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Now just a minute; let me get this straight. So you want to spend lots of money on running a decent car for miles and miles so that you can show clients round houses that they are unlikely to buy. You want to spend money on buying your clients drinks and meals in between showing them the houses they are unlikely to buy. You want to spend hours and hours negotiating with sellers, taking endless photographs, marketing property on the internet, phoning potential customers and writing eye-catching sales letters and e-mails.

Oh just one more thing. You want to do this on commission on sales only, without a regular salary cheque. So you want to be a real estate agent. Are you mad? Join the club!

I am a real estate agent in France. Or to be legally accurate I am a commercial agent, working for an estate agency in France. To be a qualified estate agent I would need to go through a very tough examination and spend even more of the money I don't earn. So why on earth do I do it?

I'm what they call a "people person". I love talking to people and meeting new people all the time. I like to talk to local people in French, which improves my language skill on a daily basis and I like to talk to my English speaking clients about their lives and why they want to buy property in France. My clients come from England, Ireland, America and South Africa (and even France) among other places, and it is always interesting to learn about their lives while trying to find them the property they have been dreaming of buying. I equally enjoy talking to sellers, usually though not exclusively French, about why they are selling, how their lives have progressed maybe their children have grown up and they are buying somewhere smaller, or moving somewhere else to be near them.

That is probably the best qualification I have to find and sell houses in the open market. But if you are still serious about being a real estate agent, here are some of the other qualities you will need.

You'll have to find places to market your properties, so you'd better keep ahead of internet search trends in the property field so that you get the right coverage. You may decide to run a blog, linking to your property but you'd better be good; there are thousands of competitors out there.

You'll have to be at ease using the telephone. When someone shows an interest in your property you can only say so much in an e-mail. Telephone them and "sell" the property with your enthusiasm and personality you'll find much more success.

Be flexible. If a client can only meet you at 7am on a Sunday, then you'd better be prepared to forego your Saturday night out if you want the chance to make a sale.

Be ready to accept that for every ten or fifteen properties you show people, you may be lucky to make a single sale. And for those ten or fifteen viewings, you may have made a hundred and fifty phone calls and sent a thousand e-mails. Selling property is something you really have to work hard at. It doesn't sell itself, particularly when economic times are as bad as they are right now.

Still reading enthusiastically? What are you waiting for? Get out there and sell some houses!

Learn more about this author, Colin Morley.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

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