Real Estate Pros · September 12, 2025 · 23 min listen

Real Estate Truth: Why First-Time Buyers Need Realtors

With Eric Coleman

Show summary

In this episode of the Investor Fuel Podcast, host Skyler Byrd interviews Eric Coleman, a realtor based in the Mobile area. Eric shares his journey into real estate, the changes he has witnessed in the market over the past decade, and the impact of COVID-19 on buyer behavior. He emphasizes the importance of trust and communication in real estate, particularly when working with first-time home buyers. Eric discusses the challenges and pitfalls that new buyers face and explains why having a knowledgeable realtor is crucial. The conversation concludes with Eric providing his contact information for potential clients.

Key takeaways

Eric got into real estate after watching HGTV flipping shows with his wife, who told him to 'make the call' about ten years ago.
People who owned property before COVID and sold after it typically made at least $50,000 to $100,000 in profit without making improvements, according to Eric.
Eric typically shows first-time buyers 15 to 25 homes before they decide, often grouping five or six showings into a single day to work around schedules.
Buyers who try to handle deals themselves often call a realtor at the last minute when something goes wrong, such as a buyer demanding a $50,000 price reduction right before closing, at which point an agent may no longer be able to advise them due to liability concerns.
Eric's top three reasons clients choose him over other agents: fast, reliable communication (phone/text, not slow email replies); real market and home-systems knowledge (he cites correctly identifying water heater code clearance as an example); and being someone buyers can trust without judgment.
A key lesson Eric learned: when working with couples, communicate with both spouses equally (he now uses group texts) because the actual decision-maker may not be the one an agent defaults to contacting.
Eric sees a lot of market saturation from wholesalers and unlicensed people acting like agents, which makes it harder for buyers to know who to trust.

In this episode

About Eric Coleman

Eric Coleman is a realtor based in the Mobile, Alabama area who also works in parts of Florida and Mississippi. He has been in real estate for almost 10 years, getting started after being inspired by HGTV house-flipping shows. He focuses on serving both investor clients and first-time home buyers, with a particular focus on first-time buyers."

Listen to the audio

“The only thing we are really here for is to make sure that our people don't get taken advantage of.”
Eric Coleman

“I didn't get into this business to sell somebody the first house that they see, which is what they think.”
Eric Coleman

“They want to know where the mines are.”
Eric Coleman

first-time home buyersMobile, Alabama real estaterealtor communicationCOVID market impactbuyer representationclient trustshort-term rentalsmarket saturation

Questions answered in this episode

Why do first-time home buyers need a realtor instead of going it alone?

Eric Coleman says first-time buyers often think they know more than they do and don't see how much they need professional guidance. A realtor protects them from getting taken advantage of, explains the process step by step, and steps in before problems arise rather than after a deal is already locked in.

How many homes should a first-time buyer expect to see before finding the right one?

Eric says it usually ranges from 15 to 25 homes, often grouped into five or six showings in a day to work around schedules. He doesn't rush buyers unless he sees the look that tells him they've found the one they want.

What mistakes do buyers make when they try to handle a deal themselves?

Eric says buyers who try to go it alone often call a realtor at the last second when something goes wrong, like a buyer wanting to drop the price by $50,000 right before closing. At that point agents often can't advise them because the deal is locked in and giving wrong advice could create liability.

What should buyers look for when choosing a realtor?

Eric lists three things: fast, consistent communication (phone, text, not just email); real knowledge of the business, like codes and home systems; and someone trustworthy who won't judge their preferences or hesitations and will guide them the way they want to be guided.

How has the real estate market changed since Eric started about 10 years ago?

Eric says COVID turned everything upside down, prices have skyrocketed, and buyers and sellers have both become more savvy, though they often think they know more than they do. He's also seen more market saturation from wholesalers and unlicensed people trying to act as agents, and an influx of investors buying for short-term rentals like Airbnbs.

What communication mistake should realtors avoid with couples buying together?

Eric learned not to communicate only with one spouse (for example, only the husband), because the other spouse may actually be the decision maker and getting left out of conversations leads to losing the client. He now puts both parties in a group text so everyone gets information at the same time.

Resources and links

Full transcript

Eric Coleman (00:00)

Well I do get those complaints in from clients about other realtors that they have worked with and you know I’m not bashing or mean to talk down on anybody else but the complaints I get

from clients about other agencies, don’t answer the phone. And if they do, and they call right back and they have another question, they can’t get them on the phone. They don’t like to text back when they really need to. Some clients, they want to email. And some people don’t read their emails until they get to work the next day. And it just doesn’t work in real estate. When that new house pops up, they need correspondence,

that will guide them in the way that they want to be guided. So I think just listening to their needs ⁓ and letting them know that you can be trusted is really key.

