If you are a new real estate agent it's likely that you have been struggling to get your business of the ground. According to NAR if you have been in the business two years or less your median income is $10,500/year. I don't know about you but I didn't get into this business to earn $10,500/year in my first two years. Actually I did much better, but I did it against all the advice that my broker was handing out which was all about getting a listing, advertising it, doing the open houses, mailing Just Listed and Just Sold cards. In fact I did it without listings at all.

My first website http://www.birchbay.net/ was originally a community portal for a small vacation community in Birch Bay Washington. From there I added http://realestate.birchbay.net/ which looked a bit different then today while at the same time launching a number of additional websites over the next year including http://www.bellingham.net/ and http://realestate.bellingham.net/ which today provide the majority of the leads that we generate in the entire Whatcom County region where our BuyerTours Realty office is located. To make a long story short, I got into real estate kicking and screaming. It wasn't an industry that I was wanting to be in at the time however a REALTOR in our market decided I was going to get into real estate whether I liked it or not and basically wouldn't take no for an answer. He mentored me in the real estate business, but my terms was that I was only going to work with my internet prospects, not do open houses (he talked me in to wasting my time at two open houses), not wear my REALTOR pin (haven't worn it yet), not mail my friends and family that I was in real estate (if this was the audience I was going to make a living on, I knew I would starve), not mail just listed (I didn't list any properties my first two years anyway) or just sold cards (I really wasn't looking for listings), or for that matter run ads in magazines (I didn't have any listings so this was pretty easy). I would build my websites, position them and follow-up with the clients from there I would either sink or swim. I started this process at the end of April 2002 and between April 2002 and the end of the year I ended up landing 17 clients off my sites which closed before year end and I was ultimately rookie of the year without carrying a single listing.

My mentor, Hugh, had a phrase he would always preach around the office, "Without a listing I don't have a job." By the end of the first year I had modified that comment to be, "Without a website, I don't have a job."

2003 was a great year as well. I was at Prudential Kelstrup REALTORS where I started the business and in 2003 I sold $7.3 million dollars in residential property all by myself while continuing to develop my web presence and moving forward. I was by far the top Buyer's Agent in the office for the year and I believe #4 overall with a bit over $210,000 in GCI generated. Bottom line is business has been great ever since. I had to bring on another agent in 2003 to help me with all the business and the two of us ultimately started the BuyerTours team when we went over to Keller Williams to continue growing our business. 2004 - 2006 continued to grow each year with 2006 volume across all websites around $60,000,000 when I finished #49 out of 73,000+ agents with Keller before starting BuyerTours Realty in 2007. Obviously the business has continued to grow. Last year BT and affiliated websites were responsible for a bit over $70 million in residential real estate sales and in 2008 our goal is to break $100 million. Will we do it? Not sure, but we are definitely working at breaking $100 mil this year if at all possible.

In my next post I will post on the ROI of SEO vs. Traditional Marketing