It can be tough starting a real estate business from scratch.  But that is what I did when I decided become a real estate broker and to move to Tampa Bay, Florida after 16 years of living overseas. 

I was looking for a niche in the crowded field of real estate sales.  I immediately observed that Tampa Bay had hundreds of condominium complexes.  So I thought it would be perfect for me to make that my niche.  And I decided I'd truly enjoy selling Tampa Bay condos.   First, I purchased a condo to call home and get a real feel for condo-living.  Then I began to contact condo owners in the condo complexes around where I lived.

After a couple months, my condo farming really began to pay off.  I then looked around for a national condo certification program that focused on helping me expand my condo business even more.  I immediately found the Certified Condominium Specialist^® Designation Course online and I signed up to take the course.  I found the Certified Condominium Specialist^® Course easy to navigate.  The CCS™ Course also contained plenty of state-specific information that was very useful to expanding my particular condo sales business.  In addition, the CCS™ Course filled in some very important blanks in my knowledge as a real estate agent, and provided me with a fuller understanding of this very specific type of real estate and its many intricacies!

As a new Certified Condominium Specialist^® designee, I then doubled my farming and my business!  My condo sales business continues to grow and the CCS™ certification is playing a pivotal role in doing that.  I find the condo sellers I speak with like that I have the CCS designation and they prefer to work with a "condo specialist."  They really appreciate the fact that I focus on and understand their condo life-style and their condo-selling needs.

Scott Lewis lives and works in Tampa, Florida with his wife Natalie.  Scott is affiliated with eXp Realty, one of the Country's largest real estate companies and a fast-growing cloud-based brokerage.