Skyler Byrd (02:20)

Everybody welcome to the investor fuel podcast. I’m your host today Skyler Byrd and today I am joined by Eric Coleman I’m very excited to talk with Eric. He’s in a unique market down in the mobile area. So Eric, thank you very much for hopping on

Eric Coleman (02:35)

Yes sir, thank you for having me.

Skyler Byrd (02:37)

Absolutely. And Eric, let me ask you first of all, what made you want to get into real estate to begin with?

Eric Coleman (02:44)

Well, I think I got caught in that HGTV boom, you know, when everybody was looking at those episodes where you flip the house and you make this big old profit and, you know, my wife and I were just sitting down on the couch one day and, you know, we watching HGTV and she kind of looked over at me and said, you gonna make the call or what? You know, and so I said, you know what? I think I will. And I mean, I just picked up the phone and…

I googled the nearest real estate firms. I didn’t know anything about real estate. ⁓ The first people that actually picked up were the people at the brokerage I’m at now. The rest was history. They told me where to go to get trained up and do my tests. I’ve been here ever since.

Skyler Byrd (03:27)

All

right, and that’s been about 10 years, correct? Almost? All right, excellent. All right, so tell me, mean, being down, you know, focusing on that mobile area, I know you said you also work a little bit in Florida and one of those state as well, Mississippi? All right, so tell me, what have you seen from, you know, the time you started working, right, about 10 years ago, what’s changed in the market?

Eric Coleman (03:29)

Yes sir,

Yes, sir, Mississippi.

What’s changed? ⁓ Well, there’s probably not a lot that hasn’t changed. ⁓

Of course we had the COVID thing where it just turned everything upside down. But ⁓ as far as everything else, I really think that the average buyer has become a lot more savvy in how to buy a house and the sellers how to sell a house. But ⁓ I just have seen that it’s a lot of stuff that they think they know that they don’t know. And so we can see where.

our clients really need us even though they don’t see it. But other than that, prices have skyrocketed, of course. And there’s a lot of saturation going on too. know, wholesalers and people trying to sell the house themselves or buy the house themselves. So it’s just been a lot of ⁓ market, expected market type changes. But I mean, other than that, you know, everything’s pretty much the same.

Skyler Byrd (04:51)

Right. No, mean, have you had like any kind of influx in, you know, in buyers coming in just kind of migrating from different parts of the country? Have you seen anything like that?

Eric Coleman (05:48)

So, you know, I read an article the other day that said that, you know, last year there were a thousand more millionaires added per day. ⁓ And so there have been a lot of investors that have come into the market that, you know, want to do short term rentals like Airbnbs. You’ve got…

of sellers that are cashing out because I mean, on anybody that owned the property before COVID and sold it after COVID, probably nine times out of 10, they made at least 50 to 100 K just off selling, not really improving the property or anything like that. I’ve seen a lot of sales going on, but I’ve also seen a lot of saturation with people trying to play the role of the licensed realtor and really kind of. ⁓

making it harder for the average ⁓ client to trust who they’re doing business with because sometimes they just don’t know.

Skyler Byrd (06:45)

Yeah,

and I’m sure a big part of why it’s important to actually have somebody that is a licensed realtor and not just that, but has a lot of experience in your area. need somebody you can trust if something goes, for lack of a better way to put it, kind of goes wrong in the deal. You need somebody that you can kind of lean on, correct?

Eric Coleman (07:04)

Yeah, I’ve seen it time and time again. They’ll try to do it themselves and then they call you at the last second, hey, I’m getting ready to close. But the buyer wants to go down $50,000 on the price or on the flip side. That means it’s a lot of things that do go wrong. And then when they need that professional opinion right at the end, we kind of have to stop them and say, hey, look, we can’t really advise you at this point because the deal’s

locked in and if we tell you the wrong thing, I mean, we could be liable. you know, we try to help at the beginning, but we also have to protect ourselves and, you know, make sure that, you know, our name stays intact throughout any deal. Because the only thing we are really here for is to make sure that our people don’t get taken advantage of.

Skyler Byrd (07:54)

There you go. No, I like the way you put that. Absolutely. so let me ask what, who would you say is your main clientele right now? Are they mainly investors at this point? Is it actual just, you know, families looking for a place to live? Who are you seeing?

Eric Coleman (07:57)

Yes, sir.

