Whether you’ve been in real estate for five minutes or five months, you’ve likely come to understand the difference between a listing agent and a buyer’s agent. But is having a real estate niche right for you?
We know there are a lot of decisions to make as you navigate your first years in the business. That’s why we developed our #ThrivePastFive coaching series to help unravel the confusion and arm you with the data and information you need for success!
With that said —let’s get into listing agents: who they are, what they do, and what it takes to become one.
Also commonly known as a seller’s agent, a listing agent is a real estate pro who focuses on representing a seller in a real estate transaction. Simply put, a listing agent is an agent who sells homes. Unsurprisingly, they don’t just snap photos of the home for sale, upload the listing, and hope for the best. Listing agents play a huge part in the real estate process.
Since a listing agent represents the seller, they’re primarily responsible for protecting the seller’s fiduciary interest throughout the sale. A listing agent’s other key responsibilities include:
- Helping determine the right price for the home based on market data
- Marketing and promoting the seller’s home, thoughtfully and strategically, to generate buyer interest
- Negotiating with buyers and their agents
Each of these duties helps ensure the selling process is smooth, seamless, and fair for the seller — no matter what the buyer and their agent are trying to accomplish.
Pursuing this niche and becoming a listing agent comes with plenty of perks and upsides — especially compared to the more traditional route of being a buyer’s agent.
#1. There’s a contract
Did you know that when you decide to represent a seller, you both sign a listing agreement, which is a legally binding document? This agreement gives you permission as the agent to market and sell the property.
Because it’s a contractual agreement, sellers can’t go ghost or back out — you’d need to release them from the contract. If this does end up happening, your work isn’t all for nothing: you might be able to still get compensation for the time and effort you already invested.
#2. You can scale your business
When you only work with buyers, it can be hard to focus on more than a handful at once. And, let’s face it, as a new agent, it can be hard to generate buyer leads.
As a listing agent, your primary objective is to promote and sell the listings you represent. This is much more scalable from a marketing and even networking perspective. You can have multiple listings up at once and manage your workload as buyers roll in, shifting your focus primarily to negotiating and ensuring a seamless transaction for your sellers.
This helps keep your attention focused and your business streamlined.
#3. Buyer leads get a bit more lucrative for you
So, we just talked about how promoting your variety of listings brings in a wide variety of interested buyers, right? This is yet another perk of being a listing agent. The buyer leads you generate from your listings may fall into any one of the following categories:
- They don’t have an agent, so you can refer them to a buyer’s agent
- You can refer them to another listing agent for a similar property if your listing isn’t a good fit
- You can act as a buyer’s agent for them on properties that are not your listings, which prevents conflict of interest
This is a great way to network deeper, generate referrals, and grow your prospect and client database with ease.
#4. You get more eyes on your brand
As a listing agent, you promote the properties you’re representing far and wide across multiple channels, online and offline. Inevitably, your name, logo, and branding will be seen nearly 100% of the time — after all, buyers need to know who is representing the listings they’re interested in.
This type of exposure for your brand is second to none. Your brand becomes synonymous with your listings, and the more listings you have, the more easily and effortlessly your branding is promoted widely.
You may be pondering the niche of a listing agent, and wondering if you’ve got what it takes to position yourself in this area of real estate focus. Let’s take a look at some of the most common traits of successful listing agents.
#1. They love marketing
Marketing is a huge part of being a listing agent: without promoting your listings, no buyers would know they exist! Listing agents also need to demonstrate to their seller clients the depth and effort of promoting their property, so a love of marketing and skills in the area are key.
When it comes to learning, whether it’s through books, blogs, or podcasts, listing agents don’t let their education stop at real estate — they’re digging into the greatest marketing minds out there and translating it to promoting their listings.
#2. They know their market like the back of their hand
To be a successful listing agent, you have to know the ins, outs, ups, and downs of your local market like nobody else could. By having intimate knowledge of what’s selling, for how much, and how that’s fluctuating with countless macroeconomic changes, you can instill confidence in your sellers early on. As you go through the transaction process with them, any shifts or shake-ups can be expertly navigated with your market expertise.
