Difficult for new realtors!

Chastin Martel

Lakeside Leader

There are many people that specialize in being a realtor in the world and in Slave Lake, there are many who decided it was the career for them.

Crystal Block is a licensed realtor with Century 21 Northern Realty.

Before living in Slave Lake, Block lived in Calgary. She received her license approximately three years ago and does the job full-time. However, work is not always busy for her.

“Because it’s not like you go into the office every day,” she says.

“You’re not visiting clients every day kind of thing.”

To become a realtor, it starts with a course offered through Real Estate Council of Alberta (RECA), says Block.

The duration of the course is usually a year and is about the fundamentals of real estate.

Once you pass this course, you can have the choice to become a residential, commercial, land or property management real estate agent. Block is a residential realtor.

If you are licensed in all four of those, you can open up your own brokerage. This is where realtors work and how they get paid, she says.

“Every brokerage is different,” says Block.

Block estimates that she has sold around 30 houses in the span of her realty career.

One of the first houses she sold was a small bungalow.

In Slave Lake, there are limited houses to sell. Whereas in Calgary, realtors are always busy.

The first few years of being a realtor are really hard, says Block. This is because building client base and getting trust is difficult.

Block’s intro to being a realtor was through her background in interior design. She took a interior design program and learned how to become a stager. This is where a realtor hires someone to come in and make the house look pleasing for buyers.

“I’ve always worked for myself in a lot of different ways,” she says.

The realtor’s role with clients is not to encourage someone to buy, it is to narrow down their search for a home. They showcase the house by highlighting its features and important details, such as community information, taxes, and renovation rules.

“Definitely talk about all the positives, and some of the negatives though too, because they need to know that, right,” says Block.

Block tells The Leader she has been trying to sell her parents house in Widewater for some time now. It has 12 bedrooms and is listed for $1.1 million dollars.

She is determined to sell it because she has spent a lot of time there.

“I figured that if anyone could sell that house, it would be me,” says Block.

The most important step for a realtor is getting captivating photos for a listing, she says. These photos are used online to get people interested to look at it.

There’s a good reason why people choose the more experienced over the newer and it’s because “it’s a trusted source,” says Block.

Century 21 Northern Realty is a common law brokerage. What that means is that they are more open with their clients and often ask questions the realtor is unsure of, she says.

“So now, I’m to the point where I’ve done it enough times that there’s still things that come up and you ask questions,” says Block.

When looking for a good realtor, Block suggests to ask around your community, go off peer recommendations and online research.

“It’s just being really open and honest,” she says.

“That’s all our job is is like about ethics and honesty.”

To determine a home’s price, a real estate professional conducts a comparative market analysis, says Block.

This involves looking at similar homes that have sold recently, those currently for sale, and those that have not sold and examining why they haven’t.

The housing market can be unpredictable, and sometimes people sell a house for much more than they paid just a few years earlier, depending on the market.

One of the main challenges of being a new realtor for Block is getting business. For her, she works for a broker, where she is able to get clients easily.

Another is the expenses of being a realtor. The cost of the program and the fees afterwards. Once completing the program and getting your license, you have to pay realtor fees. These are the Alberta real estate fees and Canadian real estate fees.

If you haven’t sold a house for somebody, you’re still being charged monthly for these fees, she says.

“It’s like about between $300 and $400 a month,” says Block.