How does someone get involved in real estate?
Graduating from architecture, which is a technical major, I was an extrovert person and didn’t feel really suitable for sitting in front of a computer screen, diligently doing technical work, and drawing 3D… in a closed room. It would be difficult for me to excel if I continued to do that. I quite liked the job of interacting with many people, learning, colliding, especially with wealthy people in society.
In 2019, when I graduated, I thought of working in Sales. But what should I sell to learn the most and earn the most money? At that time, I thought the higher the value, the harder it would be to sell and the more money it would make, so there were 2 professions: selling cars or real estate brokers.
Eventually, I chose real estate. I searched the internet for the 5 largest brokerage floors, including 3 units in Hanoi, and submitted a job application. Fortunately, a reputable unit accepted me right away.
What did you do when you didn’t have any experience at the beginning to sell your first house?
I also set a goal for myself to spend 2 months trying, making efforts, and challenging myself with this profession. If I couldn’t get results or didn’t find it suitable, I would find another job.
The first product I sold was an apartment. At that time, I thought that I had to live in the project and experience it to be able to advise the customers well. At that time, I was a fresh graduate, had no money, so I could only rent a dormitory room (in a collective) for nearly 2 million VND/person/month.
In addition, I looked and learned from the senior brokers to see what they were doing to get customers and how they advised. I asked to follow the salespeople to listen to how they advised customers. Luckily, in the first month, I had a transaction. At this point, I had more motivation to continue with this job until today.
The apartment market segment always has real demands and is easier to close customers. How did you step out of your comfort zone to sell other products?
After a year of only selling apartments, I thought that if I only sold one product, it would be like “a frog at the bottom of the well”, not knowing how other segments out there would be. When going with customers, they talked about investment opportunities here, there, but I didn’t know what to share because apartments are still mainly consumer products limited to the city center area. Moreover, I would usually only sell apartments to customers once or twice because most of them buy to live.
On the contrary, when selling investment real estate, customers are people with a lot of money, they can invest in many places and have multiple real estate deals with me. Therefore, in 2020, I started to expand my business to sell investment real estate such as plots of land, shophouses, townhouses, resorts…
Do you have any memorable experiences when you first worked as a real estate broker?
Usually, the first transactions will leave the most impression on brokers, but not for me. But there is a story that has stuck with me until now, which is at the first apartment project that I sold. A female customer liked the show apartment so she bought it right away, in addition to the house price, she also added 600 million for the interior.
Because it was a show apartment, so before selling it to customers, the investor hadn’t tested the actual usability yet and sold the current condition. Both the customer and I were subjective because we thought the apartment was fine. However, on the first night of living there, the bed broke, the water pipe was broken and flooded the house, the lights were broken…
After these issues occurred, the customer was very frustrated, constantly called me for support and met with the investor. However, the investor went down and told me and the customer directly that “once you buy it, you have to take responsibility yourself!”
Indeed, both the customer and I were very upset with the way the sales representative of the investor worked. After that, my colleague and I had to spend money to buy all the materials to fix the problems in the apartment for the customer.
Most brokers tend to focus on selling real estate to earn commission to support their lives. What made you participate in the “Searching for million-dollar houses” competition, which takes a lot of time?
I love the real estate brokerage profession, but many people have a very negative view of this job, often called “land sharks”, and equate all brokers as the same.
I am a person who loves to participate in activities, so I want to have a real estate-related competition to prove my capabilities. When there was “Searching for million-dollar houses” program, I immediately signed up to participate even though I didn’t know the rules and how the competition would be.
After becoming the Champion of “Searching for million-dollar houses”, how did your life and work change?
There were also some companies inviting me to work in attractive positions, but I felt that it was not suitable for my desire and strengths. That’s why I am still working independently up to now.
Regarding life, it hasn’t changed, mainly I am more known to many people and have the opportunity to meet the people I want to meet. In the past year, I have sold and transferred luxury apartments such as duplexes, penthouses, or villas. In addition, I also do sales training.
Why did you switch from selling investment properties to selling penthouses, duplexes, and villas?
The first reason is that the real estate market is going down. I sold successfully, but the developers or agents were slow to pay commissions, even up to now I still don’t know when they will pay, which makes me feel frustrated.
Moreover, after leaving the “Searching for million-dollar houses” program, I want to conquer high-end products and customers. I aim for the luxury segment such as penthouses, duplexes… and of course, after the transaction is completed, I will receive the commission immediately without having to wait like working on projects.
Did you encounter any difficulties when selling high-value products on TikTok?
There are too many difficulties when making real estate content on TikTok because the platform doesn’t support much and is not friendly to viewers of this content. In addition, coming up with ideas, having a team support for shooting and editing videos…are also challenging when I want to make videos in a neat way.
Have you ever thought about opening a real estate brokerage floor and doing it according to a different process?
I have thought about this, but it’s not easy to do and have a difference in this field. I still always have the intention to set up my own company, but I need more pieces to develop. The most important thing is having the right time – place – harmony because if I have the good but open at the wrong time, it would still be very difficult. For example, at the current time.
You love the job and also have successes in the field, but do you ever think that you will no longer do real estate?
Yes, even now, I still have that thought. Many people look at me from the outside and see that Long is still young but has become the Champion of “Searching for million-dollar houses”, everything seems glamorous. But no one knows that there are times when I couldn’t sell, this is also the main factor that makes many other brokers wavering. In addition, there are many other issues in the work related to customers, companies, colleagues, investors… that change my emotions in a negative direction and think about leaving the profession.
