real estate agent

Kimberly Howell Properties Training and Mentoring Our Agents

October 24, 2018 by khproperties Leave a Comment

As a brokerage, we at Kimberly Howell Properties are tasked with training and mentoring our agents to teach them the skills and share with them the experiences that will help guide them throughout their career. With real estate changing constantly, this requires us to keep learning and growing ourselves. We’re quite proud of the work our agents put into learning and staying up to date and our training and mentoring program is something we’re very proud of. One of the pillars of our training program is Dave Taylor. Dave is a licensed agent and serves as our trainer and mentor to all of the agents. Awarded Trainer of the Year by Platinum Top 50 San Antonio, Dave also conducted training in the military, so he’s a natural at it. Dave’s focus is teaching agents the “why” of real estate, not just the “how” of fill in the blank contract forms. Our agents learn the theoretics of real estate and are constantly challenged by Dave to learn more.

In addition to our regularly scheduled training classes each week, agents have access to members of staff that are also licensed. With phone, email, and text, staff are available to agents throughout the day and night.

Training is conducted weekly and offers a mix of classes built on real life cases and experiences of our agents to bringing in experts in related fields like title insurance, lending, builders, foundation experts, etc. This allows us not only to train and mentor based on our own real life experiences, but also use the experiences of the experts in other fields.

How does our training and mentoring benefit you?

If you’re an agent looking for a new brokerage, the answer is pretty obvious. We provide you with the skills to grow your business and build the confidence that is one of the most important tools in your real estate tool belt. Want to come see how we do things? Schedule a meeting with us and join one of our weekly meeting or training sessions to see how we do things. We’re proud of our program and our agents love it – it’s not easy and you will be challenging, but you will know more and be prepared for more situations than a lot of other agents out there.

As a homebuyer or seller, the training benefits you clearly too. Better agents means better experiences for you. Real estate is constantly evolving and just when you think you know it all, things change. Our agents also have access to a network of staff and experienced agents who are always there to help, even well after normal office hours (when so much of real estate happens). You’ll find that our agents are eager and willing to learn and have benefited from the focus on hands on training and mentoring that we provide.

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5 Tips to Become a Commercial Real Estate Agent

April 24, 2016 by khproperties 4 Comments

Being a commercial real estate agent is a lot different than focusing on residential real estate. The contracts are much different, the people involved focus on different things than their residential real estate counterparts, and the costs are often much, much higher. It’s a specialized field of real estate, but one that can offer a lot of unique challenges and opportunities for growth. We have several commercial real estate agents in our office and we’re always looking to work with more bright minded commercial agents seeking to gain the knowledge and background of what being a commercial real estate agent entails. Many people ask us how to become a commercial real estate agent, so we thought we’d take a few moments to offer some advice and tips on how to start the process and head down the path of commercial real estate.

5 Tips to Become a Commercial Real Estate Agent

Discuss your idea. Now that you’ve decided to work your way into becoming a commercial real estate agent, your first step should be to talk to some people about it. Call your broker and set up a meeting. They might have an agent in the office who specializes in commercial real estate or know someone they could introduce you to. Call your title company and ask who their commercial real estate closers are and take them out to lunch to pick their brain. Seek advice from those who know and are active in the commercial real estate market in your area.

Educate yourself. Education is fundamental to any real estate specialty and becoming a commercial real estate agent is no different. Take some classes at your local real estate school or online. Take a business or economics course at your local college or university. If you’re planning to start a business, learn about small business outsourced H&S services. The more you understand the business world, the better prepared you will be to talk to people in the commercial world. Professional digital marketing services like the ones at Marketix can ensure that your business growth and success!

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Know the lingo. Even experts arguing Motley Fool stock advisor vs rule breaker will agree that commercial real estate agents don’t talk about gourmet kitchens and master baths, they need to know a whole new set of lingo. They know the best hvac companies near me in the Portland Area. From building materials to commercial grade systems (such as HVAC and fire security) to triple net leases to net operating expenses; the world of commercial real estate has its own language. If you can’t speak it, you’re more than likely not going to succeed. This is where you education will come in handy, including business and economics classes as they are the foundations on which commercial real estate is run.

Shadow another agent. Mentorship is something that is often overlooked in the real estate industry, both residential and commercial. Find someone who is willing to give up a bit of time for your assistance. Shadow that agent and learn how the contracts work, how they deal with difficult situations, how the negotiation process works (it’s much different than the residential negotiations you might be used to), and where they find business. Many commercial real estate agents can be a bit guarded about giving up their secrets, but there are plenty out there who are willing to work with you and help you grow into a successful agent. Know your value and offer to trade some assistant work with them for the opportunity to learn from them.

