Hi, Diane

     The experience you received while working with Toll Brothers must be of great value.  Have you considered working with high-end / luxury home Buyers?  It's a tough market to crack, but with total respect, the commissions will be infinitely higher than what you can make as a property manager, or rental consultant.

    Not that you need further instruction, but there are several people on ActiveRain who might offer guidance in dealing with the luxury market.  Ron and Alexandra Seigel  and  Katerina  Nestor & Katerina Gasset might leave comments for you.

   Please excuse me if I am out of line for suggesting what you should do.    But until you are managing 150 to 200 rental properties, the money just isn't there (per Nina Hollander's answer on this page).

Can't be of much help to you, Diane. I do no rentals... lucky to see $100 at the end of a rental transaction. Maybe you should start networking and farming for buyers and sellers instead.

I don't think rentals are the place to start, epecially given your experience as noted below. Several peopl ehave provide great advice including Fred Griffin . You might want to hook up with a more seasoned agent in your office, and do open houses when you can. Get out and learn the inventory. And talk with your broker. If no help is forthcoming it might mean time to move to another brokerage.

Get yourself a couple of rentals from the office & advert those on CL. It's a tough crowd on CL & not for newbies. Watch out for scammers of all kinds.

Unless you are dealing with very high end rentals, which you will not be finding on CL, there is not much money to be made here.

Better to concentrate your time and energy on sales.

• flood the market with localism posts
• do open houses, even for other agents if neccessary.
• knock on doors
• postcard farming to select nbrhds

I would have to agree with Nina Hollander on this one.  Unless your rental market pays the procuring agent half the first months rent, then it really isn't worth your time or money.  Try doing open houses for agents in your office, start farming through neighborhoods you are interested in working, go to local events and market yourself just by showing up, reach out to friends, former co-workers, etc.  You will be glad you did, unless you are looking to do property management.  You will find the sales side more lucrative.  

I have a suggestion - focus on selling, not renting.  I personally think that the volume you'd have to do to pencil out is a bad investment of your time and energy and will burn you out well in advance of hitting your stride. I haven't read the other responses yet but I'm sure you'll find much sage advice here.

Welcome to ActiveRain Diane Skurat This is where you will find lots of good advice.  Having read the comments you received I suggest you reread Corinne Guest, Managing Broker and Kenneth J. Jones and Fred Griffin 

Hope to read about your career in future posts.

The luxury market is the way to go! 

My dear Diane Skurat ...pick out any rental complex and knock on doors, bearing gifts and tidings of joy on how they can soon become an owner

Personal experience story incoming that is not at all the case for everyone. Just trying to give you an honest take:

As someone who has recently gone through the rental search process and found a property I can tell you that people do anything they can to avoid paying a fee to an agent when they search for a rental. If there was a mandatory fee at a property, we skipped it unless it was a low enough amount of money that I don't know why someone was even willing to put the work in. I spoke to a few people about helping us look in the event we couldn't find anything on our timeline. One was very professional and prepared and I would have used him if I needed help, but that wasn't the case. I couldn't tell you what kind of money he's making, but I would wager it is a lot more than most I encountered as he was an exception. 

My point is that if you bring exceptional service you can compete for the portion of renters that want help, but renters want to avoid any extra cost. If you can get a deal to list for the building and can guarantee a fee there is money there. But representing tenants is not an easy path. It seems to me that many people here have provided actionable advice to pursue more lucrative options. I hope this helps and is not unnecessarily discouraging, I just wanted to give an honest opinion. 

Connect with established agents that don't have the time to do rentals and volunteer to help service those renters that come their way. Pretty soon you will have an abundance of business.

I agree with Corinne Guest, Managing Broker  on starting your niche in new construction. 

Because that will take a little time, you can work high end rentals. In our area, we are flooded with seasonal rentals and you make some fast real money quickly. Our horse season rentals - a furnished house here- 3 bedrooms can easily rent out for $6000 a month for the season on the low end. It is not uncommon for people to pay $50,000 to $150,000 for 4 month rentals and it is all paid up front. If you a market like that- go for it. Doing rentals can turn into sales too. 

We also have an agent in our office who works in another town that does not have these seasonal rentals- so she started out doing rentals on Craigslist. She only worked with rentals that were over $3000 per month. One of the calls was from a lady in Mexico City, coming there to work, she found her a luxury rental and then one year later, she bought a $600,000 house from her. Another man she met through her CL ads, was an anchor man for a TV station  relocating here,  but he wanted to rent before he decided to stay here. Well, one year later, he bought a house from her for over $800K and then not only that, but he told the producer of the station how awesome our agent was and SHE bought a house from her too! So don't diss CL so fast! Of course, in our area of the country, the rentals at least 10% and many that are seasonal will be 20%. 

Wow, come down here to Stuart, you'll find no shortage of people who want to rent.  Though, I'm not sure you can make a living wage by helping them.

Rentals are good when getting started, but they are long term turnng some of them into buyers in the future. Keep good records. Find owners that want to rent as well. That way potential renters will contact you. It takes time.

Rental properties can help generate leads which you may or may not want to work with.  

