“Knowledge is power”—it’s a cliché, but it’s true! As a real estate agent, books are one of the most useful resources for expanding your knowledge and learning how to master your trade, all by learning from other specialists in the field.
The best books on real estate should:
1) inspire you and reveal the best aspects of your career
2) provide practical, applicable advice to help you achieve your professional goals
3) give concrete examples on how to improve your daily business practices and deal with common obstacles
With these three principles in mind, here are 10 fantastic books that every real estate agent or broker should check out from their local library, especially if you are just getting started.
Without further ado, here are (in no particular order) the 10 essential books every real estate agent should read!
10. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones by James Clear
Sometimes the best place to start is with yourself. Building the right habits is an essential part of entrepreneurship, but it can be surprisingly difficult to get those success-oriented habits that will benefit your business.
Speaker, author, and former athlete James Clear’s New York Times bestseller gives practical advice and examples on how to develop good habits while recognizing and eliminating bad ones. It’s also a fascinating read about the science behind our brains and our decision making, so whether you pick up a hardcopy or listen on audiobook, it’ll make good habits more exciting than ever before!
9. Real Estate Success in 5 Minutes a Day by Karen Briscoe
A great companion alongside Atomic Habits, this book explains how committing five minutes a day to expanding and honing your skills can lead to professional success, as well as simple methods to build new habits into already established routines.
Briscoe is the principal owner of Huckaby Briscoe Conroy Group (HBC), which was listed by The Wall Street Journal as one of the 250 Top Realtor® teams in the US, so you should know that the tips in this book have certainly paid off.
It’s very easy to underestimate the importance of your outreach and your client pipeline. This book provides an accessible introduction to the practice of prospecting in order to keep your pipeline flowing and your leads growing, covering everything from communication practices, to email writing, text messaging, voice mail, and much more.
Jeb Blount is an experienced sales acceleration specialist and was recognized by Forbes as one of the World’s Top 30 Social Selling Influencers.
7. The Conversion Code: Capture Internet Leads, Create Quality Appointments, Close More Sales by Chris Smith
The World Wide Web has grown immeasurably since it started in 1989 and it has taken the marketing world by storm. While everybody knows that social media and website conversions are essential for modern real estate marketing, learning about Internet marketing can feel overwhelming. Chris Smith, founder of the digital marketing and coaching company Curaytor, has written this book to help you save money and time navigating the new terrain of social media, apps, and blogs to grow your business.
6. The Millionaire Real Estate Agent by Gary Keller
As the founder of Keller Williams Realty International, one of the largest real estate franchises in the world, Gary Keller has quite a bit to say about running a successful real estate business. The Millionaire Real Estate Agent is a classic piece of business literature specifically oriented towards, you guessed it, real estate agents. It is informed by real data with a focus on concrete goals and tasks to provide you with a blueprint for a successful business. This is a must-read!
5. Laugh Your Way to Real Estate Sales Success: For Real Estate Agents, WannaBes, UsedToBes, & Those Who Love Them! by Cathy Turney
Business books aren’t particularly well-known for being humorous, funny, or amusing, but broker and humorist Turney is changing the name of the game. This book utilizes memorable, laugh-out-loud examples from the world of real estate to illustrate effective practices when prospecting clients, showing homes, and more. Winner of the 2015 American Business Association’s Best Business Book of the Year Award, this book will teach you a lot about the industry, without putting you to sleep.
4. The HyperLocal HyperFast Real Estate Agent: How to Dominate Your Real Estate Market in Under a Year by Daniel James Lesniak
As a real estate agent, you’ll be marketing a community. It’s vital that you know how to connect with your neighborhood and practice locally oriented marketing to convert leads. Lesniak—a real estate wonderkid who made $22 million in his first year as an agent—provides an entire strategy to help you find profitable markets and add value to the consumers in those markets. This book’s Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (STP) framework is easy to learn, and gives you an out-of-the-box (or out-of-the-book) framework for a successful real estate business.
3. SHIFT: How Top Real Estate Agents Tack Tough Times by Gary Keller
Yes, this is that same Gary Keller who wrote The Millionaire Real Estate Agent. He really is that good! So many business books are focused on success that they forget to go over the really tough stuff—like downturns in the market (or maybe a pandemic). Not Keller. This book covers twelve proven strategies that help you deal with difficult shifts of all kinds and operate successfully under any market conditions. This is one of the most practical books for real estate agents out there, going far beyond the motivational advice and get-rich-quick plans that define much of the business literature on the market.
2. The Million Dollar Real Estate Team by Chris Watters with Bradley Pounds
Keller started it off with The Millionaire Real Estate Agent but doing it all on your own can be a lot of responsibility. Luckily, Watters and Pounds have produced another book which covers the foundations of expanding your business into an effective and professional team. If you’re hoping to go from being an agent to being a broker, this book is the best blueprint for growing your prospective firm, full of applicable tactics and strategies to expand your professional horizons (and team).
1. Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss With Tahl Raz
At the end of the day, being an agent is really about working with people. It’s about communicating with leads, working with sellers and buyers, and helping your clients achieve their goals. Negotiation is as much an art as a science, but Voss and Raz provide a clear and concise overview of negotiation scenarios and tactics which can make you a persuasive real estate professional. This book goes well beyond the domain of real estate, but its broad scope covers everything you need to know about the underappreciated art of negotiation.
There you have it! 10 books that you should add to your Goodreads, check out of the library, add to your bookshelf, and read right away. Of course, there are plenty of other great titles as well, and more technical works for specialists, but these are accessible and foundational books that cover everything you need to know.
Reading is a great way to stay ahead of the curve and supplement your education with new skills, strategies, and advice to advance your business. If reading any of these works has inspired you to move your business in a new direction, or to seek more detailed resources for your business, take a look at our online classes to see if we can help you continue your education!