Make connections. Connections and networking are important in any business, but are crucial in the commercial real estate world. If you want to be a successful commercial real estate agent, you’ll need to get to know the movers and shakers in your local business community, the developers, the attorneys, the title company closers that specialize in commercial real estate, and other commercial real estate agents. They will become your sphere of influence for your commercial endeavors, so reach out to them and get to know them.

Still think you have what it takes to be a commercial real estate agent? Then dive in and don’t forget to get up to speed by taking some classes and educating yourself. The foundation is always the crucial part of any structure and your education will serve as just that in the future. Once you’re ready, give us a call, we’d be happy to talk to you about the world of commercial real estate and help guide you to your next steps.

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Why Having a Local Real Estate Agent Can Make a Difference

March 3, 2016 by khproperties 5 Comments

A recent post in a real estate Facebook group reminded us why having a local real estate agent matters. As agents licensed in Texas, we are allowed to conduct real estate business anywhere in the state, but what happens when we leave our local market and help someone buy or sell real estate? Does it matter? The contract forms are the same throughout Texas, so technically if we put a house under contract here in San Antonio or over in El Paso, things should be the same…right? Why does it make a difference if you choose to use a local real estate agent or not? The story posted in Facebook was somewhat anecdotal (although not to the homeowners that chose the out of town agent), but it reminds us that we should always focus locally when it comes to real estate.

The story went something this: a local real estate agent showed a home in Shavano Park to their clients. The home was listed by an agent out of Austin. When the agent finished up with their buyers, they turned off the lights and locked up. After arriving home, the agent received a call about the sellers being locked out of their home. Turns out the sellers had left a door unlocked for their access, but the agent unknowingly (and smartly) locked all the doors so as not to leave any potential liability for a break-in. There was no indication from the showing service or inside the house that they should leave any particular door unlocked (we do not recommend this by the way). The listing agent, being in Austin couldn’t come down and help the owners unlock the home, so the agent who had just shown it thought they’d be helpful and run back to the house and open the house for them with the key from the lockbox. Of course, there is a lot of potential liability in this decision, but that’s a topic for another day.

Because the sellers chose an agent from another city, their agent was unable to help them. We unlock doors all the time for our clients. When your house is on the market, things happen and your agent is a great resource to help you – whether you’ve locked yourself out of the house or the electrician showed up early and you can’t get free from work. We do these things for our clients because we care about them and know that the stresses of having your home for sale can sometimes make you forget things like your keys when you leave the house. It happens. And we’re there to help whenever we can.

A Local Real Estate Agent Does More

But there’s more to having a local real estate agent than having someone who can unlock your doors for you in a pinch. There’s knowledge and experience. A familiarity with local customs and standards. An in depth knowledge and insight into your local real estate market. Dallas and San Antonio are two totally different markets. Agents work differently, the way homes are marketed differs, the actual houses themselves differ. Doesn’t it make sense to have someone with that knowledge and experience on your side? Sure, the contract forms are the same, but forms aren’t the only thing we do as real estate agents.

We know that your cousin who lives in Lubbock has his real estate license and you want to give them their first big chance at a sale, but do they know about the foundation issues common in San Antonio? Do they know that it’s quite common for sellers to pay for a home warranty? Can they tell you who the best title company and closer is for your needs? Can they recommend an electrician or plumber? Do they have access to the local MLS or are they just searching for homes on the internet (and potentially missing some of the available inventory)? A local real estate agent will help you with all the facets of the transaction, not just the documents that need signed.

Local does matter and whether it’s your lender or your real estate agent, you should always choose to work with someone that has the knowledge, experience, and local connections that can make your experience an excellent one.

image courtesy of Damian Gadal

5 Questions Every Seller Should Ask a Real Estate Agent

January 20, 2016 by khproperties 56 Comments

When you’re considering putting your house on the market, there are some questions you should ask a real estate agent before making the decision to hire them as your Realtor. These five questions will not only help you know and understand your agent, but they will also help create a dialogue that will help your agent understand you and your motivations to sell. Everyone is different and no two homes are the same, so talking with your agent and asking questions can help set the stage for a successful sale. And don’t forget, if your real estate agent isn’t asking you questions, you may want to think about hiring someone else.

