Best Personality Type for Real Estate Agents
The real estate industry is fundamentally about people. For long-term success, real estate agents must cultivate people skills, including soft skills and a winning personality.
An agent’s personality type determines their ability to build trust, influence people, and cultivate likeability. The right combination of personality traits can mean the difference between a successful career and a short-lived one.
Most people believe that some personality types, such as extroversion, are best suited for a real estate career. Other claims assert that introversion might hinder success in real estate.
We look at the best personality types for real estate agents and whether introverts can find success in these client-centric roles.
What Personality Traits Do You Need to Be a Real Estate Agent?
Some of the core personality traits for success in real estate include:
People skills and communication
As a people-centric industry, real estate demands good communication skills for success. Communication involves verbal and non-verbal, as well as written communication.
Active listening with empathy is also a trait common in top-producing agents. Their ability to empathise with clients makes them reliable, likeable, and trustworthy. Clients are more inclined to do business with them and refer to their circle.
Negotiation and persuasion
Real estate is all about negotiations. From scheduling site visits to closing multi-figure business deals, real estate agents always negotiate in their day-to-day interactions.
Agents must cultivate skills in finding common ground, overcoming objections, and persuasion for career longevity.
Resilience and adaptability
The real estate industry is constantly changing. Sometimes, external forces that are not in the agents can influence the direction of their career. These factors could be the pandemic, interest rates, or even a war.
Agents must cultivate resilience to overcome these inevitable challenges and stay afloat.
Additionally, agents have to be adaptable to changing landscapes and client needs. With new technology and emerging trends, what used to work may be ineffective.
Adaptability is the key to staying relevant in a dynamic landscape and offering clients competitive and up-to-date services.
Business acumen and financial knowledge
Clients want a trustworthy and well-informed agent to help them buy a house or make investment decisions, and so does your business.
Agents with solid business acumen make better marketing and financial decisions for their careers. These skills include market analysis, finance management, and consistently making sound business decisions.
Confidence and Assertiveness
Confidence in your craft inspires others to trust in you. Additionally, agents must be assertive in representing their client’s interests while remaining professional.
Practising public speaking or role-playing can boost confidence. Visualizing successful interactions can also boost self-confidence and inspire trust in your clients.
Optimism and Enthusiasm
A positive outlook can be infectious and help clients feel good about their purchase or investment. Staying optimistic and enthusiastic makes you a people magnet, essential to getting people to like you.
Likeability increases the chances of getting a yes when selling and of being referred to friends and family. Cultivate an optimistic attitude to increase your likeability and, in turn, your revenues.
Strong work ethic and time management
A personality that embodies a strong work ethic and good time management will likely succeed in the industry.
Good time management skills communicate respect to clients and foster an environment of trust and dependability.
To ensure longevity and success in the industry, agents must be highly organized, be able to prioritize tasks, and possess a strong work ethic.
Personality Test for a Real Estate Agent
A personality test can provide immeasurable insights into your strengths, weaknesses, and potential fit for a real estate career.
Personality tests can help you:
- Identifying strengths and weaknesses
- Understanding behavioral patterns
- Identifying potential career paths
- Improving interpersonal skills
Popular Personality Tests:
While many personality tests are available, two of the most used in professional settings are DISC and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator(MBTI). These assessments can provide insights into personality types, strengths, and weaknesses.
DISC:
DISC assesses an individual’s behavioral style based on four primary factors:
- Dominance: This measures how assertive, decisive, and results-oriented a person is. A high dominance score in real estate might indicate a strong negotiator or a successful sales agent.
- Influence: This dimension focuses on interpersonal skills, communication, and enthusiasm. Agents high in influence are often skilled at building rapport and generating excitement.
- Steadiness: This measures patience, loyalty, and cooperation. Agents with high steadiness are reliable and supportive of their clients.
- Conscientiousness: This dimension relates to organization, attention to detail, and analytical thinking. Highly conscientious agents are likely to be meticulous in their paperwork and follow-ups.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
The MBTI is based on Carl Jung’s theory of psychological types and categorizes individuals based on four traits:
- Extraversion/Introversion refers to an individual’s preference for interacting with the external world or their inner world.
- Sensing/Intuition indicates whether a person focuses on concrete facts or abstract concepts.
- Thinking/Feeling is a dimension that reflects how individuals make decisions based on logic and analysis or personal values and emotions.
- Judgment/Perception describes how individuals approach the world through structure and planning or spontaneity and flexibility.
While neither of these personality tests is cast in stone, they come close to describing personality types and are, therefore, trusted by many organizations.
These assessments can provide insights into your personality for a better analysis of weaknesses and strengths. However, skills, experience, and work ethics are other factors independent of personality traits that affect success as a real estate agent.
Do You Have to Be Extroverted for Real Estate?
There’s a bias that only extroverted people succeed in real estate roles, especially as agents. However, success as a real estate agent is not solely based on how outgoing a person is.
While it is true that extroverts find it easier to work in client-facing roles, numerous introverts have found success as real estate agents.
The key to introverts’ success in real estate lies in their strong listening skills, attention to detail, and ability to build deep client relationships.
Additionally, successful agents tend to balance between extroversion and introversion. This allows them to build rapport with clients by being charming and outgoing while taking time to reflect and plan for the longevity and success of their careers.
Do introverts make good Real estate agents? Yes. Many examples of introverted industry experts have built enviable real estate careers.
What Are Some Weaknesses in Real Estate?
While some personality traits prove helpful in a real estate career, others can lead to common pitfalls. Here are some traits to watch out for:
Lack of Empathy
An inability to connect with the client emotionally can prove detrimental for real estate agents. Empathy is a sign of emotional intelligence, which can be cultivated. Since real estate is a business built for and aimed at people, empathy is negotiable.
Poor time management
Poor time management can have detrimental effects, including lateness and disorganization. It can communicate laziness and tardiness, which may make clients trust you less and move on to better service elsewhere.
Difficulty handling rejection
Rejection is inevitable. The ability to practice radicle acceptance and move to the next transaction is a unique quality that great agents possess. On the other hand, an inability to handle rejection can affect how you interact with clients, making you risk averse, which affects your bottom line.
Overconfidence
Real estate agents must manage their expectations. In real estate transactions, it is not uncommon for a seemingly good deal to fall through at the last minute due to many factors.
Agents with healthy self-confidence can identify potential risks and protect their negotiations and business dealings. A healthy confidence level also ensures that agents constantly improve their craft and seek new ways to evolve.
How To Overcome Common Weaknesses in Real Estate
Some quick tips to overcome common weaknesses in real estate include:
- Build a support system of mentors and friends to offer guidance and encouragement.
- Seek feedback from clients and colleagues
- Develop self-awareness
- Identify areas for improvement
- Seek professional development opportunities
Are You Cut Out for Real Estate?
A successful real estate career is built on more than personality types. It takes a combination of skills, dedication, and industry knowledge to join the ranks of top-performing industry titans.
Real estate agents who find success usually have a balance of extroversion and introversion, leveraging strengths in both personality types to close more deals. As such, both extroverts and introverts are cut out to find success as real estate agents.
However, the real estate industry offers diverse roles that fit varying personality types, so finding a choice that aligns with your goals is essential.
All in all, understanding the role of personality types in real estate success can help you build a long-lasting and successful career.