It’s really a mixture. ⁓ What I’m really getting a lot of now is the couple team, know, like the husband and wife or the two brothers, everybody wants to…

try out that investment thing where they, know, cause I look, you know, just like I mentioned earlier, the HDTV thing is, is it’s a real thing. You know, you got Chip and Joanna, you know, everybody wants to try to see if they can actually pull it off. You know, can I buy your house for cheap, flip it and make a decent profit. So I’ve seen more of that lately than anything else. But the first time home buyers, they all, they, that’s who I always have a soft spot for because they just really just want to buy a house. When do they want to move?

out of mom and dad’s house and they don’t want to get taken advantage of. They want to know the cheapest way that they can do it without risking quality.

Skyler Byrd (09:00)

Okay, so

is that pretty much your, is that who you like to focus on for clientele, the first time home buyers, know, people actually looking for a home?

Eric Coleman (09:07)

You know what? think that is true. I don’t want to admit that, but I think that’s where I find the most enjoyment because they do give it to us. They say, listen, we don’t know what we’re doing, so help us, you know. ⁓

navigate through this process versus somebody that’s done it a few times, they’ll try to take control ⁓ because they’ve done it maybe 15, 20 years ago, but it’s a different market than it was. So a lot of times we have to do a lot of convincing and it sometimes goes the wrong way because they’ve done it before and who am I to tell them what they should or shouldn’t do, right? So ⁓ the first time home buyers are… ⁓

They’ve never done it before and so they let us protect them the way that we want to protect them, which is fun.

Skyler Byrd (09:59)

I like that, absolutely. Yeah,

no, that’s awesome. Everybody wants to feel that sense of security when you’re working with a professional. That’s 100 % true, like it. All right, so let’s kind of stay on that for a second. So if I’m a first time home buyer in your area, what kind of pitfalls should I be looking out for if I’m going out there and viewing properties for the first time?

Eric Coleman (10:40)

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

So I think that ⁓ the best way to explain it is, you know…

when you’re, let’s say you’re at a doctor’s office or in hospital or whatever, know, when somebody comes in the room, they tell you what’s about to happen, right? I’m about to check your wristband, I’m gonna do this kind of test, I’m gonna wrap this thing around your arm, you know, they tell you what’s about to happen. So, you know, with first time home buyers, I like to bring them in to the office, and I like to figure out what their real goals are, you know, I don’t wanna be talking, you know, about this, and they’re really worried about that, you know, so.

So I tried to…

Get everybody on the same page and basically explain the process. When we do go look at houses, what’s next? If I like the house, what do we do then? But I also like to remind them that, hey, I didn’t build this house. So if you hate the house, just tell me you hate it. Let’s keep moving. You’re not going to hurt my feelings because you want to keep looking. I didn’t get into this business to sell somebody the first house that they see, which is what they think.

They think that we’re wanting to make it a quick turnaround deal. And that’s really not what I do. I want to make sure my people are happy because what they don’t know is, is my real goal is to get that referral at the end. These word of mouth referrals is what keeps my business going. It keeps me from having to go out and find new people every day when if I do a good job, they’ll tell everybody and they’ll call me, which is, that’s the real goal.

as a realtor.

Skyler Byrd (12:33)

Okay.

As it should be. It makes your job a lot easier on the back end. Yeah, 100 % understand that. All right. And so I guess if you’re taking people, you know, those first time home buyers out, how many homes do you think you typically show them before, you know, they find that place that is, you know, as right for them as it can be at the moment?

Eric Coleman (12:37)

Absolutely. Yes,

Good question, good question. Usually, I want be honest with you, ⁓ it could be anywhere between 15 to 25 homes, you know? Now that sounds like a lot in some respects, but ⁓ a lot of times we try to group them all together. Maybe five or six houses in one day and things like that. We have to work around schedules and things like that, but ⁓ I’ve shown people houses and the first house, they want it, you know?

At the end of the day, we get used to that look that they do when they know that they want the house. And then that’s when I know I need to get them in this house because this is the one that they want. So I don’t usually try to rush them into it unless I know that they want it. They just kind of try to psych themselves out. ⁓

pulling the trigger. So that’s what we’re there for. say, look, this is everything that you wanted. Why are you holding back? So if it’s 50 houses or five, that’s just all on fate.

Skyler Byrd (13:53)

it. Okay. Yeah, and I’m sure you’ve got plenty of people out there, especially if they’re first time home buyers where they don’t know what they want until they see it. So it might take that 20 to 50 houses to to really get a good sense of what’s for them, right?

Eric Coleman (14:07)

Yeah, and sometimes I tell them, say, listen, know.

you’re not wasting my time. it’s a house that you kinda like, we need to go see it. Don’t wait until the pictures make your socks roll up and down and then that’s the one you wanna go see. A lot of times when that happens, 15 other people wanna go see it and now we’re in multiple offers and now we gotta move on to the next one. So it’s the one that you don’t think you’ll like, but just like you said, when you pull up to that house and you go in and you kinda get that feeling when you walk in, then it’s…

different than trying to judge it just by the pictures. A lot of times pictures don’t do it justice.