The 5 Questions to Ask A Real Estate Agent

How is the current housing market in the city and in my area and how will this impact me? Ok, maybe this is a bit sneaky, because it’s actually three questions in one, but they are all important and related. The national news may have top stories related to the housing market, but what may be a national trend may not hold true in your particular market at all. Even within the same city, trends for neighborhoods vary tremendously. Find an agent who can speak to those trends for your particular area. It’s this expertise that you will find invaluable when selling your home.
What should I do to prepare my home for sale? Most agents are not professional stagers, but most good agents either have great contacts or have the experiences to support educated opinions about improving the show-readiness and marketability of your home. Often slight furniture repositioning, decluttering, and a few touch ups may be all that it takes. Other times more extensive projects or repairs may be recommended to increase the price you can list your home for.
What specific things will you be doing to do to market my home? The answers you hear may vary, but what you’re looking for is someone with a plan. If an agent can readily speak to what he or she has in mind to promote your home, then they may already be ahead of the game. Real estate agents are in the business of sales and if they can’t tell you what their game plan is, how well do you think they are going to do when going to work for you?
When can I expect to hear from you? Communication is absolutely paramount throughout the real estate buying and selling process. An agent who has your home listed won’t necessarily need to touch base with you every day unless something is happening, but you also don’t want to sign paperwork and never hear from them again. (Trust us, we’ve heard horror stories.) Once again, you may be looking for an agent who has already thought this through and has devised a strategy to meet your needs. Some people are naturally, and understandably, more nervous about the process of selling and need more frequent updates or reassurances. Other people find frequent contact more of a nuisance unless an offer is in hand. A great real estate agent will talk to you about your needs and expectations and work to create a plan that best suits you.
Why are you in this business? Selling a home can be emotional, stressful, exciting, and rewarding – all at the same time. It is a large undertaking and when you hire an agent, you’re hiring an expert to guide you through the whole process with your finances on the line. You are looking to form a professional relationship with someone, so don’t be afraid to ask this kind of question to reveal the agent’s motivation, personality, history, and even work ethic. It’s not to say you have to pick someone with whom you will be the best of friends, but you do want to work with real estate agents Greensborough who you can feel comfortable communicating with honesty, whose advice you will trust, and who you know will work to be your advocate along the way.

Never be afraid to ask a real estate agent questions – the same applies to your lender, inspector, title company, insurance agent, surveyor…you name it. If someone doesn’t like you asking questions, there’s usually a reason for it and it’s not a good one. The better informed you are as a buyer or seller, the smoother the process will go.

image courtesy of Veronique Debord

Why You Should Use an Agent to Sell Your Home

January 27, 2015 by khproperties 1 Comment

Why Use an Agent to Sell Your Home?

When you’re ready to sell you home, there’s a lot to consider. Some home sellers choose to go about it alone and pursue the for sale by owner route (often said as “fis-bo” based on the initials FSBO) in order to save some money by eliminating the need to pay a listing agent (a typical FSBO sale will still pay the buyer’s agent). Obviously, there are reasons why someone might choose this route, but we encourage you to think of some of the reasons to not and instead to use an agent to sell your home.

You may not get as many showing if you go it alone. Real estate agents utilize the MLS (Multiple Listing Service), which is basically a database of homes for sale by other agents that belong to that particular MLS. Our local MLS in San Antonio has powerful search features that allow us to take a buyer’s criteria and find homes that match. The MLS does not show us FSBO listings, so we may never even see your home as a potential for our buyers. In addition, agents may not want to work with a FSBO seller because they are often not up to date on the legalities of selling a home, making the transaction much more difficult and sometimes dangerous. Working with experienced agents and using contract forms from the Texas Real Estate Commission and Texas Association of REALTORS® helps keep everything legal and makes the process much smoother.

Selling your home can be an emotional process. You’ve lived in your home for years and created strong ties and memories in it. People get emotional about their home – it’s just a fact of nature. Having a real estate agent working as the negotiator can help curb some of that and prevent trouble when buyers and sellers clash. As REALTORS®, our job is to keep your best interests in mind without giving up any information that might be detrimental to those negotiations.

Selling your home can be a full time job. Showings, phone calls, questions, documents, negotiations…selling your home can take a lot of time if you don’t have someone working for you. Your real estate agent will set up showings, coordinate with inspectors and repairmen, take the calls, etc. Our job is to help take the stress out of the process and accomplish your goals (do you want to sell for top dollar, do you need to move fast – these are the kinds of questions we ask to know how best to handle your personal situation).

Your agent has a network of people who are in the business and can help get your home sold. Agents do a lot more than stick a sign in your yard and get your home listed on Zillow. We know others in the industry and we talk about your home to colleagues who might have the perfect buyer for your home. We attend events, have coffee with other agents, and have an office of REALTORS® that we talk to everyday. Many agents sell homes via word of mouth. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard a conversation where an agent is talking about the kind of house their buyer needs and the proverbial lightbulb goes off in another agent’s head – that’s the exact description of the house they’re helping you sell!

Not everyone should be checking out your home. Agents don’t like to drive around aimlessly looking at homes – we have a business to run – so we pre-qualify our clients, both in terms of what they’re looking for and getting them with a lender so that we know what they can afford. There’s little need to show a million dollar home to a couple making minimum wage (unless they just hit the lottery!). By pre-qualifying the buyers going through your home, we have a better idea of who’s in your home, which saves you time and can also add a layer of security to letting strangers into your home.

