Finding the Right Real Estate Agent in New Jersey

Michelle Marie Adams is a real estate agent for Keller Williams Metropolitan. In her presentation, she gave an overview of Keller Williams, Real Estate, and tips on finding the right real estate agent for you!

Overview of Keller Williams

It was created in 1983 by Gary Keller (commercial) and Joe Williams (residential). They started in Austin and within five years they grew to be the top office in Austin, Texas. From there, they continued to spread like wildfire.

Currently, they are the Number 3 in real estate brokerage in all of the United States. It's a great company to work for. Each office is owned and operated independently from its own market center.

Gary Keller came up with a great idea on how to incentivize real estate agents. Normally, real estate agents get a house and then get a commission. However, he wanted people to  have a little bit more buy-in and so he created something called a Profit Share. You can look at profit share like you are putting your effort, your money, your time, and your soul into the company and the company will give you something back.

Michelle works out of the Morristown office for Keller Williams Metropolitan

"You kind of hear rumors of real estate where you have to hide your black book, you can't show anybody your clients, but [here] it's a great team because we actually help each other. We share information, we share tactics, we share scripts. It's a really, really great experience."

The Present and Future of Real Estate

According to Michelle, real estate itself is a wild ride. Before she came into real estate, she was in meetings and events for about 19 years, and when COVID hit meetings and events went away. She then decided to go in a different direction and real estate sounded very interesting. It's a massive market as there are 6.1 million transactions in 2021 alone.

Today, we're looking back to pre-COVID numbers as far as how long the inventory is sitting. There was a peak back in December, January, and February where houses were sitting on the market for more than 10 or 12 days and we're kind of going back into that. Some are sitting for 30 days, some are sitting for 35 40 days. We're starting to come back into a more balanced market whereas before it was just a complete seller's market. There weren't enough houses and there were way too many buyers.

The average real estate agent sells about eight to 12 houses per year, and that's a full-time agent. When Michelle took her class online in June of 2020, there were around 97 people in that class. She wondered how many of those people are actually gonna stick with it. How many of them are actually gonna become agents? And so she did all the research and found that considering everyone who passed the school test and passed the state test, about 50% of the people dropped off right there. Then, of that 50% who actually made it to become a real estate agent, about 90% of them dropped off in the first year. Fast forward five years later, only about 23% of the agents in year five, actually stay on.

Finding The Right Real Estate Agent

When you're thinking about hiring a real estate agent, remember that sometimes it's not just about the years of experience. Michelle has only been a full-time agent since April 2022, but she already had 10 transactions and that's only halfway through her year.

“When you're looking at interviewing agents and when you're talking to your friends, colleagues, and family, be reminded that it really depends on someone’s volume, dedication, and work ethic, not on years of experience. If you find a great agent that you click with, and they've only been in the business for two years, they've already made it past two hurdles so it's a good bet.”

Michelle started her real estate journey in March 2020. She got licensed in March of 2021 and then just went full-time in April of 2022. Her area of expertise is Northern New Jersey. She lives in Lake Hopatcong and she tries to focus on that area.

Michelle is a little bit of an expert when it comes to lake living, lake houses, septic systems, wells, etc. Things that some of the agents that work in say, Hudson county might not understand. In Keller Williams, she works with the team called Crawford Lorenzo Home Selling Team. Gordon Crawford has been in the industry for about 40 years and his motto is always Honesty, Transparency, and Hard work. 

Michelle worked with a lot of first-time homeowners or home buyers because she loves that feeling and experience. It's a smaller purchase and she is not chasing the million-dollar listings. She gets a great feeling helping someone through a very strategic and timely process to be able to help them find their first home.

“It's just such a great feeling when you're sitting at that closing table and they're signing the paperwork and you have the keys, the little key ring that says your new adventure starts and you give it to them.  I love helping people and I feel like this is just an amazing way to help individuals and families achieve their dreams.”

 

"Belonging to Morris Counties' #1 real estate office, I am part of one of the leading teams within the entire Tri-State area. I have been helping families, retirees, first-time home buyers, and investors buy and sell their NJ homes for the past year.

With a client-centric work ethic, I provide my clients with vital market information, expert guidance and give them 110% of my attention to ensure the best possible outcome for their home sale or purchase."

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