Jacob Watts is a Realtor with Keller Williams Metropolitan working in Houston.

Every week, we ask a real estate professional for their Short List, a collection of tips and recommendations on an essential topic in real estate. This week, we talked with Jake Watts, a Realtor with Keller Williams Metropolitan, who shared his tips for becoming a well-rounded agent.

3. Houston attracts a lot of out-of-town clients with the large oil and gas presence. They find themselves needing a place to live rather quickly, yet, they obviously don’t have the convenience to shop for places.

I found myself going to showings on my own and sending video clips to them. This way, they can be a part of the showing process. It’s really difficult to base a house on pictures from Zillow or other real estate sites. The photographer makes the property look humongous, but in reality, it’s just a hole-in-the-wall property that’s been on the market for two months.

2. This was the hardest thing to grasp when I got into the real estate industry. When to step away from my phone and email? Every agent is familiar with the dozens of emails we receive a day from your broker, or an open house schedule from an across town brokerage. All of these emails were driving me crazy.

The best piece of advice is to turn off those notifications after 7 p.m. Realtors need to have a life outside of real estate. Everyone still needs to visit friends and family. We can’t be living real estate 24/7, or most people will quickly burn out. We need to be refreshed and motivated to keep going. It’s a rewarding career, but the best way for it remain that way is to know when to step away.

1. Social media is a very important tool for real estate agents. Clients can find us easily if we are tweeting relevant things. However, most of your followers will quickly ignore your posts if you ramble on and on about real estate. 99% of people out there couldn’t care less about real estate 24/7. That is why it’s important to tweet about things that are fun and carefree. Since I’m in Houston, I like to tweet about Houston events, then I sprinkle in the real estate articles here and there. If you tweet about real estate and open house each time, they’ll quickly unfolow you or put you on mute.

 Jacob Watts is a rookie agent who’s already leveraging his penchant for service and sales into a promising career. He’s currently a Realtor with Keller Williams Metropolitan.