Richard was interviewed by Jere Metcalf on achieving success in business, the lessons he learned about real estate and the art of selling to foreign buyers.
Richard Silver has been licensed for 37 years and he has seen the industry change and learnt a lot about real estate. When asked about his brightest “aha” moment in real estate business, he shares a great insight:
Don’t go crazy with the highs and lows of business. Try to be as level as possible. It is a business with lots of highs and lows, if you with them, you are basically thinking short-term. My biggest question is: “where do I want to be 5 years from now?”, “what do I need to do to get there?”.
“There are always going to be things that fall apart and there will be huge successes, and the key is not to get too engaged in each one of those”, Richard adds. He also stresses that thinking long-term is what makes a great real estate agent:
The realtors need to be less deal focused than they are experience focused. Not so much on just closing that deal but on having a business for the rest of your life.
Besides his career, Richard was also asked about doing business with foreign buyers, who represent about 30 per cent of his business. One of the things he has learnt from working with foreign buyers is that it is all about negotiation and often you would need to negotiate more than once:
You don’t take it personally. I would tell a client “There is an offer coming in on your property, it’s coming from a foreign buyer, they are going to come in with a very low offer, do not get upset, do not turn your back on it. We will negotiate it, it’s part of the process”. Not negotiating is not an option.
You can find more advice on selling to foreign buyers here.
Negotiation is often part of the foreign buyer’s culture, Richard emphasized. Another cultural point to keep in mind is proper staging:
We had a property that was very hard to sell and it had to do with the feng shui. So we had a feng shui master come in and he gave us some suggestions. And the next thing we know we sell it within about a week.
According to Richard, the number one reason for the foreign buyers seeking to move to Canada is education:
Educational opportunities are a must. And you must know where are the good schools, whether they are private or public…And that’s the first question they ask:”What are the schools?”.
Follow the link to see the video of the whole interview here.
