for sellers.

It's probably in the "Code of Ethics", so you could lose your license or get fined for contract interference. Of course unless you send the seller written information or are caught on tape telling them to cancel their listing and sign up with you, it would be hard to prove.

Oh, I see. When you say "Code of Ethics" though, do you mean National Assocation of Realtors COE or like a State law COE?

Contract interference (eg. inducing someone to intentionally breach their contract) is a civil matter for agents and non-agents alike.

However, if you're an agent you also have to live up with the standards of your board/association/commission, etc. Which is where the loss of licensing comes in.

A friend of mine nearly lost his license because of a direct mail campaign which stated that the seller would not have to pay any commission if they sold their house directly to him. It's things like that which have stopped me from getting my license.

Was your friend soliciting listed properties with this direct mail campaign???

If so he was interferring with the listing contract between the sellers and their brokerage firm as well as violating several sections of the Realtor Code of Ethics.

If the property was not listed for sale with anyone I don't see any problem with this type of solicitiation.

Jim, sorry I confused the issue with that comment, let me clarify. He was not soliciting listed properties and the accusation wasn't for contract interference.

It was for harming the reputation of other agents (I'm not sure about the exact terminology). The claim was that by saying that you could sell to him without paying a commission, somehow that implied that other agents are harming sellers by charging a commission. It was several years ago so I apologize if my explanation is a little vague.

In the end he had to agree not to advertise to buy direct from sellers for his own portfolio altogether. I think he eventually got around it by buying in his non-licensed corporation's name.