Your First 90 Days as a New Real Estate Agent: A Simple Plan

Weeks 1 and 2: setup

• Get your license active, then ask your broker how to get MLS access through your local association.
• Set up a CRM and import your contacts.
• Build a list of the people most likely to know someone who needs an agent. Many agents aim for about 100, but the right size is the number you will actually call.
• Write your introduction: who you help and what you do, in two sentences.
• Block your weekly calendar for calls, follow-up, open houses and learning.

From the field

A Bauer Group agent with no real estate background closed 7 deals in their first 8 months by working the opportunities the brokerage provided. Names are withheld.

This is one agent's result, not a promise or a typical outcome. Your results will depend on your effort, market and performance.

Weeks 3 to 6: start conversations

• Call or meet people on your list. Ask if they know anyone thinking about buying or selling.
• Work open houses, with the listing agent's and your broker's okay, and answer every sign call.
• Meet two or three lenders and a title contact. Ask your broker for names.
• Practice your call opener and voicemail out loud.
• Log every conversation in your CRM, and set the next step before you hang up.

Weeks 7 to 12: follow up and refine

• Set a follow-up rhythm for every active lead.
• Review numbers weekly: calls, conversations, appointments, contracts.
• Drop what does not produce conversations and add one new source.
• Ask each person you help for one referral, in person or by phone.
• Ask your broker to review a deal or a listing presentation with you.

The five numbers

Track calls made, conversations, appointments set, contracts written, and closings. When one falls, you know where the problem is.

What a good week looks like in week 5

These are targets to try, not rules. Adjust them to your market and your time.

• Ten real conversations, by phone or in person.
• Every new inquiry answered the same day.
• Two appointments set, each with a place and a time.
• Your CRM updated at the end of each day.
• A short review on Friday of what worked.

Mistakes that cost new agents their first 90 days

• Waiting to feel ready before calling anyone.
• Buying tools before having conversations.
• Letting the CRM go stale.
• Following up once and stopping.
• Comparing your week 3 to someone else's year 4.

How to know it is working

Start with what you control: conversations held, appointments set and follow-ups done. Closings come later and depend on the market, so do not judge week 6 by closings.

Education deadlines that start on day one

Passing the exam does not end your required courses. Before your first license renewal, TREC requires 98 hours of sales agent apprentice education. That is a 30-hour real estate brokerage course, 60 hours of qualifying courses, and 8 hours of TREC Legal Update I and II. TREC says these hours cannot be deferred, and your license will not renew until you finish them.

Texas licenses renew every two years. After the first renewal, TREC requires 18 hours of continuing education each cycle. TREC sends a renewal notice about 90 days before expiration. The on-time renewal fee on the fee schedule effective September 1, 2026 is $110. Check TREC for current rules and amounts.

Decision rule (original): find your expiration date, count back 120 days, and call that your education finish date. Then spread the 98 hours across the months between now and then. A last-minute rush will cost you prospecting weeks.

Rules that touch your first conversations

Texas rules call for the TREC Information About Brokerage Services notice at the first substantive communication about a specific property. Exceptions include a conversation at an open house about that property and a party you know is represented by another license holder. Use the current form from your broker.

Buyer agreements changed too. Brokerage summaries say a Texas law effective January 1, 2026 calls for a written buyer representation agreement before an agent does brokerage work for a buyer. Sources differ on the details, so ask your broker for the current form and when to use it.

Your introduction counts as advertising. TREC defines advertising to include email, text messages, social media and business cards. The broker's name must appear at least half the size of the largest contact information, and a team name must end in team or group. A sales agent should not present as the broker.

Texts need care. Texas telephone solicitation law has covered text messages since September 1, 2025. Most of your first list knows you, but ask your broker how to message people before you send a group text. The follow-up schedule shows how to space your contacts.

Weekly scorecard (original)

Copy this grid. Fill in your own targets in week 1 and your results at the end of weeks 3, 6, 9 and 12. The last column says what a miss usually points to. It is a guide, not a diagnosis.

Reverse math to size your activity (original illustration)

These rates are made up. Replace them with your own after 30 days of data. Say you hold 10 conversations a week for 12 weeks. That is 120 conversations. If 1 in 10 becomes an appointment, that is 12 appointments. If 1 in 3 appointments turns into a signed agreement, that is 4 agreements. Not every agreement closes, and none of these rates is a forecast or a typical result.

The shape is the point. Small steps multiply. If your real rates turn out half as good, you need about twice the conversations to reach the same place, or better practice to improve the rates. Use the follow-up tracker to keep the counts honest.

Protect the hours that produce conversations

Much of a new agent's week can disappear into setup work that feels busy. Learning the CRM, designing cards and reading about markets are all useful, but none of them puts you in a conversation. Decide how many hours each week are for talking to people, and block them first. Everything else fits around them.

Pick the same hours each day, since a fixed time is easier to keep than a floating goal. Put your phone list next to you before the block starts, so you do not lose ten minutes searching. Keep a short note of the next step for each person as you go.

Rule (original): if you miss a block, move it to the same day, not to next week. A week with two missed blocks tells you the schedule is wrong, not that you lack discipline. Shorten the block or move it to a time you can keep, and try again for two weeks before you judge it.

When to change the plan

• Week 3: if you held fewer than half your planned conversations, fix the calendar before you fix the list.
• Week 6: if conversations are steady but appointments are not, record three of your calls and compare them with the scripts guide.
• Week 9: if every appointment came from one source, add hours there and cut the source with zero results.
• Week 12: write down three numbers to carry forward. They are conversations per hour of calling, appointments per 10 conversations, and follow-ups done per week.

Check before you rely on this

This guide reflects the sources named below, read in early October 2026. Fees, rules, forms and market numbers change, and some details here may already be out of date.

Confirm anything that affects your money, your license or a contract with the source itself, such as TREC, the National Association of Realtors, your local association or your sponsoring broker. If something looks different from what you find, trust the source and let us know. This guide is general information for licensed agents and people becoming agents. It is not legal, tax or financial advice.