by Jeff Brown

Real Estate Investments Broker

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My company is a two horse operation. And one of the horses has just been cleared to take on riders. Although in the past I’ve had several assistants, I’ve found that when it’s all boiled down, my business is built on the foundation of — homework. In the past my assistants were trainees on their way to becoming full time investment agents. So as soon as they became really good at being an assistant, they were allowed access to the next level. And I’d be back at square one — again.

It’s about to happen for the last time as my son has finished two years of training. He’s been my right hand, assistant, TC, ‘road guy’, and general doer of those things we’d all rather avoid. And now I have to figure out how to replace the irreplaceable. The cost to train and retain long term, an employee as effective as Josh would literally be unaffordable. How do you find someone who can solve problems, keep clients happy, snap the whip, and million other things? And on top of all that care as much as I do about the results? You probably don’t.

Enter Becky Bethke. Calling her a diamond in the rough would be damning her with faint praise. We’ve done about 20 transactions in the general Boise region in the last two quarters this year. Not a tremendous number, but enough to test the local supporting cast. I’ve gone through two escrows, two title companies, three lenders, two property inspectors, and a partridge in a pear tree. And one Transaction Coordinator. Though calling her a TC is an undeserved compliment to TC’s everywhere.

I won’t bore you with the details, but outside of delivering pizza and beer when escrows close, Becky does everything else. She calls her company The Closing Source. She calls herself a Transaction Coordinator. Trust me, she’s not a TC, not even close. My mom was an executive secretary back when that’s what they called executive assistants. In her prime she wouldn’t be a better assistant than Becky.

When we are successful in acquiring another Boise property Read more

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Here’s a true fact of life for almost everyone with a real estate license: This job pays really badly.

Here’s a true fact of life for a favored few people with real estate licenses: This job pays really well.

I don’t know if we can safely count ourselves among the favored few just yet, but being Realtors is throwing off a lot of cash for us, and that cash is throwing off a lot of opportunities to make more cash.

Last year was phenomenal, of course, and this year hasn’t been awful for us, considering how awful it was for other Realtors in Phoenix. We got a lot choosier about listings, which helped keep our money in our pockets, and we’ve both done more than we ever have before with new builds.

But: Do Realtors “deserve” all the money they make? I’ve had transactions — two closing later this month — where my total involvement was around five hours. I’ve had others that have run to hundreds of hours over the course of years. But looking at my added-value by hours or tasks or ergs of energy expended is a mistake. The value I bring to the transaction comes from knowing what to do, how, when — and why. Our clients do a lot better because of our involvement, and they are gracious enough to say so.

For now, our earning goal is $1,000 a day, each, call it $700,000 a year, gross. Obviously our expenses are huge, as are our taxes (grr!). Worse yet, we’re not hitting that goal yet. And to put things in perspective, Russell Shaw’s annual broadcast advertising spend approaches our total earning goal.

In the near term, I think we can double our numbers to something like $1.5 million a year, before taxes and expenses. From there, with a couple of assistants each, we might be able to push things to that amount, gross, each. In other words, without growing our head-count very much, we might be able to knock down $3 million a year in gross commission income. The net from that might not be all that great, considering, but it Read more