Most California realtors feel uneasy.  Sudden drop in real estate sales numbers indicates that we are entering in a new era of real estate market.  This new market can be briefly defined by the increase in inventory, fewer buyers and property price decrease.

Such conditions dictate a new approach to California realtor career specifics.  Perhaps the first and most important factor is the reduced number of qualified real estate leads.  We only can expect that to purchase qualified real estate leads from various sources will become more expensive since overall stagnant market condition will not allow even leading Internet real estate lead generation sources to satisfy realtor demands.

This in turn will change the way the leads are being distributed in a real estate brokerage office.  Fewer leads mean that only top producers will have access to the diminishing stream of prospects.  The rest of the agents will be forced to spend more money on acquiring leads from outside sources.

Much of the activity of a real estate agent will be dedicated to the acquisition of qualified local California prospects.  This will require a new set of skills largely based on the knowledge of mobile and Internet marketing techniques.  These both areas require technical expertise and marketing knowledge.  Those who are engaged in self promotion online will do well.  Real estate agents who think that their career solely depends on ability to sell homes will not do well.  Their dependency on outside lead sources or leads coming from the broker will become very costly.

California realtor career strategies will be based on making sound financial decisions related to the cost of conducting personal business. Eventually, real estate agents will not be able to afford 30/70% commission splits. Such splits in conjunction with increasing cost of real estate leads will simply put them out of business.

Real estate career seekers will target brokers who offer flat low transaction fee and adequate support to conduct business independently. Such support will involve online automation of real estate transaction processing, remote assistance, in-house mortgage services, escrow services, risk management and other benefits helpful to a real estate agent independently accelerate their career without reliance on the broker.

Agents who are accustomed to the mentality of operating as independent business owners and watching their expenses will be able to create an environment in which they can be successful despite the market decline.  Brokers who will invest in automation and remote agents support will be favored by real estate agents, on the other hand, brokers who will prefer to do business the old fashioned way will be forced to exit real estate market.  They simply will not be able to sustain their overhead.

Both brokers and agents will have to pay careful attention to new online and mobile marketing trends, these channels already have comprised the main source of real estate leads and reliance on online sources will only increase.  Since competition in online real estate marketing has increased, realtors will have to become more creative and innovative and their marketing approach.

Web portals which have friendly user interface and attractive web site features will bring the most real estate leads.  On the other hand, web sites that are built on simplistic templates will be less useful in lead generation.

One of the most beneficial services that brokers can provide for their agents is to teach them how to promote their web sites online.  That includes blogging, social Media Marketing, mobile marketing, online property search and affiliate marketing.
Agents may consider creating small co-ops where they can share marketing expenses and web site maintenance expenses together.

These are the factors that will determine California realtor career successes and failures.  These assumptions are based on careful observation of real estate online marketing and current California real estate market conditions.