Happy New Year and welcome to the new CRD Connect column! We have broadened the scope of this space to serve agents at all stages of their careers and highlight the vast library of educational opportunities that the National Association of REALTORS®’ (NAR) Center for REALTOR® Development (CRD) offers.

January offers a fresh start, so set your business up for success in 2022 with a bit of planning now. Whether your aim is to grow your client base or secure more listings, knowing your objective will help you formulate the best path to achieving your goals. If you’re unsure of where to start, consider the following to unlock new levels of success in the coming year.

Goal: Secure More Listings

If you’re aiming to lock down more listings, there are a few strategies you can leverage to achieve this goal over the next year. You may want to try:

As a real estate agent, you spend a great deal of time soliciting to build your roster. The goal is generally to garner clients that will give you repeat business—and good word of mouth. As such, the thought of ending a client relationship may seem unfathomable. However, success—for both you and your clients—depends on a solid working relationship.

A report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) is shedding new light on the country’s rental market, which faces a crisis in supply and affordability as properties shift from individual landlords to institutional investors, and the gap between low and high-income households—as well as families of color and white families—expands.

The study found demand for rentals, similar to the demand for homes, spiked in 2021, dropping the vacancy rate for apartments to its lowest level since the 1980s at just under 6%.

The pandemic has flipped the rulebook on longstanding real estate trends and processes. The flight to single-family homes and suburbia and the increasing role of virtual reality and digitalization in the home buying process has created lasting changes in the industry. Low mortgage rates over the summer led to a 7% increase in national home sales in September. Entrepreneurs and investors are flooding the hot housing market too.

Demand for Canadian luxury properties shifted into high gear from coast-to-coast in 2021 as both domestic and non-resident consumption of tangible assets such as residential real estate reached new levels, according to a report released this week by RE/MAX Canada.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Builder Application Survey (BAS) data for December 2021 shows mortgage applications for new home purchases decreased 7.1% compared from a year ago. Compared to November 2021, applications decreased by 5%. This change does not include any adjustment for typical seasonal patterns.