Realtors: HUSTLING HOMES: More people see sales as a good choice in a booming marketplace
Ashley Ford
Province
CREDIT: Jason Payne, The Province Gerald Soong at the presentation centre for Raffles, a new Vancouver condo project.
Gerald Soong may be just 25, but he’s already learned a thing or two about the hurly-burly of the residential-real-estate game.
The working hours are very long, the cellphone becomes an extra body organ, and your time is virtually never your own.
And this is in a “hot market” — so imagine how much more difficult it might become in a slumping one.
But the fledgling realtor, now plying his trade with Rennie Marketing Systems, wouldn’t have it any other way.
“The rewards are there; there is never a dull moment; it’s exciting and clients are always challenging. But I just don’t see myself doing anything else in the future,” says Soong, who began selling full time earlier this year.
Soong is not alone.
The residential-real-estate business in B.C. has become a real magnet for people looking for a new career challenge, says Anthony Cavanaugh of the Real Estate Council of B.C., which oversees the licensing and regulation of the industry.
The numbers really do tell the tale of the tape in this game. Three years ago, there were approximately 12,574 individual licence holders in the province, according to RECBC figures. That has now ballooned to 16,000, reflecting the strength of the market.
“There is a huge renewal of
interest in a real-estate career,” but it is still a far cry, says Cavanaugh, from the heady days of 1994, when there were 20,043 licensed realtors.
Which begs the question: What happened?
Well, the market goes up and down and, when it was down, which it was in B.C. in the mid-’90s,
realtors left the industry in droves.
Cavanaugh says it is a real-estate axiom that “the number of licensees is directly related to unit sales. As sales fall, so do licensees.”
In high-flying markets like today’s, many pour into the market with dollar signs blinding them.
Cavanaugh cautions some reality: “Real estate is not for everyone. A lot go into this thinking they are going to become a superstar and find out otherwise.
“It is time-intensive and is one of those jobs where the more you put in, the more you get out of it. It’s is not that easy for everybody. You always have to be prepared to ride out fluctuations in the real-estate market,” he says.
The council recommends those contemplating a career take the Real Estate Aptitude Test.
The test costs $37.45, including GST, and will give you a pretty good indication of whether you have the temperament to make it or not.
Soong also advises caution.
He recommends “shadowing” a realtor if possible, or getting some experience by being a host at
condominium developments.
“While I was studying marketing at BCIT, I kind of fell into it by hosting at display homes at weekends,” he says. Following graduation, he worked for a period at B.C. Hydro but did not find the job stimulation or challenge he was seeking.
So he took the licensing course required by the council. The correspondence course is offered through the Real Estate Division at the University of B.C. and can take up to a year to complete, at a cost of $875.
Soong says it took him eight months to complete the course.
Having successfully negotiated that hurdle, you then have to find a brokerage that will hire you so you can, in effect, apply for a licence.
And it doesn’t end there. There is an additional requirement to complete the Trading Service Applied Practice Course, a five-day affair at a cost of $588, within a year.
“It’s a condition of licensing. If you don’t do it, you lose your licence,” says Cavanaugh. On top of that, you must come up with a bi-annual licensing fee of $1,050, which is composed of a council licence fee of $450, E&O insurance of $500 and a Special Compensation Fund fee of $100.
Cavanaugh also cautions there are other fees, including brokerage fees, real-estate board fees and your own marketing costs — signage, business cards, computer and cellphones.
After that, you are ready to sell houses and make your first million!
© The Vancouver Province 2005
