Starting out this great journey as an agent, would like to start out with a business plan narrowing down a niche. Are there agents out there that just focus on buyers 100 percent of the time? If so, are you caping your ceiling or potentially hurting yourself during a market turn?

Hi Michael,

I'm in my first year as an agent. Finding your niche will come to you in time. Take everything you can to get experience. Listings pay more. Commercial pays more. Do the work, whatever comes your way. I have had 8 transactions my first year, 4 buyers, 4 sellers, from all areas of my life. Also I have 2 buyer agency agreements with investors and hoping to get a property for each of them under  contract this year yet. Don't limit yourself to a niche, it will come to you. I found I like the investor side of things because it's less emotion, more numbers, more logic. Easy conversations. Finding someone's "forever home" is rewarding but also exhausting of my emotions.

Good luck!

Generally new agents start as Buyers agents with the goal of becoming listing agents as they gain experience.  The reason for this is its easier to have a number of listings at one time as taking buyers around requires much more time.  You can also leverage listings to market yourself as well as the property which is invaluable!  But if you can succeed working with Buyers only, go for it!

Hi Michael, what is the reason you're looking at narrowing down a niche? I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad idea, just would be curious to know the reason behind it.

As far as your question, if you absolutely love working with buyers and really, really don't enjoy working with sellers then that would be a reason to focus only on buyers.

Otherwise it's not something I'd recommend because you're essentially saying good-bye to around 50% of your potential target market and you're niching towards a target market that demands far more of your time. 

Also, in the future you'll get people who want to buy and sell at the same time, and they will want an accomplished listing agent.

What you mentioned is relevant, in times of recession/correction working with buyers can be easier, but when times are good and there's strong demand it's great to have listings (you don't want to always have to be the buyer's agent in a multiple offer situation). Working with both buyers and sellers sets your business up to be versatile and thrive in various economic conditions.

If you want to niche, a good way to go is to make yourself the 'market expert' in a specific neighborhood or a few neighborhoods - the go-to person, with a simple website or sites with an easy to remember domain name(s) dedicated to each one showing recent market activity, local events, and then market to those neighborhoods with market info postcards that send people to the website. 

It will take time to gain a presence (don't rely on organic search, find ways to send people to the site) but I think that would be a better way to gain 'expert presence'. The main challenge here (and also the only way it will work) is to stay consistent, so my advice is to keep it simple, and at the same time remain open to working with all qualified clients who come your way in order to gain experience and figure out what you like to do. Good luck!

@Irene Nash

Hi Irene, I like the idea of finding a team to work for when getting started. Does this happen organically ?

Hi @Michael Spindler , 

I think you would want to be searching out team opportunities specifically - I haven't worked on a team but I don't think it's typically the kind of thing that just kind of happens. So not a ton of knowledge about it but I do have one colleague who is very happy on a team, she worked as an individual agent for a couple of years and found it a struggle to get enough consistent business, the team is working out really well for her because the guy who runs the company is very good at getting leads so she has a reliable income stream - plus she's a really good agent, one of the few people I'm comfortable sending my clients to when I need to refer them out.

She was invited onto that team because she knew the brokerage owner from a previous profession, I think before she signed on he was able to give her a good idea of what kind of yearly income she could expect based on the leads he was bringing in, etc.  

There are probably agents on BP who work on teams who could give you a good idea of the pros and cons, if you wanted more info you could start a thread just about that to get more details. Good luck!

Hello @Michael Spindler ,

As you've read here so far, picking a niche does take some time. Starting off as a buyer's agent with the intention to transition into a hybrid role or listing agent is typically how agents start off. It is the same way I started, until I grew into my niche - which is small multi-family investors/ house-hackers/ BRRRR Strategy investors in New York.

While you get the ball rolling, you'll notice that your business will come from multiple sources.

Best of luck to you moving forward!

Abel

@Abel Curiel

Abel this is a great idea of targeting house hackers/BRRR investors. I would love to hear more!

Originally posted by @Michael Spindler :

@Abel Curiel

Abel this is a great idea of targeting house hackers/BRRR investors. I would love to hear more!

I'd be happy to share any info that could be useful.

Shooting you a PM now so we can stay connected. 

Originally posted by @Michael Spindler :

Starting out this great journey as an agent, would like to start out with a business plan narrowing down a niche. Are there agents out there that just focus on buyers 100 percent of the time? If so, are you caping your ceiling or potentially hurting yourself during a market turn?

 I would think a path towards growth would normally start like this

Buyer agent independently or with team. When gain experience and too busy to handle all leads/clientele you hire an assistance or become a broker and hire a buyer agent to take load off you so you can focus more on listings.. and if more adventurous hire more agents and staff..  You only have so much time yourself so to grow you must leverage..

@Michael Spindler I used to have a large team of about 10+, mostly buyer's agents. They traded off a little more split in favor of leads and enhanced training and mentorship. I think in your first year it would be invaluable to join a team and just focus on buyers. But I wouldn't stay there too much longer because after a year you will inevitably get seller leads and when you are on a team, they will poach a percentage. Most of us when we start just end up working with buyers until listings come since listing agents usually need more experience in the eyes of a seller.

The best way to get started on your own is just to mine your sphere in a nice way. You don't have text everyone and ask if they know someone who is looking, but look at them and think who is ready to rent or buy. Also for new agents, I don't think focusing on renters is a bad way to start. They usually pay quickly, have less issues, and don't have to look at as many properties as buyers. Although the pay is less, usually a 1/2 month minus brokerage fees, renters get you ready for buyers.

@Michael Spindler As others have mentioned I definitely see the benefits of joining a successful team at one of the more well known brokerages. This will not only put you in a situation where you will get buyers leads, but you will begin to build your network at a quicker rate than if you went at it alone with no help from a team bringing you leads.