Well it is certainly hard to believe that this LINK experience is coming to an end! Tomorrow is exhibition and everything is pretty much wrapped up. Today I printed all of my work to bring to exhibition and finished my CMA on a property. I'm excited to show what I have done to everyone tomorrow at the exhibition. I also cannot wait to be working with The Durango Team on a regular basis from here on out. These past three weeks have been challenging, thought-provoking, enjoyable, fun, and even inspiring. After having this experience, I can actually see myself doing something in the real estate world in my future. I am thrilled to say that because coming into this internship, my thoughts were that real estate was not something I was interested in but that it would be a good learning experience with Wells Group. Tomorrow is going to be a good time and it'll be nice to see my peers and teachers again. I'm incredibly happy with how these three weeks turned out and I couldn't be more grateful because I got to work with the best people in town.
Today I continued to put together some final pieces of my project. I also did part of the CMA for the property that I will exhibit at exhibition. I still need to look into active sales to determine the final price of the home. It's hard to believe that this internship is almost over. But I am excited that I will continue to work with The Durango Team doing ongoing updates and photography. I will actually be photographing a home all by myself next Monday which will be a challenge that I am ready to handle. The skills I have learned are going to be applicable for a very long time which is valuable to me and my future.
Today I typed up my mentor interview and began to compile further improvements for The Durango Team to use once I leave the office. I also started on a comparative market analysis for a certain property that I will be showing at exhibition. I've realized that I really enjoy working in the world of real estate. As Mr. Ricedorff mentions in his interview, there is variety and not every day is exactly the same. I really like that because I would definitely get bored sitting at a desk all of the time. Real estate seems to be a people oriented business which seems fitting for me. I love socializing and that is just one of the many aspects of real estate that I have come to recognize and enjoy. Throughout this experience so far, I have learned that I function well in an office space because I am able to work fairly independently but also have the skill to ask for help when necessary. I definitely get a little antsy after sitting too long so running out to do errands, like I did today, is always good so that my legs can get moving!
Today I worked on a lot of stamping envelopes with different things that will soon be sent out to many folks in many neighborhoods. And by a lot, I mean hundreds. It was perfect because my brain has been tired and I wasn't in the mood to do a lot of thinking. However, I also interviewed my mentor and copied reviews from Zillow over to Trulia. When listening to what my incredible mentor had to say during the interview, I learned a lot about him and his work that I never knew. It wasn't that I assumed he didn't have such a great amount of knowledge, it was that I was never aware of that great amount of knowledge existing. I also got to sit in with some clients who wanted Mr. Ricedorff's opinion on what they should price their home. What they didn't know was that I had done my CMA on THEIR house yesterday! It felt like I was a fly on the wall because I had more knowledge than they assumed and I also knew the different areas of what Mr. Ricedorff would discuss with them. I found it really interesting to hear about the changes needing to be made on their home's price even just as of today. The market is constantly changing and it is surprising me how many adjustments need to constantly be made. Real Estate can be very complicated but so far I'm really enjoying what it offers.
Today I spent practically all of my day working on a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA). I had to pick homes that would be comparable (Active, Expired, Under Contract, Sold) to begin with. Then I looked into the sold properties only because that is like a rear view mirror look into real estate. The active sales are the front view because it is looking into the current market as well as what is closely ahead. I mainly focused on adjustments with the properties which became quite frustrating at one point because my mentor wasn't in the office and I was very confused. When making adjustments to the comparative properties, I had to be conscious of mainly these four subjects: Size (Living Area @ $175 S.F.), Quality / Age / Condition, Location / Lot Value, and Garage. Eventually I was able to understand the process completely and the only thing lacking is a built up knowledge of real estate which can only be gained from experience. After comparing my work with Mr. Ricedorff's, I was able to see that I wasn't too far off at all with my numbers! I plan to do another CMA to present at the LINK exhibition.