Skyler Byrd (14:46)

go. I like it. Absolutely. And so if again, if I’m a, you know, if I’m a first time home buyer or just somebody in your area, what, ⁓ you know, why should I be looking to work with you as opposed to, you know, 100 other realtors that that could be in your area?

Eric Coleman (15:42)

Well I do get those complaints in from clients about other realtors that they have worked with and you know I’m not bashing or mean to talk down on anybody else but the complaints I get

quick. So that’s number one. ⁓ Number two is, ⁓

They want to make sure that you know what you’re doing, you know? ⁓

you for instance you know I was showing a client and her dad came along and he was asking me about a water heater and did it look right and I kind of looked at the water heater and I said well you know new code is it’s got to at least 18 inches off the ground so this looks like about 20 inches and it’s got the pan around it so we you know we could be good to go so you know it kind of reminded I didn’t know if he was testing me or what but I just realized at that moment that you know you got to know a little bit about

something. So they want ⁓ a tour guide of sorts. They want to be told what is customary and what they should be looking out for. They want to know where the mines are, And so that’s really the second thing. The third thing is, which should really be the first thing, is just somebody that they can trust, somebody they can confide to and say, listen, you know,

hate this house, you know, or I don’t want to be in this school district, you know, or I know it’s, you know, frivolous, but I had a dream about houses with red bricks. I don’t want to do that, you know, so they need somebody that won’t judge them and

that will guide them in the way that they want to be guided. So I think just listening to their needs ⁓ and letting them know that you can be trusted is really key.

Skyler Byrd (17:52)

Yeah, excellent. No, I love it. I I think proper communication gets overlooked quite a bit ⁓ on a professional side, on a personal side. But the fact that that’s the first thing that you said told me a lot. And I love it. think it’s, again, I think it’s vastly overlooked. All right.

Eric Coleman (17:58)

Absolutely.

Yes sir, yes sir.

And I’ve, you know, I’m not perfect by any means, you know. When you’ve been in a business, even after a few years, you’ve been on both sides of it. You’ve been the one that the clients have basically relieved of your duties, you know, and I had to learn from those lessons and things that I did and said, you know. And also I’ve been the client, I mean, I’ve been the realtor that they come to when they do get rid of their agent. And I have to make sure I don’t do the same things that the old agent did, you know. ⁓

And so, ⁓ for instance, and this is what a lot of people don’t think about, if I’ve got a, you know, let’s say I got a couple, you know, husband and wife, and they’re looking for houses, I don’t want to only be communicating with the husband, right? That way the wife gets left out of some pertinent conversations, you know? And what people don’t think about is, is maybe in their dynamics, the wife is the one that’s making all the decisions. So now, when they’re looking for a house, which is their most valuable investment,

Now the one that’s usually the decision maker is the one that’s getting the information last. guess what’s going happen to that agent? That agent’s going to get, you know…

show them the door because now the other spouse wants to be the one that’s getting the information first. So now I make sure that I put everybody in a group text message, you know, make sure everybody’s on the same page. And when I call, I’m letting them know, hey, I’m about to call so and so, you know, and that way they don’t think that there’s, you know, some conversations going on without them and, you know, decisions being made that they are not aware of. ⁓

That was one of my pitfalls. know what I learned from it? And I’ll never do it again.

Skyler Byrd (19:53)

They go well that’s where experience comes in right and it’s part of being a professional you learn from your mistakes and I like it but everybody in a group tax make sure everybody’s on the same page that absolutely that can never hurt that’s awesome that’s excellent all right and and Eric we’re kind of coming up on time here but before we go can you tell people you know if they’re if they’re looking for real estate in the mobile area how can they get in touch with you

Eric Coleman (19:56)

Yes, Absolutely.

Yes. No, not at all.

Yeah, so I’m on social media, you know, I bit the TikTok bullet and I’m on there too. ⁓ Facebook, ⁓ you know, if you just go to Google and you type in Eric Coleman, realtor, you know, I should be one of the first people to pop up. I know my name is not super unique, you know, it’s common, but I am in the mobile area. so, you know, Google searches will, should produce the right phone number and in Facebook and in TikTok and Instagram as well.

Skyler Byrd (20:23)

And white.

Eric Coleman (20:49)

So feel free to reach out and I know how important it is for me to respond back in a timely manner. So that I promise you.

Skyler Byrd (20:57)

There you go. Absolutely. All right. Well, Eric, I really appreciate your time. Thanks for coming on. And everybody out there listening, if you’ve got something of value from this podcast, please hit that Subscribe button. We’ve got more interviews coming down the way ⁓ every day here. So we will see you on the next one. Thank you.