#3. They’re fearless negotiators
Listing agents represent sellers, and are ready to go toe-to-toe with even the most eager of buyers’ agents. While the buyer’s agent aims to negotiate the lowest possible selling price, a listing agent’s goal is to secure the highest selling price for their clients. To do this, knowing market data like the back of your hand, being confident in your negotiation skills, and having strong knowledge of your listing’s CMA are a must to back up your negotiations.
As a listing agent, you must draw a line in the sand and let your area of expertise ring clear to your local market. You want to lead from the position of being an expert at selling homes, knowing the market inside and out, and demonstrating your passion for supporting seller clients.
How exactly can you do all this? Let’s break it down into three of our top tips to position yourself as a listing agent.
Tip #1: Market the expertise you offer
Listing agents are the local market experts on all things properties. You want to inform sellers of your presence and what you offer them. This could look like offering free CMAs as part of an online and offline marketing campaign, as well as creating content or hosting events covering neighborhood and market analyses.
By directly demonstrating your expertise on your local market, property types, and what’s being sold for how much, you can easily position yourself as the go-to home-selling pro.
Tip #2: Leverage your closed transactions
Once you’ve closed the deal on your listing, you can start a domino effect by continuing to build on the transaction. This can look like asking your seller clients for referrals, getting their testimonials, running online and offline marketing efforts, and more. The goal? Getting the word out across multiple audiences that you are the listing agent they need to work with.
To dive deeper into how you can leverage your closed deals to win even more listings, we wrote a blog all about it! Click here to give it a read.
Tip #3: Make it a part of your personal brand
As a new agent, you know how important building a solid, memorable, and clear personal brand is. A great way to drive clarity for who you are and what your business does? By focusing on a specific area of real estate, or a niche.
If you embrace and pursue being a listing agent, integrate it into your personal brand. Whether that’s your tagline, the winning stats you share, or the content you create, start to infuse your focus as a listing agent into your branding wherever possible.
Need help nailing down your brand? We’ve got you covered: check out our 7 branding hacks for new agents here.
While you can dive headfirst into becoming a listing agent, it’s better to firm up your knowledge and expertise with education. Thankfully, the real estate industry offers plenty of coursework and real estate designations to help you get your listing agent education up to par and ready to sell.
Seller Representative Specialist (SRS)
The Seller Representative Specialist (SRS) designation is awarded by the Real Estate Business Institute (REBI), and is considered the highest certification a seller representative can earn.
By pursuing this designation, you can reach the next level in how you work with sellers and represent their interests, regardless of market changes. It also provides you with core skills to help you position your business as a listing agent, along with various tools and strategies.
Real Estate Negotiation Expert (RENE)
If you’re interested in being a listing agent but need a bit more work in the negotiation department, don’t sweat — there’s a certification for that! You can take a two-day course to earn a certification and become a Real Estate Negotiation Expert (RENE).
The course helps you grow, develop, and strengthen your skills in negotiating. It also teaches you approaches to conflict resolution, ways to handle a variety of scenarios and types of people, and best practices to prioritize your objectives in a transaction.
#ThrivePastFive coaching
Still eager to strengthen your skills as a new agent? Especially if you’re deciding whether or not to run down the path of becoming a listing agent? Then make sure you’re keeping up with the latest and greatest of our #ThrivePastFive coaching series.
With intel from real estate industry experts and successful, real-life agents, we designed this program specifically for new agents to help them build a career that lasts and thrives long past the five-year mark.
If you’re curious about more designations you can earn as a real estate agent, download our free guide about this very topic by clicking here.
Now that you know the ins and outs of what a listing agent is, what it takes to become one, and how you can succeed in this real estate niche, you can get a stronger idea if this is the path to pursue as you build out your real estate career.
For more articles like this, be sure to check out our dedicated Resource Center — we’re always publishing new content for new agents!