Today I continued to make revisions on different sites but mainly Realtor.com. Besides running some errands in the morning, I worked on a way to coordinate recommendations/reviews on the various sites, interviewed a broker named Rick Lorenz about his personal website as well as Craigslist, and furthered my knowledge about CMAs. I learned that when there is 5-7 months of inventory in real estate, it is a fairly balanced market. If there is less than 5 months, it is a seller's market because the demand is higher and the supply is lower. If there is more than 7 months, it is a buyer's market because the supply is higher and the demand is lower. I also was able to recognize in an article another real estate agent wrote, they did not do the best job of writing to the audience they should have been writing to. It appeared that they were writing to other real estate agents when FSBOs (For Sale By Owners) should have been the target audience for that particular piece of writing. Before preparing an article or even a speech, it is important to think about who the audience is going to be. In general, this is good knowledge to have whether or not I end up following a real estate career path.
Today I continued to implement changes to Yelp, Zillow, and Trulia for Mr. Ricedorff and Max. I also prepped for an interview tomorrow that will be with another real estate agent. By researching his website and creating questions, I have a solid idea of how the information he gives me will help The Durango Team with their new website and their new usage of Craigslist. Before Libby came to The Wells Group, I gathered the names of people who have already done reviews for Mr. Ricedorff. Now we have an idea of who to request for reviews and The Durango Team will then make sure that each review is on all of the different sites they use. When Libby visited, we went over everything that I have done so far and where I am headed. We also looked into what I will display at exhibition which is in less than two weeks! Mr. Ricedorff and I also looked more into a comparative market analysis and he explained to me the contributing factors towards how to price a home. He plans on having me do one of my own with some guidance from him and I hope to accomplish that prior to LINK ending.
Today I started by learning about Postlets which is "a real estate classified listing creation and distribution platform". This will be very beneficial to the team because they will be able to create a listing only once and it can be sent out to multiple search engines rather than doing each one individually. Then I printed and organized all of the documents I created to share with The Durango Team during our meeting. When we all met, we went through the work I have done and I was assigned some new tasks including implementing all of the suggestions I made for the different sites. Right away I began updating Trulia and Zillow with different information in order to better utilize the sites. But eventually I gave up on calling Trulia's customer service for an answer to one of my question because their terrible dubstep/electric guitar music was not putting a smile on my face. Tomorrow I hope to accomplish implementing a big amount of the recommendations I made for The Durango Team on Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com, and Yelp.
Today I reviewed all of the documents that I have created so far in order to prepare for Monday's meeting with The Durango Team. I then began to learn about doing a comparative market analysis and all of the steps that are required. I created my first CMA with a bit of guidance and really began to understand why it is an important skill to learn learn when doing real estate. It is a given that you will be pricing houses in this career. By doing a CMA, you can have a good idea of what the correct pricing should be because of comparison to similar properties. You also have to take into consideration the special features that a home might have which could be different from the other similar properties. I created a criteria summary, a scattergram pricing, a projected activity pond, a sold activity pond, a competitive pricelines, and an odds sheet. On Monday I will learn how these different components contribute to depicting prices.
Today I began my day by compiling the different site improvements/recommendations for Max Hutcheson. I then typed up all of the research I have been collecting so that I can access it in a document rather than my notebook. It will be very useful to have all of my work typed when I update The Durango Team on Monday about the project work I have accomplished so far. At 11:30 A.M., Ashley Carruth stopped by Wells Group to talk about my internship so far. We discussed in a conference room with my mentor after she met The Durango Team. They described me to Ashley as "loud and obnoxious" while they were laughing saying that, "It takes the whole community to manage me". She got some good laughs out of those false statements. I showed Ashley all of the work that I have been doing and how what I've compiled is going to greatly benefit those that I'm working with. She said that she was very impressed with the amount and quality of work that I have gotten done in only three days. Mr. Ricedorff described to Ashley the reasoning behind having me complete my project and then complemented me on my progress so far. I was really thrilled to hear Mr. Ricedorff say such wonderful things because I felt very reassured about everything I've been doing. After our short get-together, I headed out to lunch with some fellow Ospreys who are working just down the street. When I returned to the office, I continued typing up more information that I had already collected. I compiled all of the competitor's evaluations into one document. Now, I'm starting to think ahead to next week when I will writing one or two "lifestyle" blogs for The Durango Team to publish.
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