Negotiating is about finding the best possible outcome for all parties. Negotiations can wreck a deal more than any other single part of the transaction. Negotiations are not about “winning” – they are about finding the best possible solution for everyone involved. You want to sell you home, but they buyers are asking for a lot of closing costs and some other items. The art of negotiation needs to look at the bottom line and the motivation behind the requests. Perhaps the buyers don’t have a lot of cash on hand, so those closing costs are important. Perhaps we can raise the price slightly to offset those costs to you and make the deal work. It’s all about viewing everything from differing angles and trying to find the best solution.

We view your home with a totally different perspective.You love your home. You know its flaws and have learned to deal with them in the time you’ve lived there. We see your home from a buyer’s perspective. What might be normal for you (that tricky toilet handle you have to wiggle just right) will send a buyer packing. We can help you see your home the way a buyer is going to see it and help decide what items are essential to fix and what items can stay as is. At the end of the day, the sale of your home is a financial transaction and its the numbers that matter, not the emotional feelings that surround it.

Lawsuits. None of us want to be sued. Buyers, sellers, and agents are never hoping that someone will sue them, but it happens sometimes. When a lawsuit arises, you can have some comfort knowing that the contract forms we use have been poured over by lawyers and written in a way that helps protect the parties involved. Real estate agents carry E&O insurance, which helps protect them and their clients in the event of a lawsuit. Could you take on a lawsuit for hundreds of thousands of dollars on your own? What if you lose? Who’s going to pay for the damages? Real estate agents carry this insurance for just that reason. We also carry with us knowledge of the law when it comes to disclosures and responsibilities of the parties so that everyone is performing their obligations correctly.

While going it alone when you sell your home could save you some money, it could also cost you much more. Our skills, experience, and expertise are in the field of real estate, it’s what we do everyday so that we can efficiently assist you in selling your home (or buying a home). We’re here to help you get the most from your home buying or selling experience.

this post is based on an article from ivestopedia

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Building or Buying a New Home? Use a Real Estate Agent

July 8, 2013 by khproperties 2 Comments

New Home Buyer Beware

Ah, new homes. There’s nothing like the sparkling shine when you walk through the front door of a freshly built home after the sawdust settles and in rolls the faint smell of paint and potential. It’s a unique feeling to know that your family will be the first to fill the space between those walls or that each and every detail was selected by you for the way you want to live.

Billboards and masses of flags line the streets guiding you in to these new communities as you begin your home search. But not everything can be as good as it seems once you’re in the door. Here’s why you really, really should use an agent when you decide to buy one of these gleaming new abodes:

Builders expect you to use an agent. They calculate agent commissions into their sales pricing already. And it’s something they have already figured out when they offer or agree to reduce the sales price or offer concessions like upgrades. You don’t get a lower price when builders don’t have to pay commissions – you just get less representation and the builders make more than they planned.
Negotiating. Builder prices are not always firm and they’re not always based off of the entire local real estate market. Builders generally have some give on their prices or in the features or upgrades they can offer. Why not have an advocate pushing to get you the most for your money?
Experience. As a first time home buyer or a first time new home buyer, did you know that most builders don’t include blinds or sod? Did you know that some consider tile and wood to be standard flooring, while others charge a premium? Do you know the stages of building construction or what to do if something goes wrong early in the process? A good agent will. And a great agent will help guide you through those stages and help solve any potential problems. Not to mention the fact that experienced agents can offer advice on price of upgrades, contractors, and workmanship.
On-site salespeople work for the builder. They may seem nice and friendly, but ultimately it’s their job to get money for the builder. While some are awesome and most are good, there just might be an unscrupulous few out there. We’ve seen everything from mysteriously unavailable sales counselors when buyers have questions after signing the contract to others who have told outright lies about included features and basic terms of the contracts. Realtors are regulated by a state licensing board and held to the higher standard of the National Association of REALTORS® Code of Ethics while on-site salespeople are not.
Contracts. Purchase agreements are legally binding contracts on both parties. While agents are not attorneys, they do see contracts every day and can help give advice on what elements to be aware of and which to lookout for. Just today I heard the story of an unrepresented buyer who signed a purchase agreement with a new home builder and didn’t pay attention to the fact that there was no clause making the purchase contingent on the sale of their other home. If this buyer’s home does not close by the time the new one is built, this buyer could be out a lot of money.

As you can see, it just makes sense to have a real estate agent on your side when purchasing a new home. The builder will pay the commission to your agent and you get someone who will take care of the details and make sure you get the best from the deal.

image courtesy of antony_mayfield