Being able to understand and serve your area demographics is a critical component to mastering your market. Below, Juan Martinez of CENTURY 21 Martinez & Associates talks to RISMedia’s Paige Tepping about understanding working with specific demographics, as well as overall market trends and achieving success.
Juan Martinez
Broker/Owner
CENTURY 21 Martinez & Associates
Las Vegas, Nev.
Region served: Southern Nevada
Years in real estate: 12
Number of offices: 1
Number of agents: 22
Words of wisdom for real estate rookies: Find a strong mentor who can help you build your skills and mindset in order to become a strong producing agent.
Most important thing you learned in 2012: Versatility is the name of the game.
What are some of the current trends you see in your market right now?
For the last three years, we were dealing with a market that was saturated with REOs, however, things are finally starting to move up. While REOs have been fading away tremendously, we are now in a heavy short sale market. We’re also seeing investors flip the homes they purchased over the past few years. As home values continue to increase, buyers are beginning to look for traditional listings, too.
How are you working with your agents to help them find success in today’s market?
As a broker, the most important thing I can do is invest my time in helping my agents be successful, so I work with them in order to show them what they’re capable of as well as what they can achieve in the future. In addition, we role play every morning, covering everything from expired listings, FSBOs, cold calling, listing presentations to calling your sphere of influence.
What demographic segments are driving your business these days?
Thirty-one percent of the city of Las Vegas is Hispanic, so we are heavily focused on the multicultural market. Latino families are very loyal to their agents, so a lot of our customers are repeat clients. Staying in contact with this demographic is done through TV and radio shows in addition to consistently following up with our databases. We also have a lot of first-time buyers who are driving our business today.
Congratulations on being installed as President-elect of NAHREP! What are you hoping to achieve in this role?
Not only will I be working to grow the organization, I am dedicated to serving the NAHREP mission to the fullest. This means assisting in advocating for public policy that supports NAHREP’s mission, facilitating relationships between stakeholders and real estate practitioners as well as educating and empowering real estate professionals that serve Hispanic homebuyers and sellers. Our overall goal is to take the organization to 50,000 members and be in every major market where there is a Hispanic community and where NAHREP representation is needed.
