Lights, Camara, Action: Your Vienna Real Estate Agent

Perception is sometimes completely molded by television and can be a double edge sword! The difficulties it can create are numerous and usually stem from the fact that real estate is local and the shows like Love It or List It, Income Property, Property Brothers, and Million Dollar Listing are produced to appeal to a notional audience. Even the “News” can give a false sense of truth, since it too needs to appeal to a larger audience. Take for example the ABC 20/20 special on “Inside Secrets of A Real Estate Agent”, one interview mentions that murder or death in a home is required to be disclosed. (video below) Disclosures can very greatly from state to state, Virginia does not require “stigmas” of this type to be disclosed as you can read in my article Murder,Ghosts, and Demons!

However, on the bright side, the last 10 years it has become easier to convince clients to invest in staging a home before listing it in Northern VA. Sellers should look to an experienced agent to give honest advice even when at my hurt a clients feelings!

Sharks Are Circling!

At least once a year I have a friend or past client reach out to me looking for advice on considering a career as a REALTOR! I never discourage anyones goals or dreams but at the same time I want to keep the advice real! The Truth, 90% of new agents fail in the first two years and by the 4th year this failure rate is even higher. I have learned the hard way, experience, that anyone who is not highly motivated or simply is a lolly gagger or dabbler with a real estate career will be eaten by the sharks before the end of their first year. I have even been fooled in the past by some who where successful in other ventures only to discover, after wasting much of my time, they were not as motivated as they had promised. There are no great secretes or silver bullet, it takes the write phycology along with hard work and lots of hours to be a successful real estate agent. Even though there are some generalizations in the 20/20 video below, it is spot on with attrition rate in the industry.