As a new agent I started taking rentals, it's alot more work with a lot less pay-if you can find a niche in new construction and there is inventory in your area put your efforts there! Here, tenants pay the ful broker fee in most cases, you can market your services to landlords by saying it's free for them, then you will get the clients that are not accepted, however in my area rentals are not very lucrative for the time put in.

I think there is a lot of good advice here-I have found great success in blogging and getting clients, I talk to everyone about real estate and have a constant online presense which helps people remember to call me when they need a Realtor.

One thing we all think at first is that rentals are easy.  They aren't.  In a lot of offices, the experienced agents give their rental leads to the newbies. One reason is that rentals pay almost nothing.

Besides, you have a huge leg up with great experience with new homes!  You could even farm some of them if you still live in the area!  Talk to your broker for help on how to leverage your wonderful experience.

You need to concentrate on more Professional main steam place...Craigs list is dangerous for scams!

Craigslist does not have such a great reputation...

Yes, sit down and make a list of everyone you know. Put one name on one paper and all their contact information.  Address, home phone, cell, where they work, their hobbies, children, birthdays, anniversaried, that kind of stuff. When you get done, call each one of them to let them know you are now a real estate agent and you need their help.  Do you know of anyone who is talking about selling their home or buying a home?  Can you please give me their name and phone number. Then call that person and ALWAYS ask if they are working with another Agent.

Diane Skurat 

Two possibilities. On our MLS many realtors will pay you a fee to introduce a tenant.  The fees are gas money but $4000x2.5%x12 month adds up.

Second is show transferees rentals so you can get paid. Very few will offer you $ to show. Company HR may keep your card.  Many are not realtor they show rental and make a living.

You can also try property manager. In NYC they charge 15% of outragious rent which is lucrative. $1500/mo perpeputally I know some make 6 figures managing a few flats in Mantatten.

I also had to look at your profile to see where you are located and what brokerage you are with.  I have an agent on my team who worked new homes for many, many years and now markets the areas of the tracts were the sales were.  That, along with the proper training and marketing makes your position as an agent a head start over many new agents.  

If your Broker did not tell you that at a minimum you need to go interview until one tells you.  Don't sell yourself short and you will succeed.  

My opinion on CraigsList is you will be spinning your wheels. 

Good luck...I am going to follow you and see the changes.  

In my area we don't have enough homes for those looking to rent. Have you tried advertising in the local paper. We get a lot of calls off of our newspaper ads. 

If you want to break in using rentals, have you tried holding a rental open house?  You can meet a lot of tenants that way.  Just find an agent in your office with a rental listing.

No. 2 to misuse of money, property management is the most complaints at the real estate commission in Oklahoma. Learn the rules.

Busted my chops on rentals, learned a lot as it was difficult, actually more so than the buying/selling side of our business. Don't have any regrets because I've learned several tricks, but would only consider it on a rare bases now.

Lots of great advice in the responses.

Diane,

You have been given great advice...if you are going to go into luxury, make sure that you understand all things luxurious.  Wishing you the best and lots of success.  A

I am with Kenneth J. Jones and Corinne Guest, Managing Broker here. Leverage what you have to work with.  I wish you all the best. 

Just an FYI, I would be very careful when dealing with anyone on Craig's List. Make sure you qualify ALL your leads. Getting into the Real Estate business takes time. Be patient and persistent and I'm sure you will have much success.

Out here, rental commissions won't pay for your gas bill and most people go direct to the landlord.  I've actually had agents send me their clients, WAIVING THEIR REFERAL FEE, because there isn't enough commission in it.

It sounds like you are getting some great advice on other directions, which I would seriously consider if you want to be able to pay your bills.

I would talk to your broker for his suggestions.  I would look at doing condo's they are the same price as renting here.

I tried this when I started also - my advice - get away from rentals and start marketing for buyers and sellers - and do it NOW!

Forget about rentals; they don't pay you enough for your time and you will still be having to deal with E & O Insurance.

You are doing it backwards, find people looking to rent places, and tenants will flock to you.

Let the office know that you want to do rentals. Also, I would advsise open houses for the next two years.

I have noiced that renters call the listing agent directly. You should get listings.

Corinne Guest, Managing Broker  nailed this one!

Build your database, market it with calls, notes, pop-bys and face to face meetings that will lead to sales. Rentals are for property managers, you're trying to be a sales agent...get to selling! 

If you really want rentals, you have to work with relocation pipelines and landlords. I get them all the time and work with very few, they do not pay for the gas you spend driving them around typically in CA.

The same efforts will allow you to find home buyers and greater rewards.

Craigslist is not a place to try and help. The bad guys work that really hard. Be very careful with who contacts you !!

Research your market and see where the business is. Sounds like it isn't in rentals, or your broker isn't big in that market. Ask other successful agents in your office where they would start if they were new now.

Diane Skurat - why would you limit to just rentals? Think BIG! Dream BIG!

If you can afford, get a coach or a mentor from your brokerage who can guide you in right direction.

Good Luck.

Jeff Dowler makes a lot of sense with his advice!!

I'm surprised.  Renals are at a premium here in Indiana.  There are very few of them available.